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Turner round 2
Richard Turner, Chief Exec Freight Transport Assoc, is working hard to raise his profile. Following an interview on Today last week, today he has a letter in the Times upping the ante a bit as ltp2 deadlines approach: "Land used for roads is less than 2 per cent of the total. There is plenty of space for widening motorways and building bypasses...". Well yes, Richard. That leaves 98%. Doesn't really tell the full story though does it?
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Turner round bright eyes
Richard Turner, Chief Exec of the Freight Transport Association, was on the Today programme this morning and described road user charging for all users on all roads as "inevitable" in order to manage demand. Useful words on the surface, but at the same time he advocated increasing capacity on the current interurban road network. Call us Machiavellian, but by raising the profile of the "all users pay on all roads" system, was his real motivation to distract from the far more likely first step of lorry road user charging? What better delaying tactic than to encourage an anti charging campaign in the tabloids?
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aviation fuel tax
Odd to find Michael Howard saying the Tories would push for a Europe wide aviation fuel tax. Instinct tells you to be suspicious of their motives, and yet there can't be that many votes in the communities affected by airport expansion. All in all a bit disconcerting, but a return to form in their pledge to remove all speed humps in Britain , and in the Birmingham (Conservative) council's ongoing experiments in suspending bus lanes.
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logging off

News from mid Wales, where in a 5 week trial timber deliveries will switch from road to rail and take the train from Aberystwyth. We spent a lot of time in the 90s in Aberystwyth, a stonking town with then top nightlife, getting there by both rail & road. Aberystwyth's (and many other small Welsh towns') charm used to lie in its isolation. But over the decade, the A44 became more congested through the Cambrian Hills. In the early 90s Safeways, MacDonalds, Wetherspoons etc arrived making it more attractive to pleb tourists in their wake, and it didn't seem quite so isolated when you were in a 40mph convoy of a Safeways juggernaut and a queue of cars bearing Aston Villa stickers across the hills. We fear the pressure will soon be on, if it's not already, for quicker access from the motorway system, and that means big upgrades on beautiful roads.
louis on 13.03.05 @ 09:28 PM CST [more..]

ltp2 consultation
Local authorities are now offering public consultation feeding into a draft Local Transport Plan 2. The first Local Transport Plans covered 2001 - 2006, ltp2 will cover April 2006 to March 2011 and sets out the authority's transport agenda and which big transport schemes will be pursued over that period. Consultation should intensify as the drafts are completed in the coming months; Provisional LTPs must be submitted to the Department for Transport in July. Most authorities are using the web in their consultation strategy: see opposite!
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don't get run over by these:
the Audi TT, Skoda Superb and Suzuki Grand Vitara, which, say EuroNCAP, an independent body measuring these things, offer "dire" or "abysmal" protection to pedestrians. The group is trying to bring in a European directive to force car manufacturers to adopt certain changes to the fronts and bonnets of cars - changes being resisted by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association who claim technical difficulties in modifying car fronts. While they argue it out, bear in mind in the unusual event of being offered a choice that the Honda Civic offers a high level of pedestrian protection. We must point out that the person behind the wheel may also be a factor.
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