Less Traffic
We want to see reduced levels of traffic on our roads.
We need sustainable land use planning, better travel alternatives, and for transport to cover its external costs.
Road traffic reduction is the most vital component of a sustainable transport policy. A transport strategy that is not founded on reducing road traffic levels is not, nor should claim to be, a sustainable transport strategy.
Too much traffic divides communities and degrades the environment, in rural as well as urban areas. In short, less traffic tends to mean fewer air pollution deaths, less congestion costs, less community severance, and less impact on the natural environment.
Critically, there appears to be little or no chance of hitting climate change emission reduction targets without reducing road traffic levels, and government needs to give a clear lead that it wants transport policy to reduce road traffic.
The move to sustainable transport will require:
- Guidance on the appropriate use of cars
- Transport policy to focus on traffic reduction as a key aim. There needs to be a strengthening of the road traffic stabilisation target with interim targets and an action plan (as recommended by the Scottish Parliament’s 2005 climate change inquiry).
- The planning system needs to design places for people to live and work that are not car dependent. Scotland has a tradition of high-quality, compact urban areas – but this is being eroded by edge-of-town sprawl.
- A programme of investment in Smarter Choices – a range of small-scale, low-cost interventions (e.g. school and workplace travel plans, car clubs, travel awareness campaigns). These have been shown to be highly cost-effective in reducing traffic levels.
- The application of the ‘polluter pays principle’ in transport. Most cars, lorries or air transport currently do not pay for their full external costs – economic (e.g. congestion), environmental (e.g. climate change, noise & air pollution) and social (e.g. road crashes, community severance). The London congestion charge is the outstanding example of how the correct price signals can improve conditions for everyone.