Smarter Cambridge Transport

Category - Cambridge Independent

Smarter Cambridge Transport’s weekly columns in the ‘Cambridge Independent’ newspaper

Would this get you to give up a car?

We need to make public transport simpler to use, widely available and cheap. Let’s start with integrated rail–bus tickets with free transfers.

Growth requires sustainable infrastructure

It is now abundantly clear that politicians accepted the growth agenda without a clear vision of where it would take us, without securing adequate funding for all the infrastructure, and without explaining the...

Getting the basics right for bus services

The Cambridge City Access and Public Transport Improvements report MUST set out how bus services and stops will improve markedly from 2022.

No action on the climate crisis until 2025

Politicians are squandering the chance of a transport future with zero carbon emissions, zero air pollution, zero road deaths and zero congestion.

Petitioning the GCP to change its priorities

Our petition asks the GCP Board to change its priorities to schemes that could be delivered in less time with greater benefit, and much lower environmental damage.

Vision Zero: let’s make it a reality

To many, reducing speed limits seems perverse. But the reduced grief and pain, and increased freedom for our children, is more than worth it.

Maintaining our roads and pavements

A topic that fills many councillors’ inboxes is the dire state of our roads and pavements. But funding runs far short of what is needed to fix them.

Bus back better? A new national strategy

We need bus services to work for many more people.The new national bus strategy seeks to address this, with clear and sensible ambitions.

Time to suspend peak-time rail fares?

If they don’t travel five days a week, many part-time commuters will simply not return to trains and buses if they are able to drive instead.

Improved plans for Cambridge station

Unfortunately, although there are outstanding issues with the new development, these are unlikely to see it blocked a second time.

Causeway to an isolated new community

Planning permission has been granted for 430 new homes on Worts’ Causeway. The poverty of ambition is deeply concerning.

Sustainable growth or just promises?

Mistrust of the development sector is at an all-time high. How can the new Local Plan avoid making the same mistakes as last time?

Bigger lorries coming down the road

A consultation is looking at allowing articulated lorries some 2 metres longer than at present, as well as permitting 48-tonne lorries.

Too much busway, too little station

Two more public consultations recently launched illustrate just how out-of-step with the times transport authorities are.

Government must give citizens a voice

We need to provide resources to enable community groups to organise themselves and employ experts – just as economic stakeholders do.

Making the Highway Code safer for people

The Highway Code is up for revision with a view to reinforcing the rights and protections of people walking, cycling or riding a horse.

UK Climate Assembly shows a way forward

108 people met over six weekends earlier this year to consider how the UK should decarbonise transport, energy, food and other things we buy.

Too many jobs and not enough houses

Local authorities are so consumed with delivering new homes, they have failed to keep track of how many jobs they are allowing to be created.

A vision for Waterbeach transport

How we can spend far less than the estimated £250 million to dual the A10 and build the Waterbeach busway, and benefit thousands more people.

Reimagining our highways

Communities are starting to reimagine their streets. Start a conversation with neighbours and ask your councillors to help make it a reality.

The legacy of the Citizens Assembly

Last year a Citizens Assembly considered how to reduce congestion, improve air quality and provide better public transport. What's happened since?

How can we fix the broken planning system?

The mechanism for setting priorities locally (the ‘Local Plan’) is no longer fit for purpose. But the government’s proposed solution is worse.

Design for the future, not the past

With at least another £200 million to spend, the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) is gearing up to push ahead with developments that are all anachronisms.

A revolution in transport is afoot

When we see the government reallocate the new-roads budget to public transport we will know it is seriously committed to restoring the environment.

What is the future for rail franchising?

Will the government choose TfL-style franchising as its preferred model to ensure continuity of services whilst keeping operations in the private sector?

Why consultations aren’t helping

To de-carbonise the economy, restore balance with nature, enhance public health and promote social justice, we have to do government differently.

How much do you value your journey time?

