The Highways Agency wants to combat traffic congestion by using the" Influencing Travel Behaviour programme" it has designed.
This is how It describes the programme;
"The Influencing Travel Behaviour programme is designed to promote sustainable travel and reduce congestion on England's 'strategic road network'. Through this the Agency aims to cut congestion by influencing travel behaviour, providing access to information to help people make smarter travel choices and introducing demand management measures in areas prone to congestion."
It has drawn up a handy table describing the "Objectives" and "Benefits". We have added a third column.
| Objective | Benefit | Truth |
| "Promote sustainable transport choices and improve quality of life" (DfT Objective). |
Greater public awareness and support achieved through local promotional work, web sites journey planning tools. Will measure some evidence of this through travel surveys. |
Raise tax on cars that the Government and "green" lobby doesn't approve of. Form lynch mobs for people daring to drive 4x4's and conduct road-side surveys to increase gridlock and prove a point. |
| To encourage use of sustainable modes. | Achieving modal shift away from Single Occupancy car trips to more sustainable alternatives. Measured through monitoring processes. |
Penalize and fine the already battered and bruised motorist, this time picking on the friendless |
| Promote health benefits of alternative travel and transport. | Health benefits from walking and cycling. | Reduce the motoring population by encouraging inexperienced cyclists onto the road and get them run over by tipper lorries. |
| Agency PSA target. Improve reliability through reduced congestion. "Improving current operation and capacity of transport networks" (DfT key task). |
Positive impact upon Agency network performance via reduced congestion and Positive impact on Local Authority network. Will contribute to realisation of Protect future performance of the strategic road network by mitigating trip Positive impact on Local Authority network. Will contribute to future LTP2 |
Why over complicate it...either reduce the amount of cars on the road (see above!) or build more and wider roads. It's not rocket science but the £100k a year "Analysts" employed by the "Agency" may tell you it is.... |
| Provide local economic benefits (spatial planning based travel plans). |
Enables sustainable development. Allows locally important development that could not otherwise take place |
If anyone can let us know what this means and how it can improve congetsion we'd appreciate it (see 100k "Analyst" above...) |
Your comments are very welcome....
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Where are all the cycle lanes? If the government want me to get on my bike how about providing a safe way to do so?