York Civic Trust has unveiled its transport strategy for the city, aimed at tackling climate change, pollution and congestion.
The organisation says radical changes are needed if York is to reach its ambitious target of being carbon neutral by 2030.
City of York Council has yet to issue its own Local Transport Plan. So the trust, which aims to promote the city’s heritage and champion its environment, has gone ahead with its own proposals.
Its recommendations include:
- the development of 20-minute communities in which key facilities can be accessed on foot, by bike or bus within 20 minutes of people’s homes
- a priority network of continuous walking and cycling routes serving all parts of the city, including the villages
- all key bus services having at least a 20 minute frequency, with new bus hubs at the station, hospital and park and ride sites
- in the longer term a possible rapid transit network to serve new developments
- redesign of the road network to encourage longer distance traffic to use the outer ring road
- allocation of road space to reflect the council’s own hierarchy of users
- a 3.5 tonne limit on lorries in the city centre, and a designated network for those over 7.5 tonnes
- a review of alternative ways of generating additional sources of finance to support further improvements.
Action needed now
The trust’s report warns that carbon emissions generated by traffic will need to be slashed by 70 per cent to meet targets.
“Only around half of this reduction will come from a switch to electric vehicles – and these will not reduce congestion,” said the trust’s transport advisory group chair Prof Tony May, who is the lead author of the new strategy.
“We need therefore to change the ways in which we travel. We need to reduce the distance that we travel by a tenth and car use by a fifth by 2030.”
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“If we can get the balance right, it should be possible to offer uncongested travel for the journeys which would be hard to make without a car,” said York Civic Trust chair Stephen Lusty.
“And we can help ensure that York benefits from improvements to its environment, celebrates its heritage, ensures that all its citizens enjoy a healthy, rewarding lifestyle and achieves the economic vitality necessary to support all of these.
“But we do need to act now if we are to achieve our carbon targets. For too long, York has put off the difficult decisions.
“We need to stop finding reasons for inaction. We offer a coherent approach and a set of suggestions for what might be done. We hope that, in doing so, we can initiate discussion and encourage consensus on the council’s emerging Local Transport Plan.”
See the full York Civic Trust strategy here.