Report of the Steering Group

Expanded public transport

25

Another possible line of attack on congestion, to which the Americans themselves are now increasingly turning back, is the development of public transport. The car-commuter, the worker who uses his car to travel between home and work, is the heart of the urban traffic problem, which would be reduced to more manageable dimensions if he did not exist. To the extent that he cannot be prohibited from driving to work, or taxed out of it, or provided with roads to do it without producing jams, perhaps he can be persuaded to do his journey by bus or train?

26

The operative word in the foregoing sentence is ‘persuaded’. The commuter cannot be forced back on to public transport—not, that is to say, in a car-owning democracy. It has to be recognised that, once a man has a car, which he may have acquired for reasons quite unconnected with his work, he may find it very attractive to use for the daily journey to work. He can go from door to door, or at least from his own door to very near his place of work. He is not dependent on time-tables. He is sitting in corfort, not standing in a crush. He can listen to the radio, or talk to a companion—or escape a bore. Other people, of course, positively prefer public transport, but the choice between them is rarely a matter of relative cost, or even of the relative time taken. To an increasing section of the community, the advantages of car-commuting outweigh the facts that it may cost more, that it may take longer, and that it may end in a tedious search for a place to park. This last is, we believe, the main limitation on the growth of car-commuters. In this connection, we would plead for a reconsideration of the present official policy of automatically insisting on the pro vision of garages in all new office buildings. In some cases, garages are necessary. In others, they simply encourage the growth of car-commuting where public transport was formerly used. The decision whether or not to require a garage, of what size and for what purpose, should be taken on an analysis of the traffic problem and parking needs of the area. It should not follow as a piece of automatic arithmetic from the size of the building (see paragraphs 452 to 456 of the Buchanan Report).

27

Even if it were pushed most vigorously, therefore, we do not believe that the expansion of public transport could by itself provide a complete answer. To prevent the steady rise of car-commuting, it would be necessary to provide a great many more bus and tube routes, running at very frequent intervals, at reasonable fares and with enough vehicles to guarantee a seat to every passenger. This could hardly be done on a paying basis; it is very questionable whether it could be done at all. But this is not to say that the expansion of public transport cannot make a large contribution. Regarded not as a solution in its own right, but as one arm of a coordinated policy, we think the case for expanded public transport in cities is proved. Without questioning, in its general application, the policy of making transport pay its way, we think the particular case of urban passenger transport needs to be considered in a wider context than the simple comparison between what can be collected in fares and what the service costs to run. Nor does this involve bringing in the inevitably vague conception of ‘social requirements’. It ought to be a strictly economic calculation. In any given city there is a calculable number of bodies to be moved between home and work and back again every day. The number that can possibly be carried in private cars, even after an extensive programme of road-building, is also calculable and limited. The remainder will necessarily have to use public transport, and the means of providing it is one of the essential element, of the sort of co-ordinated and comprehensive planning that is clearly needed.

28

There should also be a much more determined attempt to provide for what may be called the ‘semi-commuter’, ie man whose needs would be met if he could drive his car to a suburban station or bus-stop, and be sure of finding parking space there. It would surely pay, in the wider sense, to mate multi-storey garages at such points available at very low prices, or even free.