York’s Draft Local Transport Strategy

York’s draft Local Transport Strategy (‘the Strategy’) was presented to a meeting of the Council Executive on 14th February 2023.

The Strategy contains:

• a vision
• 8 objectives and
• 7 policy strands

Context

York’s Local Transport Plan dates back to 2011, and doesn’t deal sufficiently with present-day priorities of reducing car travel and cutting emissions.

The DfT has not yet published guidance to local authorities, telling them what should be in their new Local Transport Plans (LTPs). This Strategy is not a statutory document, but will serve as a basis for a future LTP.

The timetable is likely to be as follows:

• 2023 – consultation on the Strategy
• Autumn 2023 – a new York & N Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) to be set up
• Spring 2024 – Mayor to be elected
• Spring 2024 – York Transport Delivery Plan to be finalised

The MCA will produce a Strategic Transport Plan, and the two local authorities (York and N Yorkshire) will have Transport Delivery Plans. Together, the documents will make up the LTP for the region.

Foreword to the Local Transport Strategy

Council Leader Keith Aspden wrote a Foreword to the Local Transport Strategy.

He notes that York’s Climate Change Strategy requires a 71% reduction in transport emissions by 2030, and that to achieve this car use will have to fall.

He claims not to know whether major road capacity expansion projects will contribute to the necessary emissions reductions, mentioning:

‘…some differences of opinion…on the long term impacts of increasing roadspace as a means of tackling congestion and carbon emissions.’

cllr keith aspden

That is not true.

We know for a fact that road-building increases traffic volumes and greenhouse gas emissions.

City of York’s own experts have told them that the York Outer Ring Road (YORR) dualling project will increase emissions by 51,000 tCO2e.

York is spending far more money and other resources on increasing emissions through major road capacity expansion projects than on reducing them through modal shift.

That is the shadow that hangs over all the warm words in the Strategy. It is a road to hell paved with good intentions.

It looks like a case of SOTDA – Say One Thing, Do Another.

Transport in York

The Strategy sets out some of the background to transport in York.

This section reveals a deeply-embedded idea about car travel in York, that crops up repeatedly in statements by CYC officers and Councillors. This is what the Strategy says (p78).

‘York’s outer orbital roads have a key function of keeping traffic out of the built-up city centre…Without the orbital roads, the centre of York would be more congested and bus services would be less reliable and walking and cycling less pleasant and more dangerous.

The pattern of development in the Local Plan places some development adjacent to the outer ring roads. The projected increase in traffic congestion from these new developments has strengthened the council’s case [for funding to dual YORR and to create a new junction on the A64].

Whilst this will increase capacity with the aim of easing congestion, in order to avoid a commensurate increase in traffic levels over time…alongside dualling, work will be needed to ensure that sustainable modes of travel are improved within the ring road and wherever possible short local trips to schools, shops/village centres etc are facilitated by active travel modes…in the vicinity of the ring road.’

p78 of the local transport strategy

There are multiple problems with this:

• keeping traffic out of the city centre may be a reason to keep the orbital routes, but it is not an argument for dualling them
• measures can be taken to deter driving in the city centre; they are not dependent on orbital road capacity expansion
• if the Local Plan envisages car-centric developments on the edge of the city, that is a problem. The solution is to change the Local Plan, not to provide extra road capacity to accommodate unsustainable development
• extra road capacity will induce more traffic whatever else you do. Sustainable modes must be made more convenient, and driving less convenient

There are endless convoluted arguments in the Strategy, designed to try to explain away the unexplainable: the fact that York says it wants modal shift to sustainable modes, but is spending the lion’s share of its resources on motor vehicles.

It is a case of SOTDA – Say One Thing, Do Another.

A case in point is the hierarchy of road users in the 2011 LTP, which is great in theory but not applied in practice.

Transport Trends in York

The Strategy says that there has been a substantial increase in York’s population in the 20 years to 2019, but traffic levels in the city have been largely static.

Equally, there has been little change in traffic levels on the main radial routes, like Tadcaster Road.

It is on the orbital routes that there have been big increases in traffic.

Again, this does not compute:

• York’s stated goal is a 20% decrease in traffic by 2030
• traffic on the A64 and A1237 is going up
• A1237 traffic increased more sharply after capacity increases in 2011
• York’s “solution” is a non-solution – more orbital route capacity increases

They are talking about vision and validate, but what they are doing is predict and provide.

