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“Beam me up, Arthur, I’ve got a meeting at the photovoltaics production plant in St. Helens and I’m stuck on the service platform for Barrow’s 400-turbine offshore wind farm...”


The day may well come when taking a trip is as simple as making a phone call, but if you park to one side even near- future innovations like hydrogen fuel cells, the reality today of getting from A to B is an all too familiar mixture of gas-guzzling motors and the hot tarmac of congested roads.

Climate change, congestion and visual or acoustic intrusion present a pressing case for curbing our love affair with internal combustion.

Climate change, congestion and visual or acoustic intrusion present a pressing case for curbing our love affair with internal combustion. Our ‘areas of tranquillity’ are being eroded. Respiratory complaints, particularly in children, are on the rise. Eye irritations and photochemical smog are making life less comfortable. The planet is warming up.

Road transport is the UK’s fastest-growing source of carbon dioxide and in England contributes around one-fifth of all our greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next 30 years, traffic levels are expected to climb by a staggering 87 per cent, a growth rate that will negate the positive moves towards cleaner fuels and more efficient vehicles.

Nationally, the transport brief has claimed one major ministerial scalp recently and is considered by those who stalk the corridors of power to be the most poisoned of chalices, but Government policy, in the form of a 1998 white paper and a 2000 ten-year plan, does make some clear statements of intent, including a commitment to developing Local Transport Plans, planning reforms, road charging, ‘quality partnerships’ to improve bus services, green transport plans, the promotion of walking and cycling, and pilot projects on motorway charging.

So with no shortage of Blairite jargon on the table and with a plentiful helping of reforms to sate our hunger, can we expect to see transport transformed in the years ahead? Costed pledges in the ten-year transport plan do promise improved public transport. £180 billion was identified for investment over ten years, with £60.4 billion earmarked for rail network improvements.

Planners have as much a part to play as policy makers. A specific piece of planning guidance handed down in October 1999 (PPG13) called on developers to focus large generators of travel - shopping centres or community facilities for example - closer to major public transport interchanges and to make sure that local transport facilities are within cycling or walking distance of those that want to use them.

For England’s Northwest the Regional Planning Guidance (RPG), in its final round of public consultation throughout the summer of 2002, calls for a more sustainable approach to transport planning. “For us, the key issues for transport include freight movements, demand management on our road and rail networks, and the accessibility of public transport,” says Tim Hill, who led the NWRA planning team, “The priorities that we’ve already agreed include dealing with bottlenecks and congestion around the Manchester transport ‘hub’, and the need for action on improving and developing transpennine routes.”

Policy commitments and planning constraints sound all very well, of course, but is anything practical being done to improve public transport and bring about a gear-shift in our travel patterns? A quick survey across the region highlights some promising beginnings. In Cheshire a sustainable transport strategy has been included as part of the County’s new structure plan and the city of Chester has developed ‘Greenways’ for cyclists and pedestrians, as well as new park and ride schemes and a well-regarded light rail system. Stockport has conducted a ‘Great Transport Debate’ and, through its Local Agenda 21 programme, created a Sustainable Transport Alliance that includes the NHS and a local college.

The Government’s Capital Challenge fund has brought £18 million into the region for schemes designed to boost public transport and reduce our dependency on the car, with beneficiary projects including the Metrolink in Manchester, segregated busways in Chester and the expansion of Merseytravel’s SMART hi-tech bus network.

Manchester’s Metrolink and Merseytravel’s burgeoning network have already paid off financially and in social and environmental terms. Merseytravel are well on their way to gaining an ISO14001 environmental management standard and an award from the Commission for Integrated Transport. Metrolink has gained plaudits, too, not least for taking 17.2 million people per year off the roads and onto the rails, saving around 3,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the bargain.

A boost for buses and long-overdue investments in rail may go some way toward cutting our car use, but for short, often urban journeys of less than 2 or 3 km, it may be peddle power that has to take over.

A boost for buses and long-overdue investments in rail may go some way toward cutting our car use, but for short, often urban journeys of less than 2 or 3 km, it may be peddle power that has to take over. A strategy for cycling in England’s Northwest, entitled Better by Bike and published by a Groundwork-led partnership, called on local government and business to help build on the 16,000 km of National Cycle Network (NCN) in the region. From Carlisle to Kendal to Liverpool and Macclesfield the strategy highlights the 1,400km of NCN that will be developed in the region and, through a major mapping exercise, identifies a further 1,900 km of cycleways that should be built in addition to the NCN routes.

