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Environment Friendly Transport News from Milton Keynes
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| Sustainable Transport and Road Safety Forum (STARS) Report |
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George Boston of MK Cycle Users' Group reports... The Local Transport Plan (LPT) covers four financial years beginning in April 2001. At a special meeting held at Civic Offices in May, I drew attention to two incorrect calculations in the summary chart in the LTP but was unable to get clear answers to my basic questions - were the totals wrong or were the constituent parts of the sums wrong. Other people, including Alan Francis and Isabelle Fraser, commented strongly and adversely on the proposal to spend over £4,300,000 on Park and Ride schemes over a three year period. This is proposed to be made up of £900,000 from Council funds and £3,420,000 from the moneys generated from car parking charges in the city centre. Over the four years covered £660,000 is to be spent on Local Safety Schemes and Residential Grid Squares. This disparity was underlined by the facts extracted from the LTP and the Council officers about the reduction of car parking in the city resulting from the Park and Ride schemes. It appears that, during the week, around 25,000 cars a day are parked in the city centre. Of these about one third come from outside the designated area - around 8250 - and the Park and Ride is expected to "capture" about 10 percent of these - around 825 a day. Over four years this equates to 858,000 cars removed from the city centre at a cost of over £5 per car. Many people urged that the money allocated to the Park and Ride should be spent on improving bus services as this would benefit the citizens of the designated area - who, on the Council's figures, take up twice as many car park spaces - rather than those travelling from elsewhere. The Council said that they were not allowed to spend Council money on subsidising the revenue costs of bus services. It was pointed out that the greater part of the money to be spent on Park and Ride was to come from car park charges. This could be spent on subsidising the buses as it is not raised from the Council Tax or Government grants. Questions were also asked about the directness of the Park and Ride services. Would they run non-stop from the car parks to the city or would they stop to pick up locals en-route? The route from Junction 14 along Childs Way would have stops but no decision had been made about other routes. The North Bucks Motorcycle Action Group asked several questions about the provision of parking and the encouragement of the use of motorcycles. The parking of motorcycles was to be included in the forthcoming review of parking for bicycles. It was apparent from the non-answers that no thought had been given to the possibility of increasing motorised two-wheeler use. A statement was made that the Council intends to take emergency steps to reduce car driving if air pollution from vehicles reaches a danger level. Since the Council's own monitoring stations have clearly demonstrated that the worst pollution in Milton Keynes is generated by the M1 and the A5D, this is an impossible task. These two roads are the responsibility of the DTP and MK Council can not control the traffic on them. At the end of the meeting, I said that the number of schemes intended to improve the safety of cyclists and pedestrians was to be applauded. The danger, however, was that, if the schemes were not well planned in the detail, they may end up increasing the danger. I also said that if the Sustrans route north through Hanslope was built to the same low standard as the section of Route 51 that runs from the MK boundary to Winslow, then the Council would not be thanked by many cyclists. Kevin Jory adds... The first deposit of the new local plan will be published on 7 September 2000 and comments need to be in by 19 October 2000. |