Postscript - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 437

contributions helps counter such trends in respect of new developments but leaves the
bulk of (existing) workplaces untouched.
In theory Workplace Charging Levy powers could be used by local authorities as
a means of generating funds from businesses in an area to support public transport
improvements with the charging itself having a complementary role in discouraging
employee parking provision. However, except where major city-wide investment
is planned (as currently in Nottingham) a statutory approach on this scale seems
unnecessarily heavy handed and should perhaps be regarded as a fall-back option in
the event of lighter-touch partnership arrangements failing to materialise.
In the context of appropriate policies set out in an LTP, local authorities could work
with groups of employers (e.g. in relation to a town centre or a suburban business park)
with a view to declaring a number of 'business travel zones'. (Provision might be made
for these to be registered statutorily, rather like Quality Bus Partnerships, to prevent
'free-riders'.) An independent travel management organisation would be established
for each zone with income and expenditures entirely channelled through it, although
with public funding to help kick-start schemes.
In these zones the proliferation of travel plans for individual organisations - whether
devised voluntarily or as a condition of planning permission - could be avoided with
firms becoming partners within the zonal body instead. Unlike the current situation
with development-related travel plans, the zonal arrangements and firms' contributions
would operate in perpetuity.
The activities of the travel organisation would be similar to those operating on
behalf of individual firms, but on a much larger scale and with many economies derived
from collective provision. Examples would be dedicated bus services to/from a nearby
rail station, town centre or park-and-ride car park, employees' car-share schemes,
facilities for cyclists, travelcard discounts and possibly on-site parking management
arrangements. An advice service on accessibility and travel options could be offered
to new staff when appointed and to existing staff when moving house. A valuable
additional social dimension would be the right for any current or prospective employee
living within the relevant Travel to Work Area to ask for special transport arrangements
to be brokered where access by ordinary public transport was impracticable.
As far as journeys to school are concerned there is clearly major scope for increasing
the proportion of children walking and cycling, possibly in organised groups, and
reducing the number of parents for whom 'the school run' is a major factor in their
consideration of car ownership. There are a host of conventional measures which
could be applied in a more intensive form to achieve this (Sloman 2003), particularly
through promotional programmes with schoolchildren and their parents. However
these are always 'swimming against the tide' if they have to be deployed in areas where
the presumption prevails that motorised traffic has priority.
At present the introduction of traffic calming and a speed limit below 30 mph has
to be justified on an 'exceptions' basis. It is worth recalling that when the present
standardised limit was set in built-up areas (in 1930) there were less than 4% of
present vehicle numbers, and 'traffic' on residential streets (in the sense of continuous
flows) was non-existent. Even by the indulgent standards of the time it is doubtful
whether the present life-threatening conditions in residential streets would have been
legislated for. Today a paradigmatic shift reasserting the safety and liveability of streets
could be signalled by the Government adopting 20 mph as the default speed limit on
unclassified roads within built-up areas (a change which would add barely a minute to
each end of most car journeys) - and by publicising this to redress the climate of fear