As with so many other transport improvements, Better by Bike shows that there are plenty of good projects that could be replicated. In Cumbria, for example, there has been a countywide cycleway for more than 20 years, which is at present being upgraded with £1.4 million per year earmarked for cycleway development. There is also a Coast-to-Coast cycleway that can take riders from West Cumbria and the Irish sea to the North East; each year the route brings in more than £1 million in tourist income as an impressive 10-15,000 people complete the route.

A return flight from the UK to Florida will belch out as much carbon dioxide as the average British motorist produces in an entire year, in spite of the fact that planes are, today, twice as efficient as they were 20 years ago.

Letting the train take the strain or using a bicycle for the ‘round-the-corner’ shopping trip are the kind of shifts in behaviour that Government and campaigners alike want to see more of. But one sobering statistic when it comes to transport and climate change was released recently by a group led by Friends of the Earth: a return flight from the UK to Florida will belch out as much carbon dioxide as the average British motorist produces in an entire year, in spite of the fact that planes are, today, twice as efficient as they were 20 years ago.

Given that our passion for overseas holidays looks set to grow unabated - experts are predicting a doubling of air passengers in the next 15 years - the challenge for airlines is to hike up that fuel efficiency ever higher, look for alternative fuels and work to offset their emissions. Getting the environmental cost of air travel down is of singular importance for England’s Northwest given the economic and social importance of our slice of the burgeoning international travel market: Manchester Airport.

Business is booming at the Airport. A second runway opened in 2001 and it now looks after a massive 18 million passengers each year. Ninety-five airlines now fly from the Airport to more than 170 international destinations. In 1999 the airport generated £1.7 billion in economic activity - of this, £585 million remained in the Northwest; it is also responsible for creating a total of 33,000 jobs in the region. The airport has stated aims regarding its social responsibility and impact: it works with local schools and colleges on skills development and mentoring and is the lead company in the Wythenshawe Education Action Zone.

There was a £17 million package of environmental works to accompany the runway, extending across 350 hectares of land. Ancient woodlands and grasslands were relocated, as were 30,000 amphibians, bats and badgers.

So the Airport gets brownie points on economic and social grounds, but the second runway was a controversial development, with green campaigners and local residents conducting a spirited, if unsuccessful, attempt to get the development blocked. In its defence, the Airport cites its public consultation, natural habitat management and runway design as some of the factors actively considered to make the runway’s development as benign as possible. There was a £17 million package of environmental works to accompany the runway, extending across 350 hectares of land. Ancient woodlands and grasslands were relocated, as were 30,000 amphibians, bats and badgers.

On climate change there is plenty the Airport can and is doing to cut emissions as we await fuel-saving reforms from the airlines. Each day more than 50,000 vehicles travel to the Airport, making congestion and traffic management a very high priority. In 1992 a target was set to increase the number of public transport trips to the Airport to one in every four of all journeys. At the time the figure was more like one in every 20. The Airport’s on target to hit that 25 per cent figure, with public transport accounting for 18 per cent of journeys in late 2001.

For the Airport’s planners, though, the development of better rail links in particular returns us to a perennial problem for the region - the improvement of the West Coast Main Line and our Transpennine routes. Used by 54 million people per year, the rail system is in sore need of investment and the cost of upgrading West Coast Main Line alone is estimated at £5.8 billion.

Outside Manchester’s Piccadilly station sits a large, blue corrugated shed, forlorn and unused. Daubed across its side in French are the words ‘L'Eurostar habite ici’. It doesn’t, of course, and it never has.

One symbol stands testimony to the need for action on rail. Outside Manchester’s Piccadilly station sits a large, blue corrugated shed, forlorn and unused. Daubed across its side in French are the words ‘L'Eurostar habite ici’. It doesn’t, of course, and it never has. The Eurostar, and a promised two-hour trip to London, are still in the shunting yard awaiting further investment.

For the region that put railways on the map back in the steam-powered 1830s, the terminal delay in getting faster, more frequent trains running to London and mainland Europe is more than an inconvenience: until we get the transport system that business and the public need and expect, getting people out of their cars will be a thankless and often futile endeavour.