Saying the right things...

Although the M4 decision was not to be applied across all road schemes it set a clear direction of travel that was followed through in a new 20-year transport strategy which set a ‘new path’. This ‘llwybr newydd’ (to use the Welsh translation) put “people and climate change at the front and centre of our transport system’.

Significantly, the strategy challenged the prevailing view that emissions reductions in transport should be left entirely to the decarbonisation of vehicles.

For the first time ever in a transport strategy in the UK, there is an explicit commitment to demand reduction and modal shift. Llwybr newydd commits to a target of 45% of journeys to be made by public transport, walking and cycling by 2040, up from 32% (a 13% increase).

And a commitment in the Welsh Government's Net Zero plan to a 10% reduction in car use by 2030. 

To bring about change you need to set out a vision for change.  The transport strategy, Llwybyr Newydd, set-out three central strands - reducing the need to use cars on a daily basis; shifting more of the journeys that are made onto public transport and active travel; and drawing on behaviour change interventions to nudge people to make more sustainable choices.

This runs counter to the long-term trend in transport behaviour and will be a considerable stretch to achieve. A starting point for such profound system change needs to be a set of interlocking strategies, policies, delivery plans and guidance documents which translate the clear overarching vision with a routemap for implementing it.

For example, the demand reduction set out in ‘Priority 1’ requires a number of complimentary changes. Given that transport is a derived-demand, a key part of getting emissions down is to halt the ever-increasing growth in car journeys, and part of that requires a reduction in the need to travel in the first place.

To help achieve this the Welsh Government set a target to have 30% of people working remotely on a regular basis. But it also needs to be hardwired in through the integration of land use and transport planning.

The publication of Llwybr newydd in March 2021 came a month after the Welsh Government published a companion 20-year strategy for the planning system, Future Wales. This had firmly placed sustainable transport principles in the development framework for infrastructure and development decisions. It stated “The planning system has a key role to play in reducing the need to travel and supporting sustainable transport, by facilitating developments which: 

●      are sited in the right locations, where they can be easily accessed by sustainable modes of travel and without the need for a car;

●      are designed in a way which integrates them with existing land uses and neighbourhoods; and

●      make it possible for all short journeys within and beyond the development to be easily made by walking and cycling. 

Alongside the high-level transport and planning strategies this needs to be supported in the national planning guidance.  Our version, Planning Policy Wales enshrines the sustainable transport hierarchy in development plans. It says “Where we need new transport infrastructure, we will use the sustainable transport hierarchy to give priority to meeting the demand for travel by walking, cycling and public transport ahead of private motor vehicles”.

 

And the transport strategy says the sustainable transport hierarchy will guide investment in new infrastructure, and be reflected in spending priorities.

Each of these high-level principles need to infuse the underpinning spatial (regional and local) development plans. The planning strategy Future Wales says the Welsh Government expects local land use and transport planning to be joined together, and should through its land allocations and policies support sustainable transport:

“Development proposals must seek to maximise accessibility by walking, cycling and public transport, by prioritising the provision of appropriate on‑site infrastructure and, where necessary, mitigating transport impacts through the provision of off‑site measures, such as the development of active travel routes, bus priority infrastructure and financial support for public transport services. Importantly, sustainable transport infrastructure and services should be prioritised and put in place from the outset, before people have moved in and travel patterns have been established”.

But if it was as simple as writing a plan we’d have fixed our spatial and transport planning a long time ago. Strategies often say all the right things. It’s what is done that matters.