Tonight:
5°c
THE Government is as progressive as any when it comes to setting ambitious targets to limit our carbon emissions - by 80 per cent by 2050.
The trouble is in squaring this with other areas of policy, such as, for instance, its easygoing attitude to the expansion in air travel.
Now its own Climate Change Commission, established last year, has pointed out that if the aviation sector is to continue to grow, there will need to be swingeing restrictions imposed on other areas, by households and industry.
The 2050 target seems remote to most of us. Still, the Government has to square its present policies with its own aspirations.
That raises obvious questions about the desirability of a third runway at Heathrow, though business has made a powerful case for expansion.
The runway is designed to accommodate demand for air travel rather than to change it.
The fact that about 30 per cent of passengers use Heathrow merely to change flights accounts for at least some of that demand.
The truth is that, rather than just building infrastructure to accommodate ever greater demand for flying, we should be trying to create alternatives to air travel. One option, favoured by the Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, would be to build high speed rail links that would render many domestic flights unnecessary.
That would almost certainly be a cleaner option for travel between London and Glasgow or Edinburgh, even though building for the service itself generates emissions.
But even increasing capacity on ordinary rail services would attract passengers away from cars.
That involves sustained spending on increasing train size and increasing platform lengths: less glamorous than bullet trains, but no less necessary as part of a coherent transport strategy.
Of course, aviation itself will continue to change and to respond to the need to cut emissions through advances in technology.
But December's climate change conference in Copenhagen will need to include measures to contain international carbon emissions from flying.
It beggars belief that the aviation industry still profits from tax exemptions on fuel which were established by the post-war Chicago convention and have been left in place ever since. Meanwhile, Lord Adonis will have to think long and hard about whether a third runway at Heathrow can be compatible with the Government's rhetoric and ideals.
No fare rises, please
Tube and bus fares are linked to inflation, by a formula that allows for them to rise to the extent of the Retail Price Index plus one per cent.
Similar controls apply to the train companies - despite desperate attempts by the operators to wriggle out of the deal. Yet the budget projections for Transport for London are posited on a rise in fare revenue by six per cent next year.
So, Labour and Lib-Dems in the London Assembly are to ask the Mayor for assurances that he will stand by his commitment not to raise fares by more than the formula allows.
In fact, the Mayor should go further. Basic bus fares for travel between one stop and another are already £1, or £2 for a cash fare.
It would be silly to raise that fare by a trivial sum; it should be frozen at the round figure, particularly as this is the form of transport favoured by the worst-paid workers.
It would be absurd, too, to increase cash Tube fares from their present prohibitive levels.
The Mayor is aware of the difficulties Londoners face as a result of the downturn; containing rises in the cost of public transport would be one way of helping business and individuals beat the recession.
BBC games
Moving some BBC operations from London to Salford was a bad, politically driven idea in the first place.
But transferring the sports department to Manchester a year before the London Olympics is madness.
It would entail spending £3 million to transport staff to cover the Games. If the Corporation is trying to justify the license fee, this is no way to behave.
Reader views (1)
This paper chose to back Boris on an agenda to replace Artic buses with routemaster buses and we can see the result on route 38 which used to need 50 routemasters which were replaced by 47 artics (with a massive increase of capacity) and are now to be replaced by 72 modern double deckers!! Taken together with the 2 former red arrow routes the total extra cost of these routes is £3 million.
Yet still while Boris and this paper go on above removing Artics no one has said how much total withdrawel would cost and how many buses would be needed to replace the 400 Artics boris started with?
As for routemasters these only held 72 passengers (including standees) and needed 2 staff at all times I dread to think how many millions this would cost. fact is about 95% of fares are paid off bus and instead of cutting costs and dangers to bus staff by removing cash fares Boris has instead removed RTM's from bus stops thus denying passengers access to 1 day passes which London is almost unique in not selling on its buses.
The big question of 2010 is what will happen the the Westrn C-Charge zone and who would fund its removal? It must certainly not be public transport users.
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex, 09/09/2009 18:48
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