Why would you support a congestion charge? Probably because the journey time is sufficiently shortened or you’re given a better value alternative to driving.

Carrots and sticks are not the answer

Almost nothing the Greater Cambridge Partnership has delivered in nearly five years has increased people’s travel options. That needs to change.

How much does it cost to run a bus?

What would make the bigger difference: another 2,500 people using Park & Ride or 55,000 more people using buses in the region?

Designing a Park & Ride service where everyone wins

‘Travel hubs’, a few miles out, require far less capital expense, and give better access to the old, the young, those without cars and those who simply don’t wish to drive.

What is a liveable neighbourhood?

Liveable neighbourhoods mean stronger communities and better quality of life for all who live in them.

A perspective from Leeds

Trying to figure out why transport economics so often fails to feed good policies to politicians...

Why not to trust transport forecasts

Actual costs and benefits would have given the Guided Busway a ‘poor value for money’ rating, which would not have qualified for taxpayer funding.

Why Park & Ride is NOT the solution

The social and environmental benefits of radically improving rural bus services far outweigh those of Park & Rides.

Before a congestion charge

Neither the Greater Cambridge Partnership nor the Combined Authority has a plan to transform bus services across the region.

Signs of a positive impact

Residents, councillors and the Conservation officer have all asked for the minimum signage of ‘Parking Permit Areas’ in Newnham.

Multi-operator bus ticketing

We just need politicians, council officers and bus operators to sit down together and agree to make this happen.

Rules matter

We need clear, sensible and consistent rules to manage use of our public spaces.

A bus journey is about the experience

Before trying to knock a few minutes off bus journey times, we need to understand that the quality of the journey experience is arguably more important to people

The Case for Bus Franchising

Planned well, franchising could deliver a Swiss-style integrated, comprehensive public bus service.

It’s Not a War on the Motorist

Better enforcement of straightforward regulations would reduce congestion and make streets safer for all.

The good, the bad and the ugly

The mayor’s recently-published Interim Transport Strategy Statement re-confirms his ambitions for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Sequencing is critical

Why increasing road capacity with more lanes just buys time ...and worse, the business case for the sustainable stuff evaporates

Why is Hills Road falling to pieces?

It's a question which can be asked about many roads, but in this case the reason may be history as much as any lack of care by the County Council.

Why a £13m overspend in Ely matters

The Ely Southern Bypass is £21m over its original budget. We should be extremely wary of funding large infrastructure projects from council borrowing not covered by new income streams.

A service level agreement for bus travel

Less variability in journey times is not actually what most people who use buses complain about. Missing a connection because of delay is a big headache. It’s why people don’t like having to change buses.

Haverhill Rail: the Missing A1307 Option

A conservative extrapolation from the St Ives busway to the Haverhill railway provides a forecast of about 4.5m trips/year. So why isn’t reopening the railway still under consideration?

Negotiating the elephant on the A1307

5,000 new jobs are coming to the Biomedical Campus by the middle of next year, with no extra transport provision for them.

This is not an infrastructure project!

One Ticket, One Network, One Brand here will do more to achieve modal shift than rolling out some red tarmac for a few buses a day.

Start with the quick wins

Let's see action on interventions that can make a difference now, while the Combined Authority gets the longer term strategy right.

Lessons for Cambridge from Singapore

London does integrated transport pretty well. Arguably Singapore does it better. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough's mayor can learn from both.

Frequency: the key to better public transport

Imagine a gate at the end of your driveway that opens only once every 30 minutes. You cannot apply a private motorist's mentality to shaping public transport policy.

What we need right now is not a busway

For South Cambridgeshire residents, what's needed are attractive, comfortable, reliable and flexible public transport options from close to where people live.

When is a bus not a bus?

The Mayor has maintained that buses aren't the answer for the Cambridge area, so the consultants have wheeled out something vaguely called a 'metro'.

A bridge over Foxton level crossing

There's a plan to re-route the A10 via a bridge or underpass and close the level crossing at Foxton. Unfortunately, as with Skanska's proposal for Whittlesford, the scope is too narrow.

