Getting York out of a traffic jam

NO ONE who has been driving into or out of York in the rush hour this week can have failed to notice that our usually traffic-choked streets have been a little less busy than usual.

No prizes for guessing why. It is the half-term holiday - and that means no school run.

Transport bosses in York will be meeting on Monday to consider a major programme of improvements to the A19 Fulford Road.

Traffic projections suggest it could be completely gridlocked by 2021 unless something is done.

A possible dualling of York's northern ring road - a major roads scheme that would cost an estimated £140 million and could only go ahead with significant Government backing - is also on the cards, after the Future York group said it would help boost the city's economy.

But are major road construction projects really the way to ease York's traffic logjam?

Or are there lessons to be learned from how freely the traffic moves when school is out? Lessons about how we should be encouraging more people to leave their cars at home, rather than trying to increase the capacity of our roads?

The retired traffic policeman

THERE is no doubt that the school run has a significant impact on traffic levels in York, says former police senior accident investigator Mick Natt.

Every afternoon at about 3pm, the roads near where he lives in Dringhouses are lined by parents in cars waiting to pick up their children.

If more people walked their children to school instead of driving them, the roads would be quieter and safer, says Mick - and children themselves would be healthier.

Mick, now a traffic consultant, doesn't hold with the argument that parents have to drive their children to school because they are worried about their safety.

It suddenly becomes perfectly all right for children that can't walk to school to go out on their own after they get home, he points out. And if they did walk or cycle to school, the roads would be less crowded - and so less dangerous for all.

He thinks it is often a combination of laziness or convenience that makes so many parents determined to drive their children to school.

It is just part of our general trend towards greater reliance on the car, he says.

So what can be done to change our habits?

You won't be able to force people to use their cars less, Mick says. Instead, they have to be enticed out by cheap, convenient alternatives.

The school run could be eased, for example, if there was a dedicated minibus for each school that picked pupils up en-route - the way some American schools have.

York's Park&Ride prices are too high, he says. With fares going up to £2.20, it would now cost him and his wife £4.40 to use Park&Ride to get into town - more expensive than paying for an hour's parking in the city centre. And he thinks there should be proper commuter trains from Haxby and Poppleton into York.

He also believes City of York Council was wrong to shut off so many indirect road routes to through traffic. That has funnelled commuters on to a few main roads, he says - adding to problems. "People need a choice of routes."

And what about congestion charging? "It would probably help the city centre. But what about the workers? People need viable alternatives. If they were there, they would use them."

The business leader

Dualling of the northern ring road is absolutely vital, says Len Cruddas, chief executive of the York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce.

At the moment, it is far too easy for traffic to get backed up at peak times.

Dualling would mean that more imaginative approaches could then be adopted to dealing with traffic in York itself. "If you had a dual carriageway all around the city, it would give traffic an alternative to driving through the city centre," he said. "If you had that, it would make it possible to improve public transport."

It would be wrong, however to punish motorists until there were real alternatives to using the car, he said. "You cannot just turn the clock back 50 years and hope everybody is happy," he said. "We have to live in the real world. People have got to have viable alternatives. I would leave my car at home if I could. We've got to encourage people rather than use the big stick."

The campaigner

Statistics show that about a fifth of all rush hour traffic is parents on the school run, says Paul Osborne, the York-based national director of a Sustrans project to encourage safe routes to school.

He understands that parents want to see their children safely to school. "I'm a parent myself." But he thinks there needs to be a balance struck between cocooning our children, and allowing them to find their way in the world.

Parents need to be thinking also about the long-term health of their children, he says. Obesity is a growing problem among UK children.

"If we don't make them more physically active, they will be the first generation that die earlier than their parents."

There are already a number of good measures in York to encourage parents to let their children walk or cycle to school. There is an excellent record of teaching children to ride at York schools, he says - and the city's investment in cycle routes is good. He is also encouraged by talk of bringing speed cameras into the city.

But there is more that needs to be done. In some continental cities, such as Odensie in Denmark which is similar in size to York, half of all children cycle to school.

