How can York cut congestion and improve air quality? MIKE LAYCOCK reports on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act which reveal how council officers have considered the possibility of closing roads - and even bridges over the Ouse - to clean up the city.

You may have thought Transport Secretary Alistair Darling's idea of road tolls to combat Britain's growing gridlock problems were radical.

But they are pretty tame compared to some of the ideas which were secretly considered by York's transport bosses as long ago as spring 2003.

The Evening Press revealed last year how officers had looked at imposing a £1 toll on bridges over the River Ouse, as well as closing one of the worst pollution blackspots - Gillygate - to all but bicycles, taxis and buses.

The investigations ended after the Liberal Democrats came to power, having pledged not to introduce congestion charging.

But a source told the news-paper then that officials had calculated that the bridge tolls would cost about a million pounds to introduce, but raise £7 million in revenue and also cut through-traffic sufficiently to clear congestion.

However, documents obtained by York environmentalist and businessman Geoff Beacon under the Freedom of Information Act have now revealed how much further the investigations went than simple tolls.

They show that officers also looked at:

Closing Lendal, Ouse and Skeldergate Bridges over the River Ouse.

Closing a whole series of roads, including Gillygate, Crichton Avenue, Nunnery Lane, University Road and Heslington Lane.

Imposing a £2 road toll for crossing a cordon just outside the inner ring road.

The papers relate to a meeting of the Air Quality Action Planning steering group, which took place on March 26, 2003.

Headed Model Tests, the report says it "seeks to provide some information about the most promising tests in each of the four groups of radical proposals".

It describes the advantages and the disadvantages or problems that each option throws up.

The pros of closing the bridges and Gillygate are said to include a significant reduction in traffic on all parts of the inner ring road, the likely achievement of air quality targets at all pollution hotspots, big reductions in bus journey times and excellent bus priority routes across the city centre.

The cons included this fairly obvious key problem: "Splits the city centre in two, making it impossible to drive between the two without using outer routes."

The closures would also cut off direct car access to the hospital and station from parts of the city, more traffic on Water End and more traffic on all sections of the A1237 outer ring road (which it says would probably need to be dualled for this option to work).

Referring to the idea of closing Gillygate, Crichton Avenue, Nunnery Lane, Ouse Bridge, University Road and Heslington Road, with the one- way sections of Bishopgate Street and Paragon Street converted to two-way operations, it says the outer ring road would need to be dualled from the A59 to the A64.

It also suggests a series of advantages would be achieved. Air quality targets would be reached at all hotspots, with the possible exception of Lawrence Street, some bus journey times would improve, and traffic would be reduced in the Burton Stone Lane, Kingsway, Wigginton Road, Haxby Road, Melrosegate, University Road, Heslington Road and Broadway areas.

Problems would include more traffic on Scarcroft Road, Albermarle Road, Knavesmire Road, Field Lane and Tang Hall Lane, and also increased traffic in Clifton Moor and on the outer ring road.

The document says that imposing a £2 charge on traffic crossing a cordon just outside the inner ring road would result in a significant reduction in traffic on all parts of the ring road. Air quality targets would also be achieved at all pollution hotspots, and there would be big reductions in bus journey times. The charges would also generate income of £15 million a year, minus costs.

The disadvantages are said to be more traffic on all sections of the outer ring road, which might need to be dualled. There would also be increases in traffic in the outer areas.

Another option looked at was using signal controls on radial routes and bollards on residential rat-runs to control the amount of traffic on the inner ring road.

The document says that on their own, these measures were unlikely to solve the entire air quality problem, but they could assist in making other schemes work. "Work has therefore started to look at these, in combination with some of the road closure options in a series of tests..."

Another option included 20 bollards on key rat runs, four new sets of traffic signals, an extension of James Street to Heworth Green, and reduced green times at 18 sets of signals.

The document says the controls modelled were "very severe" and would cause widespread queuing on other parts of the road network.

Given the awful state of the roads, it is foolish that York should not consider coming down on traffic use.

CITY of York Council said today that the authority had looked at "hundreds" of potential different transport solutions in developing the city's air quality strategy.

"The bridge system was identified as a possible option, but has not been looked at in any depth and was not taken forward," said a spokeswoman.

Coun Andrew Waller, pictured, executive member for environment, said that the studies had involved purely mathematical modelling, and had not looked at factors such as social and economic impact.

He said that what the council was proposing to do to tackle congestion and air quality problems would be contained in the draft Local Transport Plan 2, which was to be published shortly before going to the executive.

He added that a recent meeting of the Environment and Sustainability Executive Member and Advisory Panel had agreed to ask officers to look into the possibility of banning heavily polluting lorries and buses from parts of the city centre. They would report back within six months, and the results could be fed into the plan.

Asked for his views on the information he had received from the council, Geoff Beacon said today: "I asked for this information under the Freedom of Information Act. Now I have the report, I can't understand why they were so secretive about it.

"Given the awful state of the roads, it is foolish that York should not consider coming down on traffic use. I am in favour of a charge. People without cars should be able to benefit from not having a car.

"I have some admiration for Andrew Waller's environmental planning, but the suppression of this report shows that they have been only paying lip service to green issues.

"This (the contents of the report) may been even too far for the Green Party."

Updated: 09:05 Monday, June 13, 2005