DRAFT
[Beat - Foil 01 – Title Transport Best Practice in Nottingham]
Good afternoon,
I’ve been asked to highlight what we’re doing in Nottingham.
However, I know,
that many local authorities are doing similar things.
We’re all making progress.
If, now,
the Government wants to be seen
to be delivering change by 2007,
it has offers a better chance
of making the difference
by focusing on
improving local transport, and
increasing the number of its users.
[Beat - Foil 02 –Nottingham in a National Context]
Nottingham was awarded Transport Authority of the Year last year.
We do some good things.
The main reason for the award was the range of what we do.
[Beat]
So what drives our transport programme?
The first answer is simple –
national policy changed.
Money was actually provided for integrated transport measures.
The Private Finance Initiative meant a tram for Nottingham could be financed
without drawing on the public money that we needed to spend on schools.
[Beat - Foil 03 –Nottingham and its Travel to Work Area]
So national policies have driven us on,
but so has the European agenda.
Being the Region’s capital is much more significant now.
[Beat]
Slightly tricky for Nottingham,
since the City Council serves only a part of the largest conurbation in the East Midlands.
Two thirds of the workers commute from outside the City Council’s boundaries.
[Beat - Foil 04 –Nottingham’s priorities]
Nottingham has neighbourhoods with very high levels of deprivation.
Hence the drive for jobs in the city centre.
Unemployment has been halved since 1997.
But we’ve still to find work for the most socially excluded,
and we need more balanced communities,
in particular to gain comprehensive intakes for our secondary schools.
[Beat - Foil 05 –Riverside – Inclusive Regeneration]
There are major plans to
develop the land
around the immediate city centre
to ‘host’ more jobs and housing for families
and reducing the need to travel.
[Beat - Foil 06 –Nottingham’s Integrated Transport Plan - 2000]
Our total transport vision
drive by
- changes in national policy.
- meeting Nottingham’s needs and vision.
is ambitious –
a quality bus network,
focused on even more priorities
for the bus and the pedestrian in the city centre;
at least three tram lines,
with extensive park and ride;
three pairs of local rail services,
to compliment existing services,
a new bus route on our ring road,
with interchanges,
including at our two main hospitals.
[Beat]
Most of it ought to be achievable and sustainable.
[Beat]
All a bit different from the vision of the sixties.
A golden age of peace, love and
[Beat - Foil 07 –Nottingham’s Primary Highway Plan – 1960’s]
… inner-city motorways.
[Beat]
All you need is roads.
[Beat - Foil 08 –1960’s – Sheriff’s Way looking North]
A four-lane motorway between Sneinton and the City Centre -...
[Beat - Foil 09 –1960’s – Forest Way looking North]
… carrying on through Nottingham’s first ever public park - the Arboretum.
[Beat - Foil 10 –1960’s – The Parkway]
And when space is tight
– put it on two levels.
[Beat - Foil 11 –1960’s – Sheriff’s Way looking North, from the air]
More road capacity in the city centres poses too many problems,
and it’s why more road capacity outside of cities
inevitably leads to dispersal
and less sustainable ways of living.
[Beat - Foil 12 –1960’s – Maid Marian Way]
Nottingham’s Primary Highway Plan was cancelled.
A small bit of this concrete vision was constructed,
at the expense of
a medieval street pattern and
requiring pedestrians to use underground passes to reach the Castle.
Something we’re now rectifying.
[Beat - Foil 13 –1973 – More Cars – less bus passengers]
But public transport continued to struggle.
This graphic from 1973 shows a spiral of decline; and
around the edge, says –
- Shopping and Industry designed for car users - Spread of housing to the suburbs and out of town - More road congestion - Slower buses - Late buses - Longer queues in bus stops - Buses bunch - Full buses leave passengers waiting - Buses become inefficient - Higher bus operating costs - Higher bus fares
That was only twenty years into the decline.
It was nearly another thirty years before we started to reverse the trend.
[Beat - Foil 14 –1973 – Zones and Collars; Alderman Dennett]
That’s not to say they didn’t try in the seventies.
A dramatic scheme was devised to reverse the switch to cars.
Termed "Zone and Collar",
it was initially mapped out on the dartboard of one of the then Labour Councillors.
Car drivers were to use park and ride
rather than be allowed to drive into the city centre in peak hours;
the park and ride was serviced by high quality buses, painted lilac,
and nicknamed ‘Lilac Leopards’.
[Beat]
The scheme was dropped,
when control of the council changed in 1976;
some say the scheme is why Labour lost control.
[Beat - Foil 15 –1973 – Park and Ride]
But many of the elements of the policy are now in place;
instead of ‘Lilac Leopards’,
we have three park and rides sites, served by buses,
with five more,
served by the new tram which starts running in November.
