Mayor’s Transport Strategy

The Mayor of London published a draft Transport Strategy in June. The consultation period has just finished. Generally, the draft is sensible in its intentions, emphasising the important aims of healthy streets and people, good public transport, and accommodating a growing population and economy.

One stated objective is to achieve 80% of all trips by walking, cycling or public transport by 2041. However, while reduction in the share of journeys by car is desirable, it would be very ambitious to achieve this aim.

Car mode share has been falling in London, from 50% of all trips (driver and passenger) in 1993 to 36% in 2015. I projected  that on existing policies it would fall to about 30% by 2040. This is happening because the capacity of the road network prevents traffic growth, and population growth therefore results in a decline of car mode share. However, a reduction to 20% car mode share of trips could be difficulty for the following reasons:

  • Walking in London has remained at 24% of all trips consistently for the past 20 years. Walking is the slowest mode, other than for very short journeys, and could therefore be difficult to increase.
  • Cycling is growing, but from a low base. However, it is difficult to get people out of cars onto bikes. Copenhagen has excellent cycling infrastructure and a strong tradition of cycle use, which comprises 30% of all trips. However, car use at 33% is not very different from London. Walking and public transport use are much lower than in London. Crowding on public transport is likely to be reduced by promoting cycling, but there may not be much impact on car use.
  • Growth of bus use will tend to be constrained by traffic congestion, and growth of rail use by crowding and the cost of investment in new routes.
  • Reducing carriageway available for cars, for instance by allocating more road space to pedestrians and to bus and cycle lanes, would tend to reduce car use, but would not reduce congestion and would be detrimental for goods deliveries.

 

 

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