In a city like York, with its narrow, historic streets, we all have to learn that we have to share the available space, he says. Motorists must not be allowed to hog it all.

The cyclist

A city like York can't build its way out of its traffic problems, says Andy Shrimpton, owner of Cycle Heaven. "The more roads capacity you put in, the more traffic you will get."

There are certainly lessons to be learned from the lack of school-run traffic in the holidays, he says. The quietness of the roads just demonstrates what could be achieved if people could be persuaded to leave their cars at home.

The key is to improve public transport and provide alternatives to the car, he says.

Contrary to popular opinion, Andy believes York isn't a truly cycle-friendly city. Cyclists are banned from the pedestrianised areas of the city centre, he points out. "So they are then pushed out on to the lethal inner ring road."

There need to be more cycle through-routes so cyclists can safely navigate their way around the city, he believes, as well as improvements to public transport.

And what about the dualling of the northern ring road? Absolutely not, Andy says. From his home off Fishergate he can already hear the sound of traffic from the dual carriageway southern ring road. "Do we want an iron curtain of traffic around the whole of York? Is this good?

"No, it is not. Next it will be three-lane highways. Our obsession with cars is like drug addiction. We've got to go cold turkey. When we do, miraculously the problem will disappear."

The school-run mum

Mother-of-two Karen Wake would love not to have to drive her children to school and day nursery - but cannot see any alternative.

Karen, a 34-year-old sales executive who lives in New Earswick and works in the city centre, leaves home at 7.25 in the morning to drive her six-year-old son, Joseph, to primary school in Haxby. Then she drives to Rawcliffe to leave three-year-old Alistair at his day nursery there, before driving into central York to be at work for 9am.

She has to leave work at 5pm to do the whole thing in reverse.

It means a very long day for both her children, she admits. If there was a school bus she would happily put Joseph on it. "But there is no bus, and if there was I probably wouldn't be able to use it because it would not be early enough."

Haxby is too far for Joseph to walk, she says - and he can't ride a bike yet. Even if he could, she wouldn't want him riding all that way on his own. "He would have to go past a secondary school, where other people would be dropping their children off. I wouldn't feel he was safe."

Doing the school run isn't ideal, she admits. "The less traffic, the better." But she sees no real alternative for her.

City of York Council's traffic strategy

WITH proposals to improve the Fulford Road set to be approved next week, and talk of dualling York's northern ring-road in the air, it might seem that the city council's traffic strategy amounts to building itself out of trouble.

That is not so at all, stresses Damon Copperthwaite, the council's assistant director for city development and transport.

Quite the opposite, in fact. The city's strategy, as outlined in the local transport plan, is all about encouraging people not to use their cars unless absolutely essential.

"York is a unique city. It has a historic core, and that limits the sort of things that can go on. Trying to solve traffic problems by building roads is not sustainable. It would be like a sponge. Build more roads and they would fill up with more traffic. We have to encourage and persuade people to transfer to different modes of transport."

Then what about those proposals to upgrade the Fulford Road? That's not about making things easier for cars, Mr Copperthwaite says - it is about making it easier for public transport. The upgrade will create more room for Park&Ride buses, so they can get into the city centre more quickly - as well as improving cycle lanes and widening footpaths.

And dualling the northern ring road? It is not the city council that is calling for that, Mr Copperthwaite insists, but the Future York group. The council as yet has no policy on it.

Many people will take "a lot of persuading" to use their cars less, Mr Copperthwaite admits - but the council is doing all it can to boost public transport. Bus lanes in Malton Road, Tadcaster Road and parts of Hull Road are all about giving buses priority and speedy access to the city.

There are also a number of measures being taken to encourage parents not to drive their children to school, he says.

"Nearly all York schools have developed Green travel plans that encourage the use of walking and cycling. We also have the safer routes to school scheme.

"That involves traffic regulation orders outside school, and 20mph speed limits outside just about every York school. There is cycle training in all primary schools, cycle facilities in just about every school."