Chapter 5: General conclusions

Transportation plans

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We think this co-ordination could best be achieved, in the initial stages at any rate, through the medium of the statutory development plans. Our suggestion is that the development plans for large urban areas should be supplemented by ‘transportation plans’ which would be part of the statutory submission. We are not in a position to specify the content of these in detail, but we would say broadly that they should assess the main movement needs that are likely to arise in the future, and indicate how these needs are to be shared by the means of transport available, including the private car. These plans should deal with the movement of goods as well as people. The mere act of preparing such plans would enforce the much needed integration of land use planning and traffic and transportation planning.

450

The phrase ‘in the future’, as used in the preceding paragraph, should be taken to cover the period up to the end of the century or a little beyond, this being the period in which the great bulk of the development of motor traffic is likely to take place. We realise that this is an extension of the normal 20-year period of the development plans, but we think this latter period is insufficient for problems of roads, traffic and transportation. Major road works are so costly, and so difficult to alter once they have been executed, that it seems essential to try to visualise the long term requirements.

451

We think it will be necessary for transportation plans to be based on a conscious decision regarding the extent to which the demand for the optional use of cars can be met. The plans should contain measures to influence the demand so that it matches the provision that can be made. There is very little experience available at the present time of the best methods for influencing the demand, but in principle there appear to be four possibilities:

1. A system of permits or licences could be used to control the entry of vehicles to certain defined zones. (This is a clumsy method administratively, and the awkward problem remains, seeing that in all cities some optional traffic can be admitted, of how to make the choice.)
2. A system of pricing the use of road space.* (One scheme which has been suggested relies upon the use of electronic apparatus. At all the points of entry into the defined zone an electronic detector linked to a central computer would be set into the road surface. Every vehicle would be fitted with its own electronic identity plate. The computer would note the entry and exit of every vehicle into and out of the zone, it would record the length of time stayed by each vehicle, it would price the stay according to the demand for road space prevailing at the time, and once a month (or as desired) would prepare the bills.)
3. Parking policy.
4. Subsidising public transport so that it offers considerable financial advantages over the use of cars.

*We were much interested, in this connection, in a paper sent to the Steering Group on The Restraint of Traffic in Congested Areas, by M. E. Beesley and G. J.Roth (April, 1962).