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Towards the first car-free Olympics?
Ross Lydall, Olympics Correspondent24.10.07
Tough new moves to prevent spectators using their cars to travel to the London Olympics emerged today.
An updated transport plan seeks to increase the proportion of 2012 visitors and workers using public transport from 80 to 100 per cent.
This will be done by boosting services on the 10 Tube and train lines serving the Olympic park in Stratford, combining free or discounted Travelcards with event tickets and making it virtually impossible to park near a Games venue.
The Olympics Delivery Authority's redrafted transport plan emerged after a year of consultation to detail how about 500,000 spectators a day will be transported around the capital.
The initial proposals had raised concerns among MPs, councils and London Assembly members for being too "vague" and over-reliant on the belief that up to one in six Londoners would free up capacity on the Tube, trains and roads by leaving the city during the Games.
The Commons transport committee had warned that traffic had to fall by at least 15 per cent to prevent jams. The plans include establishing a 150-mile "Olympic route network" - enforced like bus lanes - on roads such as the Victoria Embankment and the North Circular to speed athletes and VIPs between their accommodation and venues.
Today's document confirms plans for London 2012 to be the "public transport Games", with all spectators arriving by public transport, bicycle or on foot. There are also plans to transport 50 per cent of construction materials by rail or water to take the pressure off roads.
But Olympics sources denied reports that plans for two 6,000-space park and ride schemes - one at the junction of the M25 and M11, the other at the Dartford crossing - had been scrapped.
"We are still looking for options for park and ride, " said an ODA spokesman. "It is just about getting the right location.
"We don't talk about banning people. Our focus is on getting people to come by public transport."
ODA chief executive David Higgins said: "It is essential we put in place world-class transport links to make this one of the best connected parts of the capital.
"The publication of the transport plan marks a year of significant achievement across the transport industry - work to treble capacity at Stratford regional station is under way; the tunnels needed to extend the Docklands Light Railway have broken through; the first new trains to be used on the Javelin shuttle service in 2012 have arrived in the UK and the highspeed rail link they will travel on, HS1, is ready.
"With further 2012 transport schemes and enhancements set to be well under way by the Beijing Games in 2008, and be completed by 2011, we are on track to deliver an early legacy of transformed transport links for east London."
Newham council, the main host borough, was already planning widespread parking restrictions for non-residents. Plans remain to use Hackney Marshes as a temporary coach park. Around
3,500 coach and car parking spaces will be built on the Olympics site for VIPs and disabled spectators, excluding the 5,440 spaces being provided as part of the neighbouring "Olympics city" development at Stratford City that will provide the athletes' village. ODA transport director Hugh Sumner today suggested using the Olympics to drive home a sea-change in attitudes towards using the car to travel to sporting events.
With four million people living within a 40-minute bike ride of a Games venue, the ODA wants to build more cycle paths, create 8,000 secure cycle parking spaces and offer free puncture repairs.
Mr Sumner told The Times: "We have a very aggressive programme to make it the greenest games in modern times. We want to leave both a hard legacy in terms of infrastructure and a living legacy in the way people think about transport and about how they travel to sports and cultural events. "We want to accelerate the shift to public transport and cycling that we have seen in London in recent years.
"There will need to be traffic controls around competition venues. We will make it very plain to people that there isn't going to be parking."
The car exclusion zone - and how rail services will link...
NEW PROJECTS ARE REVEALED
Today's document listed a series of developments since the draft plan was published a year ago, including:
* The start of a £104 million upgrade of Stratford regional station, on the edge of the Olympic Park, to treble capacity.
* The completion of tunnelling work under the Thames on the DLR extension to Woolwich Arsenal.
* The opening of the western ticket hall at King's Cross Underground.
* The testing of the high-speed trains that are expected to link St Pancras and Stratford International in 2009.
* An order for 55 new DLR carriages, including 22 part-funded by the Olympic Delivery Authority.
Reader views (7)
The first car free Olympics? Are all the construction workers bringing there own cement, gravel, steel, glass with them from home each day on public transport? Cement production creates vast amounts of CO2, so Ken and his cronies have pushed their so called 'green' credentials aside for some good old fashioned greed and fame. I am sure Londoners will have easy access to the games, but belive it or not, most citizens of Britain do not live in London! But of course we are all paying for it, whether we like it or not. If public transport is so fantastic, why not everybody use it officials/cronies alike? Special lanes for VIP's? Just like the old soviet system, I'am off for re-education by the local transport commisar, seems I still want to drive my car.
- Terry Hudson, Herne Bay, Kent
The dome failed because nobody could park near it. Now they are setting the Olympics to fail financially too. The lunatics in charge of this country are so deluded by their anti-car fanaticism that they are incapable of organising the proverbial drinking party in a brewery.
The "Olympic Route Network" sounds like the lanes they used to have in Moscow for Communist Party bosses, lanes restricted to politically correct vehicles only.
- Mike, London
Once the Olympic Ring Road is in place (with its enforcement officers and inevitable cameras), it will remain, as one of the few lasting legacies of this white elephant. Instead of spending millions on this ridiculous short-cut, why not take the money to be spent on officers and cameras and spend it on improving public transport?
- Nobby Clark, London, usually
Rather than being overtly negative as some posters on here I wholeheartedly welcome the sorely needed investment and transformation the Olympics will bring to East London's transport. If there is a reason for holding the Olympics in London, it is the legacy it will leave behind for both the city and the wider area. My only concern is my confidence in the ODA's ability to understand and manage the crucial transport issue successfully ....given that the incompetent map above is probably the most inaccurate one ever published: (Stratford Regional is the main transport interchange, the International station is a spoke from it; the important Canning Town and Poplar interchanges are incorrectly placed and not even named; the dubious link to the East Midlands doesn't currently exist; the North London Line is totally omitted; The East London line is show in its present truncated form, it will be fully extended north and south by 2012; The rail lines south of the Thames are incorrectly drawn and don't even serve London Bridge).
- Andrew Wood, London England
They said there was no car parking at the Dome when it opened - so hardly anybody went.
- Alan Tucker, London
And Wembley got delivered on time...Dream On !
- Mike, Sussex
If they can speed up improvements for the Olympics, why not for the every day mug commuter? And why, if we are bing encouraged to leave the car at home, will there be an 'Olympic (road) Network', including the Victoria Embankment and the North Circular?? Might it be because that's the route between the Houses of Parliament and the Games? So no standing armpit to armpit with the great unwashed public for free-loading MPs then!
- Paul, London