[Beat]
So what drives Nottingham’s transport policy is –
the new national policies and finance;
regeneration & our regional city status, and
our political inheritance of struggle for transport systems that meet our people’s needs.
[Beat - Foil 16 –Eighties and Nineties]
There have been other important political transport fights since.
Resisting the Laissez faire approach of Government to planning & transport & parking in the eighties;
Opposing out of town retail centres,
and managing parking in the city centre.
[Beat]
Most important was the public's resistance to private bus operators
when deregulation was introduced.
Passengers stayed loyal to the publicly owned Nottingham City Transport,
in part to sustain a wider bus network and
in part to see the profits reinvested in the bus services and other local services.
That public campaign has paid long-term dividends.
Of course private operators run coaches and more of the medium distance bus services.
In TrentBarton - we have a private sector company
that is often voted by the trade as the most innovative bus operator in the country.
But Nottingham City Transport serves the bulk of the public.
[Beat - Foil 17 – Owning the Bus company … enables action]
Their fleet needed to be modernised and
their services made understandable and marketable.
New colour-coded services were introduced
- including a lilac route -
in combination with a change to all the bus routes in the city centre –
[Beat - Foil 18 – Owning the Bus company … enables action (2)]
including the bus loop
turning the city centre into one huge bus interchange –
all on one day in September 2000.
New ticket types and smartcards
allow passengers to more easily use more than one bus in a journey.
Arms length we may be now,
but the Council and NCT have a mutual understanding,
with a social dimension as important as maximising profit,
that enables change.
It enables Nottingham to get things done,
when I suspect many cities can be frustrated by their relationships with private bus operators.
[Beat]
Nottingham has the second largest number of smartcard holders in Europe.
Students at Nottingham Trent University use the bus card to access campus facilities.
[Beat]
With the recent changes and clarifications of competition policy,
we're also working towards integrated ticketing across our local bus operators –
well done to those who lobbied on that issue.
[Beat - Foil 19 – Managing car parking]
However, the car is available to a third of Nottingham’s population at all times.
Cars are perceived as comfortable, secure and private.
They come with a lot of great gadgets,
that can even make waiting in a queue seem worth the while,
if the driver knows there’s a guaranteed,
and often free,
parking space available at the end of the journey.
Hence the need to manage car parking.
Better use of land can increase local living and easier public transport – a virtuous circle.
[Beat - Foil 20 – Meters, Decrim and WPL]
In 1961, Nottingham invented traffic wardens but decided against parking meters.
In 2001, we introduced parking meters, powered by daylight;
and now City wardens have largely replaced traffic wardens in enforcing on-street parking regulations,
using the new Government powers;
and extra patrols are paid for by those who flaunt the rules and often add to traffic jams.
[Beat]
The Workplace Parking Levy is a better form of congestion charging for Nottingham.
Unlike London,
our city centre is still not
a powerful enough draw to cope with a cordon of tolls.
Our congestion is actually worse outside any natural ring road / cordon we might have.
Our best chance to reduce congestion is
to convert the regular commuters to change modes.
And firms can keep some of the levy to develop their own green travel plans.
It is fairer to ask the commuter to pay for the extra services,
than the City Council tax payer.
Two-thirds of our tax payers are in the poorest band and the majority do not have access to the car.
Two-thirds of those causing congestion live outside the City.
[Beat]
What about giving people better services?
[Beat - Foil 21 – New services and Infrastructure – Robin Hood Line]
Last month saw the tenth anniversary of the Robin Hood Line.
A huge step by Nottinghamshire County Council,
led by Mansfield Councillors who wanted their town back on the map.
[Beat - Foil 22 – New services and Infrastructure – NET Line One]
Our tram - the largest local authority PFI scheme,
having drawn extensively on the experiences of Manchester, Sheffield, West Midlands and Croydon.
[Beat - Foil 23 – New services and Infrastructure – Digital speed cameras]
Digital cameras – making most people obey the speed limits,
reducing the severity of any accidents so that we haven't had Killed or Seriously Injured accidents;
and the offender pays for more cameras.
[Beat - Foil 24 – New services and Infrastructure – Supporting bus passengers]
Other measures include –
Bus and cycle lanes.
600 new bus shelters – in partnership with JCDecaux;
New fingerpost signs, drawing on the success of Bristol.
[Beat - Foil 25 – New services and Infrastructure – Supporting bus passengers]
'MyBus' – a demand responsive bus service drawing on best practice from Lincolnshire.
[Beat - Foil 26 – Partnerships]
We work in partnership with
national government;
and Nottinghamshire County Council.