It is more SOTDA – Say One Thing, Do Another.

The Strategy has a graph of cycling levels from 2009 to 2021, which shows a mixed picture.

There are glimpses of hope in the text in this part of the Strategy:

‘Perhaps we should begin to plan for a future where there is falling car use and increasing use of bus, cycle, walk and rail?

As the size of travel ‘peaks’ declines, should we consider moving away from designing the transport system around accommodating peak motor vehicle use – and better balancing provision across the different modes of transport? This may mean space required to accommodate peak hour traffic queues can be reallocated to other modes of transport such as buses or cycles.

As such, we can see a picture emerging where, in future, there’s likely to be less reliance on cars in York and more use of non-car transport, especially in the built-up area of our city. Achieving this change may mean congestion for private vehicles initially increases in some areas as more highway space is given over to non-car modes – but in the longer term this could deliver multiple benefits for health and the economy as well as carbon reduction, as traffic levels reduce.’

extract from p89 of york’s draft local transport strategy

Amen to all of that.

Change in York

The Change in York section of the Strategy identifies that York’s population will increase 15% by 2033, and transport emissions must reduce 71% by 2030.

Electrifying transport will not be enough to achieve that level of transport emissions reduction.

The Strategy then cites “committed and funded large transport schemes” worth hundreds of millions of pounds, including:

• A1237 YORR dualling
• a new A64 junction to serve development at Elvington and
• dualling of the A64 by National Highways between Hopgrove and Barton Hill

These projects are to increase road capacity for cars, and therefore emissions. They run directly counter to all York’s stated climate and transport goals.

SOTDA – Say One Thing, Do Another.

Construction has not started on these road capacity expansion schemes. They are the wrong things to do, and it’s not too late to stop them.

The New Strategy

As noted above, the new Strategy consists of:

• vision
• objectives
• policy strands

Vision

The vision is an end to predict and provide for cars. It involves:

• reduce the need to travel
• modal shift to sustainable transport

Those are the right objectives. The concern is, is it more SOTDA – Say One Thing, Do Another?

Objectives

The 8 objectives include:

• deliver the Climate Change Strategy
• deliver the Health and Well-Being Strategy
• maintain current transport assets

Policy Strands

The policy strands are:

• reduce car use. Alternatives to the car will need to be the obvious choice for the majority of people
• improve alternatives to the car – cycling, walking and buses
• provide strategic links – sustainable ways of reaching places like the station. Unfortunately, ‘provide strategic links’ is also used to justify road capacity expansion
• promote behaviour change, e.g. by travel planning
• tackle transport emissions – electrification of transport and reducing car trips
• improve streets and spaces for the benefit of everyone
• use technology such as traffic modelling

This sounds great but when you look at possible interventions under the policy strands in Table 5.3, p107, it turns out that the biggest projects are the car-centric, predict and provide, business as usual, road capacity expansions.

Some thought is given to how to make the edge-of-town retail/business parks a bit more sustainable:

The problem once again is that to achieve meaningful change, you need to make sustainable transport the obvious choice for most people. A twin approach is required, with:

• sustainable transport improvements and
• making driving less convenient

Instead we see hundreds of millions of pounds spent on increasing road capacity for private cars, which will inevitably increase traffic volumes – the exact opposite of what York says it wants.

SOTDA – Say One Thing, Do Another.

Walking and Cycling

A feature box on p106 notes recent active travel improvements including:

• Navigation Road
• the Groves low traffic neighbourhood
• the closure of Micklegate Bar in one direction

It also points out that the Tadcaster Road cycle scheme has started.

York’s Local Cycling & Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) is to be consulted on in Summer 2023.

York Cycle Campaign

Andy Shrimpton of York Cycle Campaign spoke at the Executive meeting on 14th February 2023 (about 17 minutes into the video).

He said that the campaign is happy to support the draft Strategy if it enables a modal shift to active and public transport.

He pointed out, though, that the council has repeatedly failed to put its transport hierarchy into practice. He also highlighted the mismatch between City of York’s vision and its plans for delivery.

‘The draft LTS emphasises the importance of active travel, but it’s telling that of the eight major projects in progress, none are dedicated to active travel…Improvements to York’s cycling network have been small-scale and piecemeal, an approach fails to attract new cyclists and thus achieve required modal shift.

York needs to plan what it seeks to achieve…York could have Dutch levels of cycling.’

andy shrimpton, york cycle campaign