The four sub regional authorities have taken a major step towards tackling the region's congestion challenges with the submission of Our Future Transport to the Department for Transport (DfT) in October 2007. The document represents the first stage of a process that sees the four West of England authorities -
Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire - uniting to express continued interest in developing a bid for a slice of the Government's £1.4bn Transport Innovation Fund.
Our Future Transport (
click here to download) looks at the traffic problems facing the area and highlights the various measures being considered to tackle them and provide significant improvements to public transport and the road network. Proposed measures include; new Rapid Transit routes featuring partially segregated bus lanes to provide fast and reliable journey times; improvements to rail services including extra carriages on existing services; additional rail services; the reopening of rail lines, new stations and improved facilities at existing stations.The document also lays out initial proposals for a possible funding application from the Government's Transport Innovation Fund (TIF).
Subject to further consultation, and the approval of all the councils involved, the West of England authorities aim to submit a full application in summer 2008. It is expected that a decision from the Government on whether to provide funding would then come later in the year.
To view maps of the proposals:
Our transport vision for the next 20 years is shown on the Transport Vision to 2026 Map.
Our transport vision includes a number of measures which have already been agreed and have funds allocated to implement them, as shown on the Committed Schemes map.
To provide attractive alternatives to the car, TIF development work has confirmed the need for an extensive and wide-ranging package of transport improvements. Details of these improvements are shown together with Committed Schemes on the Committed Schemes plus TIF map.
What's been happening?
Since we submitted Our Future Transport to the DfT in October last year, consultation with a range of stakeholders and further technical work developing the detail of our proposals has been taking place.
To be successful in obtaining TIF funding, the package of transport measures must include a combination of demand management measures, such as road user charging and workplace parking charges, with better public transport services to provide real alternatives to the car.
Our Future Transport stressed that any charges would only be introduced once significant improvements had been made to the transport infrastructure and that charges would not be implemented until 2013 at the earliest.
The document also emphasised that extensive community and stakeholder consultation would be carried out once, and if, the bid is submitted later this year. A further three years technical refinement of the proposed transport measures and ongoing engagement will then follow.
In January, the bid received a big boost when it was awarded an extra £675,000 by Government to continue with the technical work needed to develop the proposals.
We now have a clearer picture of the key public transport and other improvements that would be in place before and soon after a charging scheme is introduced. These are described in the first of a planned series of updates (click here to download) produced in March 2008.
Click here to register for future updates, or
Call our hotline on: 0800 019 3235 or
Write to (no stamp required):
West of England - Transport Innovation Fund
Freepost, (BS 6529)
Bristol
BS1 5BR
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