Your feature on Scottish transport problems (May 12) was aptly titled On the road to nowhere. While the integrated transport White Paper is due next month, it seems business people still believe the only solution is to build more roads otherwise there will be loss of jobs and competitiveness.
Traffic is continuing to grow at 3 to 4% per year but expanding road capacity is a strategy with no future. It is unsustainable and incompatible with the need to reduce energy consumption and pollution.
Transport economics is a multidimensional problem so there are probably several different solutions. Road building is the simplest but not necessarily the most effective. Councillor David Begg of Edinburgh in his letter (May 7) suggested a better way which is to make more efficient use of road space that already exists.
Your report showed an aerial view of a motorway junction in heavy traffic, where most of the vehicles appeared to be cars probably with just one occupant. What a waste of road space. This is borne out by Government traffic statistics, which indicate that over 80% of vehicle-kms are private cars (with average occupancy of 1.5 people), while commercial traffic averages around 16%. Buses contribute around 1% (while carrying on average at least 12 passengers).
If the concern is to allow commercial traffic to move more freely, then the solution lies in controlling car traffic. Road traffic in general pays less than half its external costs (noise, pollution, health, accidents, congestion), so the internalisation of these external costs through road pricing proportional to use would be beneficial. The integrated transport policy would also need to improve the price and performance of public transport compared to use of private cars to tip the balance in favour of buses and trains in urban areas.
The direct cost of transport is unrealistically low because external costs are not paid by the user. This encourages uneconomic transport decisions such as the provision of 2000 car-parking spaces in the Buchanan Galleries in the centre of Glasgow.
Another example is electronics manufacturers favouring ''Just in Time'' production. It looks good to the accountants as it reduces inventory levels and storage, but it creates much more frequent and time-critical transport movements. If the transport costs were higher, the economics would favour more consolidated shipments during non-peak periods.
Your correspondents have frequently highlighted the many opportunities for improvements to the rail network in Glasgow and around central Scotland, including electrification. Although Strathclyde does have one of the best rail networks outside London, I suspect that market share for public transport in the region is declining. Building more roads under the present pricing regime will simply aggravate the problem rather than reversing it. The money would be better spent on public-transport initiatives which have long-term sustainability.
Hugh Walker
123 Rose Street, Dunfermline. May 16.
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