GEARING UP FOR CHANGE

This article discusses the immense future challenge that the steady rise in car ownership poses to transport planners. As a result of local government changes in the UK, the way in which transport planning is conducted, and the people who will be responsible for it, will change. Thus it is important to understand transport changes and make appropriate plans for the future. Much must still be learned about the relationship between transport and the environment. The availability of transport is not sufficient to generate new land use patterns, but the impact of land use on transport is much more significant, though often poorly understood. The increasing proportion of car-owning households is leading to broader peak periods and to the increasing relative importance of non-peak periods. The chief long- term environmental effect of increasing car traffic will be pollution from vehicle exhausts, although this should be substantially reduced because of European legislation requiring all new cars to be fitted with catalytic converters. But urban traffic emissions will not fall significantly, unless catalysts can be designed to be effective at the beginning of car journeys or many more short journeys are made by other modes. The authors conclude that decisions on priorities should be taken at a county or sub-regional level to ensure balanced and sustainable investments of scarce financial resources.