10:18am Monday 8th February 2010
By Reader's letter
Richard Brown (Blinkered drivers, Letters, January 30) is right to say continuing traffic growth in the city is unsustainable, but on little else.
York was at the forefront of sustainable transport measures, but it was Labour who led this – starting with pedestrianisation of the city centre in 1987 – the largest scheme undertaken in the UK at the time. The introduction of Park&Ride provided incentives to those driving into the city, proposals opposed by backward-looking Liberals at the time.
Add to this walking and cycling strategies encouraging green alternatives for shorter distance journeys, innovative residents’ parking schemes to stop commuter parking, a Bus Quality Partnership deal that delivered a new bus fleet and more attractive bus routes for the city (opposed by the Liberals again), with a 50 per cent usage increase over five years, and you can see the positive impact Labour had on reducing traffic congestion.
Contrast that with the Liberal Democrat record since 2003. They cancelled the planned congestion reducing A59 Park&Ride site in favour of the new Moor Lane roundabout – the least congested junction on the outer ring road, but the closest physically and emotionally to the home of former leader, Coun Steve Galloway. Company travel plans designed to reduce congestion, introduced as a result of Labour’s planning policies, are largely worthless due to cuts in council enforcement. Work that Labour undertook to address the air quality hotspot locations, where residents’ health is at risk from traffic pollution, was sidelined. Paying passenger bus usage has been falling rather than increasing, as it did under Labour. The net result of the Liberal Democrats’ seven years in office – steadily increasing congestion on roads in the city, worsening air quality, and a contracting bus network with reducing frequency. Seven wasted years and a strong argument for change.
Coun Dave Merrett (Labour), White House Gardens, Tadcaster Road, York.
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