Whittlesford station: the neglected gateway

Whittlesford has a neglected station with poor access. Upgraded to 'Parkway' status in 2007, it still lacks basic facilities like toilets or a bridge between the platforms suitable for people with limited mobility.

The elephants in the room: HGVs

Investing in new road capacity is expensive, environmentally damaging, and usually only a temporary solution. A distance-based HGV levy plus more investment in railways would achieve a much better outcome.

Put the railway at the centre of things

How Cambridge North, the future south station, and the main station can form the backbone of a ‘Cambridge Overground’ metro within five years.

Property developers must do better

It's almost as if a deliberate effort has been made to put off every mode of transport which we should be encouraging.

Let’s have a Big Data Dig

GCP indicate that they will publish the raw data from their recent traffic survey in 2018. Why is it taking so long to release?

Fixing the Grafton Area

The Grafton Centre itself is undergoing a facelift, but the area needs more than that. These are some additional ideas we’ve submitted to the consultation.

6 Things To Know About Self-Driving Cars

Most people - and governments - are barely considering the implications of this revolution, but we should be. This is all going to happen much sooner than most of us think.

Should HGVs pay their way in the city?

A charge which would remain affordable to HGV operators could deter unnecessary peak-time movements and raise a substantial amount of money from others.

A chance to say what you think

The new Greater Cambridge Partnership’s Big Conversation is a welcome initiative, even if it must be their last chance to get things right.

Cambridge can do better. But will it?

The authorities can take advantage of the expertise offered by the people they represent. Or they can spend their time arguing with us.

A walking tube map for Cambridge

The 'Metrominuto' map looks just like an underground map, showing lines of differing colours connecting different points of interest in the city.

Let Cherry Hinton set an example

The ‘spine’ of the new airport development should be a green corridor, ideal for walking and cycling, and it must be available from day one.

Our Streets are for Everyone

When did it first become acceptable for drivers to simply stop and leave their vehicles along one or both sides of the road?

Nodes before modes

Notice what’s missing in discussion about tunnels? Any mention of people. Forgive me repeating myself, but transport is about moving people (and goods) not vehicles.

Lobby politicians, not officers

There is one feature of the local government system that’s simple: politicians set policy; officers advise and deliver. So who should people lobby?

We don’t want Cambridge to be laughed at

We don't want Cambridge to one day be laughed at as the last place in Britain to splash concrete everywhere before breakthroughs in transport technology and organisation solved unpredictable journey times forever...

Making our Rural Roads Safer

Much has been discussed about major upgrades for busy rural roads. But we need to reduce crashes, save lives, and make rural travel safer for those in cars, on cycles, on horses and by foot on the 99% of rural roads...

A hard-headed look at buses

You probably know you can get a guided bus from Cambridge to Huntingdon? It takes 1hr 7mins. You can save yourself 14 minutes by catching the Whippet X3, which runs via Cambourne and Papworth – yes, via Cambourne. Take...

Cambourne needs a bus station

The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) is deeply mired in complexity and controversy over building a busway from Cambourne, an orbital link to Addenbrooke’s, and a new Park & Ride west of Cambridge. It has spent...

What are we trying to achieve for Milton Road?

Despite valiant efforts by the new team leading the Milton Road City Deal scheme, their ‘Final Concept’ still fails the 8-80 age test for cycling and provides much less green space than the community-backed ‘Do Optimum’...

Trumpington Park & Ride

The sudden and unexpected withdrawal of Grosvenor’s planning application for a sporting village and 520 houses south of Trumpington Meadows has created an opportunity. Some years ago the County Council negotiated a deal...

Reorganising buses is all the rage

Groningen, Oldenburg, Ghent, Hasselt, Bogotá and Algiers did it years ago. Houston and Seattle did it recently. Dublin is doing it now. Cambridge isn’t. But it should be. Houston, Texas radically simplified its bus...

