THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT: THE DANGERS OF VIEWING POLICY THROUGH ROSE-TINTED SPECTACLES

Improved public transport services are generally viewed as the most effective means of encouraging transfer from the car, especially on urban journeys. Accordingly, substantial public funds are being invested to this end. In this paper the author demonstrates that such an approach achieves little of this transfer. By comparing patterns of travel in Britain and The Netherlands, he shows that the prioritizing of walking and cycling is not only far more effective and cost-effective in achieving the transfer, but also is likely to deliver a wide range of social, health and environmental objectives of public policy additional to those related to transport. There must therefore be a presumption in favour of investment in networks for walking and cycling and in other measures enabling journeys to be made by these non-motorized modes well in advance of investment in public transport. This is an abridged version of the author's paper "Curbing car use: the dangers of exaggerating the future role of public transport", Transportation Planning Systems (a Landor Publication), Vol 2 No. 4, October-December 1994.