We also work with representatives of commerce
on Green Travel Plans
and in a Transport partnership
which takes on the responsibility of driving forward a marketing exercise
called the Big Wheel.
This campaign promotes our Local Transport Plans and services
in an accessible way.
Two-thirds of City residents know about the Big Wheel, and
90% claim to know about the LTP.
Here are some examples of its look and feel.
[Beat - Foil 27 – The Big Wheel – adverts on backs of the bus and on taxis]
Adverts on vehicles.
[Beat - Foil 28 – The Big Wheel – promoting car sharing]
Posters.
[Beat - Foil 29 – The Big Wheel – promoting walking]
Leaflets.
[Beat - Foil 30 – The Big Wheel – promoting late night buses]
This PR work unites all that we do –
from timetables for night buses
to individualised marketing in new travel awareness campaigns
- into one cause.
[Beat - Foil 31 – Making progress at a local level]
So have we made a difference?
Well, yes!
[Beat]
Traffic growth has stabilised since 1997,
even though car ownership has increased.
[Beat]
Bus usage up in each of the last 3 years,
by over 6% in total –
that’s the equivalent of 8,000 car journeys each working day.
The unemployment rate is falling faster than the UKaverage
(although it would be most un-new Labour like to use the word ‘booming’).
in part cos Nottingham city centre is the 4th most thriving UK retail centre; and
And road casualties are reducing.
[Beat - Foil 32 – We could do more]
However, those of us who’ve just been re-elected know,
the voters’ mind are focussed on the existing problems
rather than on any progress we’ve made.
It’s partly why the Government is so concerned about delivery,
and applied corporate inspection to improve service performance.
We can help the Government more directly, and
more quickly than is currently envisaged by the road building programme.
It needs some focus on solving the immediate problems.
The emphasis on ‘capital good, revenue bad’,
at its crudest can encourage the mentality of building more capacity
rather than encouraging people to subscribe to the existing system.
Currently, regeneration agencies and multi-modal study development money
cannot pump-prime new services like a direct Nottingham– East Midlands Airport bus service
cos it’s deemed to be ‘revenue’.
[Beat]
Revenue subsidy to increase the patronage
could in turn enable the bus industry to more easily invest in better fleets and more services.
We should build on the success of new forms of ticketing.
Let’s encourage more people to subscribe to public transport.
Subsidies for local annual transport passes,
can encourage people to behave as if the bus is free at the point of use.
To allow municipal bus companies to invest even more,
let them to borrow in the markets in the same way as airports
or the proposed foundation hospitals.
[Beat]
Motorway widening schemes don’t have to find 25% from developers –
finding equivalent proportions for tram schemes could frustrate their expansion.
[Beat]
Consultation and partnership plays a role,
but sometimes, you have to make difficult decisions,
without a consensus.
The electoral mandate is a valuable tool – it enables leadership.
Value it more.
[Beat]
And it's time that more of that large national pot of capital money
was allocated to the refurbishment of local roads and pavements –
which is actually a very high local priority for voters.
We’re doing over ten times more than we were.
But Nottingham has estimated that we have over £100 million of work to do
to get us to a 20 year maintenance cycle by 2010.
LTP settlements are projected to give us half - £50 million.
Faster restoration our local roads and pavements
would also start to tackle the increasing number of claims being made against local authorities.
[Beat]
Other issues are genuinely harder to call.
Traffic commissioners limit the opportunity for cowboy bus services,
but there is a fundamental frustration with regulations that require a specification for a service to fit across the 24 hours of the working day,
and which makes no allowance for the fact that now we're refurbishing our roads,
road works which frustrates the punctuality of bus services.
[Beat]
Recruiting bus drivers is also a problem and one that seems to go beyond wages.
Drivers suffer abuse when policing valid entry onto a bus and other jobs can offer easier lives.
[Beat]
I’ve not mentioned freight. I’ve not mentioned canals.
And as for railways
I wanted to say loads, suffice to say ...
we are planning to transform our station like other cities have,
but my main concern the current arrangements frustrate simple ambitions like running local services to serve the conurbation.
[Beat]
Something, somewhere is stopping people from taking a step back and looking at the real world.
Something that says -
a practical application of new or revised policies
badged, and aimed at encouraging modal shift quickly,
without waiting for new road schemes,
could do much more to alleviate congestion.
The local authorities could be enabled to do so much more
that would actually give the national government more to boast about.
It requires change that builds on the success in local transport solutions.
[Beat - Foil 33 – Conclusion]
We can reinvigorate the national transport policy by sticking to principles of
reducing the need to travel and
managing the demand to use the car.
We need a new focus on changes that can give quick results.
[Beat - Foil 34 – Contact details – the end]
Thank you.
Opmerkingen