Track 33

Track 33.

The first proposal is to introduce bus and cycle lanes on the roads coming into each of the trouble spots, but I’m not really sure that that will solve the problem by itself.

What do you mean?

I think it’s a really good idea.

I think it would help a lot.

On the face of it, yes, but in actual fact it can make things worse.

There’ve been a few studies of towns and cities where they’ve put schemes like that into operation and one serious problem is that car traffic tends to go off into the areas around town where people live, and that causes more traffic in places where there haven’t been problems before.

Drivers think they can find emptier roads in residential areas and it just sends the problem there instead.

Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that.

What about the second one, a park and ride scheme?

Well, we build car parks on the edge of town where the main roads come in.

When cars come into town from further out, they can park there cheaply and take special buses into the town center.

It’s been quite popular in a few other towns around the country.

In some places, yes, but not in all.

I’ve had a look at some of those schemes.

The main problem is lack of take-up.

Drivers just don’t use them.

A lot of these car parks stay empty for a long time and the buses are often less than half-full.

It’s not always a good use of public money, especially when drivers avoid using the services and prefer to come into town and pay higher parking fees.

You’ve got a point there.

We need to bear that in mind.

Do you think either of the other proposals would work?

I think the pedestrian area is a very interesting proposal.

We could turn the whole of the center, including the shopping areas, into a pedestrian zone and put in a one-way system round it.

I’m not convinced that would work.

You’d move all the traffic further out of the center and cause more problems.

But the biggest problem would actually be with the shops themselves.

It’s fine to stop traffic around the shopping areas, but there would be huge problems with deliveries.

Some shops could go out of business if they have difficulty getting lorries in with their goods.

Right.

I’ll note that as well.

The last one is a new tram system.

We’ll have to lay down a new line through the center of town and also from north to south.

It’s quite a popular solution to traffic problems.

That may be so, but the main problem with that kind of project is the expense.

The initial financial requirements would be huge and so would the maintenance expenses.

It might well be far more than the council is prepared to spend on a solution.

I’ll note that as well.

Which brings us to the next point, the question of cost.