Why support?
Why should people support the proposals?
- The amount of up-front money which the County would likely receive would be enormous. It is clear that levels of transport investment of some ten times the current amount would be available in the four or five years before any scheme comes into effect.
- The hundreds of millions of pounds that would likely come forward will not be received any other way. The government is not simply going to decide to increase by 10 times the amount it currently gives for funding, without these proposals (which would be funded from a specific pot of money).
- If hundreds of millions of pounds are thrown away, people will look back in 10 years’ time and ask why Councillors failed to exercise a leadership role and take this money, despite the short-term pain it might have for some of their electorate.
- The level of housing growth in the city is not going to be stopped by Councillors saying they dislike it. Assuming there is no massive economic downturn, or the Government decides that the Eastern Region shouldn’t be a growth area any longer, this housing growth IS going to happen, whether local Councillors like it or not. And this growth will cause real congestion problems.
- Cycling is not going to be significantly improved by the current levels of money spent on it, which are tiny by continental standards. Members of the public want to be given real alternatives to the car, and poor-quality shared use paths will not achieve it. Real money is needed.
- Bus services would be massively improved, with increased frequencies. (Many cyclists may be concerned about increased numbers of buses, but the alternative to this would be increased numbers of individual vehicles, which is surely worse. With better bus provision, sometimes dedicated off-road provision, the worst effects can be mitigated.)
- Despite a long period of consultation, no Councillors have come up with any serious alternative how to solve the congestion problems of the city taking into account the new dwellings, or where the money would come from.
- Issues like road maintenance, and slow progress on implementing local crossings, disabled parking spaces, etc., all caused by current funding shortages, would all start to disappear pretty quickly.
- The scheme offers the ability to kill several birds with one stone: less congestion, money for alternatives, freeing up of road space for alternatives, money to deal with maintenance backlog and better air quality.
Councillors need to take on a leadership role, and the County needs to improve the quality of the information being given out, thus working together to demonstrate the real benefits that the up-front improvements to transport would bring.
Councillors who continue to oppose the scheme must say where they would otherwise find the money for the levels of investment Cambridge needs.