“Absolutely amazing” say campaigners as Government quietly announces it will prioritise a shift away from cars

Modal shift away from cars?

Many have expressed scepticism as to whether this will happen. I'll add mine, this won't happen because it isn't possible/practical/desirable (read my whole post).

The Energy Technologies Institute looked at this a few years ago, I suggest anyone with an interest look at the report.

https://www.eti.co.uk/library/scope-for-reduction-in-transport-co2-emiss...

Figure 1 tells you most of the story, cars are greater than 80% of passenger miles. Are we seriously going to shift that many people to rail? Let’s say rail took 1/3 of cars passenger miles you'd need to increase the capacity of the rail network 4 fold.

Given that HS2 is costing £100 billion to achieve tiny fraction of that, the costs would be incredible and the environmental cost massive. Rail also isn't that green as while the trains can run on electricity (most don't) it is very infrastructure heavy, in fact electric cars and for that matter electric planes would have a lower environment impact due to their much lower infrastructure requirements.

As for cycling, the usage of cars is about the same in cycling friendly Demark or Netherlands as the UK. and for that matter any other European country. Increasing cycling 20 fold would only reduce car passenger miles by around 1/4.

https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-sector/transport/...

I'm all for shared spaces, walkable neighbourhoods, full grade separated cycling networks, electric micro mobility. I think these will have a large positive impact on quality of life. However the idea that we will see a large modal shift away from cars is not credible.

I think what is most likely is that we see cars gradually evolve, all new cars will be electric within 10 years. Autonomy will most likely be able to cope with the majority of journeys be then which will also greatly decrease the need for ownership. Road pricing would also encourage sharing and/or a shift to 6-12 seat vehicles on some routes.

I think the government’s proposal (this is for consultation ergo this isn’t the solution just asking the question of stakeholders) is along the right lines. The reporting of consultation does however leave a lot lacking, for the foreseeable future the vast majority of passenger and freight miles will be by road transport.

It's different this time.

It really is.

We need to inflate away an enormous debt pile, otherwise we are in for the mother of all debt deflations. The last decade has proved that printed money given to banks does not feed through into the real economy. This time, the printed money will be spent by government, with many expensive new pieces of infrastructure built. Current government seems to get that continued austerity was the wrong policy once the books were vaguely back in shape.

Prepare for lots of inflation and also lots of shiny new transport infrastructure.

It would be very interesting to see any figures for the environment and air quality after the lockdown and virus has gone away. Has anyone else noticed how clear the skies are? And how the air actually smells fresher? Perhaps we could all learn from this, and many could continue to work from home, and commute to work by bike.

which normally means, ''we will find a narrow pavement, with junctions and many pedestrians, ruts and trees, and paint a picture of a shared path on them''.  

I actually read through this government paper for an article here. In my view the main points are:

• it has been obvious for ages that to decarbonise you have to move away from the private car; still, it's surprising that a Minister has actually said it
• a key para says there's to be a long-term active travel budget and dramatically increased in investment, and it will be announced in the Spending Review in the autumn. (I agree with Burt, let's wait and see)
• you can register for updates about the transport decarbonisation plan, and ask to take part in workshops, by emailing TDP [at] dft.gov.uk
• 'world-leading', 'global leadership' or equivalent was shoe-horned into the 68-page document 26 times - so we know what the latest propanganda catchphrase is.

Except that we've heard it all before, but they kept spending all the money on more roads and a few crumbs for cycling.  Remember that this government is headed by Boris the Liar; I'll believe it when I see it.