Garbage in means garbage out

Long ago when I worked in traffic research, I spent many days on cold street corners, counting traffic at junctions. I saw the first use of transponders on buses to ‘advance’ a green phase at traffic lights over 40...

‘Tried and tested’ please

We’ve been hearing a lot recently about an ‘Advanced Very Rapid Transit’ system for the Greater Cambridge area using ‘bullet buses’ travelling at up to 120mph. The City Deal press release used the words ‘cutting-edge’...

Free is not always best

Recently local politicians have called for Cambridge’s Park & Ride car parks to be free again, and MPs have called for hospital car parks to be made free. ‘Free’ means somebody else is paying, in this case taxpayers...

Let’s make taking the bus more attractive

Twenty years ago, I found myself working in my company’s Manchester office for a week. One morning, the regional sales manager and I had an appointment in the city centre. In our suits and carrying briefcases, we...

Do I have to take a taxi from the station?

If we want to make Cambridge railway station less car dependent, what more could we do to promote walking, cycling and bus travel? Many visitors arriving at the station take a taxi simply because other options are...

More space for living, less for parking

You may be aware that Murdoch House, on the corner of Cambridge’s Station Square, is set to be replaced, but did you know that more buildings are planned to go up on the car park? Initial designs (currently being...

Let’s change the way public transport works here

The Dutch are well-known for their high-quality cycleways. They also do a very good job of running public transport. First, they have OV-chipkaart, a national smart card that lets you tap-and-go on just about any train...

Concrete is not the only solution

Aren’t you just loving the 2017 election season? In the local elections, we had weeks of talk about headline-grabbing transport infrastructure projects. Most candidates stated an ambition to solve the region’s transport...

Saving the Green Belt with sustainable transport

Green belt land has two purposes: preserving countryside for future generations, and preventing urban sprawl. Unfortunately our green belt protection policies are failing to prevent sprawl, and endangering the...

A lesson from Plymouth

In the excellent Urban Transport Without The Hot Air by Steve Melia, there’s a study that has important implications for Cambridge and Cambourne. Ivybridge is a small town in Devon, just under 10 miles from Plymouth...

Time for a railway station at Fulbourn Hospital

One of the great frustrations with transport planning in the UK is that it is easier, quicker and often cheaper for a local authority to build a new road than it is for the same local authority, Network Rail and train...

We need to talk about ‘consultation’

It’s time to change the way ‘consultation’ works (or doesn’t). Currently, residents might learn about a council project for the first time from an invitation to a ‘briefing’. Those who have time and inclination to...

Invest in rail, not dualling the A10

The argument for dualling the A10 from Ely is that it requires more capacity to cope with population growth; that slow commute times put fewer jobs within commuting distance and reduce economic productivity (though, for...

Building more road capacity is futile

As long ago as 1924 it was realised that building new roads attracts additional traffic. In 1994 the Government Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment confirmed this in a landmark report, which led to the...

Neighbourhood parking: what it’s really about

The County Council highways committee voted last week to pass a new policy on neighbourhood parking – to be precise, they passed half a policy. New types of permit will be available, including for tradespeople, doctors...

Why Community Involvement is Essential

By the time you read this, the City Deal will have rubber-stamped funding for the set-up of neighbourhood parking schemes in Cambridge and beyond. While this policy was being developed, one such scheme was already going...

Let’s make our buses easier to understand

Those who don’t understand public transport don’t use it. Bus operators and local authorities all over the world could help themselves by giving passengers the sort of usability we take for granted on metro...

Bus franchising: a golden opportunity

The Bus Services Bill allows the mayor here in Cambridgeshire to adopt London-style franchising of bus services. This is a golden opportunity for innovation.

How do you solve a problem like moving a small town every day?

I haven’t met many people who fully grasp how big the Addenbrooke’s site (the Biomedical Campus) will become. It already hosts 15,000 employees, but the total could be double that, or 30,000, by 2030. To put things in...

