Better public transport is the secret to cutting car use, not making drivers’ lives harder and more expensive

It’s hard not to be cynical when the Government comes up with another plan to ‘fix’ the UK’s transport network, given what a tangled state the roads, trains, buses and general strategy have been in for so many years.

The usual concern immediately jumped out with the new Better Connected report released by the Department for Transport last week, in that its noble intentions seem to willingly ignore the reliance on and convenience of the car. 

There’s been a long-standing desire to get people out of cars and on to public transport, and that would be great if it was cheaper and more reliable. But it doesn’t offer the flexibility and time-saving of simply jumping in the car. 

Motorists are acknowledged in the report with a mention of improving the reliability of networks via proactively maintaining roads, but given the state of our pothole-infested surfaces, I’m not convinced there’s anything here to make a significant difference. And I had to chuckle at the line that suggested councils must maintain pavements and cycle paths to the same standard as roads. Not sure that is something to strive for... 

Lower public transport costs and better reliability would appeal to some drivers, and taking cars off the road would reduce congestion, but the elephant in the room is that people love the convenience of a car. There’s zero acknowledgement of that – only thinly veiled hints at actions to make cars less convenient.

There’s talk of measures to give buses priority on roads, promoting car-share and lift-sharing initiatives, plus cities being encouraged to provide “attractive and reliable alternatives to private cars” and more use of park-and-ride schemes. 

It all sounds sensible, but only if it avoids coming at the expense of drivers. Making life harder for people isn’t the way to encourage them to give up their cars; they need to go willingly by being persuaded there’s a better way, rather than feeling that they’re being told how to live their lives. 

This 92-page plan has lots of good ideas, as long as they lead to actual actions and move things forward for the better to make public transport cheaper and appealing. Make people want to leave their cars at home when it suits them, not resent being forced into a more costly and inconvenient solution that makes their overall lives poorer.  

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