Totnes & District Transport Plan B
If we are to be ready for a lower energy future, we will have to embrace a myriad of possibilities all of which can support a high quality lifestyle, protect the local economy and underpin a stable future for society. A sustainable transportation plan will need to be based on the following principles:
- Recognition of the urgent need to address car culture as a major user of fossil fuels
- Promotion of awareness & use of non-oil dependent transportation
- Provision of safe streets favouring walking and cycling
- Move towards to pedestrianised settlement hubs served by slow and safe mass transit
- Develop integrated services of fully affordable, accessible and convenient mass transport systems
- Integrated network of non-vehicular routes & mass transport access points
- Clear incentives favouring mass transit over individual car use
- Clear incentives encouraging freight to favour rail over road
- Provision of a local distribution service which links with wider networks
- Support localised distribution and consumption of locally produced goods
- Provision of energy (whether liquid fuel or other) for essential services and utilities
- Cross sectoral support and political will to implement policies which embrace these principles
From the climate change perspective, a Think piece commissioned by the Commission for Rural Communities found that, even with optimistic assumptions about improved technologies, all of the following addition interventions will be needed to reduce rural transport carbon emissions as current science indicates is needed:
- Journeys foregone
- Increased tele-working, supported by the necessary facilities
- Remote tertiary, further and higher education
- Deliveries to the settlements replacing food and other shopping trips
- Leisure trips redistributed to the local area
- Mobile service provision, e.g. primary healthcare
- Tourist numbers capped at 2008 levels
- Mode shift
- Smarter choices measures, primarily in the form of personalised travel planning
- Intensive measures to limit work journeys to destinations in the area, to 30% mode share by motor vehicle
- Small scale improvements to the local transit network, including flexi-routing
- (electrically assisted) Pedal cycle hire provision from strategic points
- Well maintained and improved public rights-of-way
- Car parking charges
- Road closures to improve walking and cycling conditions.
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