What is ‘Inbound Flow Control’?

You will know that the City Deal has plans (“but no decisions have been made yet”) to build a busway from Cambourne to Cambridge, to add more bus lanes to Milton Road, and to build a bus lane on Histon Rd between King’s...

Should Park & Ride parking be free?

Cambridge’s MP and all three voting members of the City Deal Executive Board have called for the £1 parking charge at Park & Ride sites to be removed. The intention is good, but the policy is wrong. The seven...

Where is the vision?

A refrain running through many of the questions to the City Deal is, “Where is the vision?” When Smarter Cambridge Transport put this question to the board last week, the audience was treated to three slides with vision...

We won’t have clean air if we say no to everything

Clean air. Who’s going to argue against that? None of us wants to breathe in dirty, life-shortening air. The figure of 47 deaths per year attributable to air pollution locally, cited recently on Cambridge Independent’s...

How many cars do you think drive into Cambridge most weekdays?

A quiz for you: how many cars do you think drive into Cambridge most weekdays? What proportion are looking to park on the streets for free? If we incentivised people not to do this, would it make a difference? We now...

What is Tactical Urbanism?

Transport planning is like economics: many competing theories, a tendency to examine measurable things (like traffic) and ignore the actors (people), and limited success in making accurate predictions. Traditionally...

Ways in which we must follow Anne Hidalgo’s lead

Think of a mayor. Perhaps Boris Johnson springs to mind? A man whose pre-Brexit legacy was to start a cycling revolution in London: ‘Boris bikes’ and cycle superhighways. Maybe Rudy Giuliani? Famous for Zero Tolerance...

Some New Year’s Resolutions for 2017

Have you thought about New Year’s Resolutions? Well, here are a few suggestions: 1. Get fit and save money: no need to buy gym membership; just fit walking and maybe cycling into your daily routine. Maybe try not...

Delivery Hubs for smarter goods distribution

Sometimes we don’t appreciate what a great example Santa Claus sets. All those presents from his toymakers are gathered together at a single distribution centre. Elves group the deliveries by chimney, and these...

Only Connect: a pretty good motto for public transport

Before Victoria Coren claimed ownership of “Only Connect,” it was E M Forster’s, extolling humans’ need to for connection. It’s also a pretty good motto for public transport: we spend a lot of time talking about cars...

Air pollution: killing 40,000 people across the UK every year

Did you know that air pollution kills an estimated 40,000 people across the UK every year? That compares with 1,800 road deaths. In October nine Royal Colleges of Medicine launched the Breath of Fresh Air initiative...

What do we want from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayor?

“I’ll be with you in a minute. I’m listening to the mayor on the radio.” On 5 May 2017, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will join a handful of cities and regions with powers and money devolved from government. The...

A Metro for Cambridge

There has been great interest in the light rail scheme proposed by Cambridge Connect. It’s obvious why: rail services are easy to understand, reliable, safe, comfortable and usually come with high quality stations...

Streetscape: Good design principles

Streets make up three-quarters of the open space of a City. They can be famously beautiful like the Backs on Queens Road, or they could be chic ‘zones’ in a new residential area. Good streets should be practical, safe...

Where is the Hills Road cycleway project review?

Successful businesses are built on the maxim “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. So imagine for a moment that one of Cambridge’s world-leading businesses instituted a project which overran its budget by...

On-street parking

Does your neighbourhood resemble ‘Parking Wars’, the recent ITV show featuring Cambridge? Are your streets magnets for commuters, making life difficult for you, your visitors, tradespeople and carers? Streets...

Rebooting the City Deal

[This article has been edited as the event has now passed] The Greater Cambridge City Deal: was there ever an initiative in Cambridge that united so many disparate groups of people against it, for so many different...

Cambourne to Cambridge busway

The City Deal is proposing spending a £142m on a new road for buses from Cambourne to Cambridge. That might seem like a good idea, especially if you live in Cambourne, Highfields Caldecote or Hardwick and commute into...