The British Government recently issued a white paper on its futuretransport strategy. Its central precept is unambiguous current trendsin traffic are unsustainable, from the point of view of theenvironment, business efficiency, health, and the unfeasibility ofproviding growth in road capacity that would keep pace with predictedgrowth in traffic. Much of the policy logic in the white paper stemsfrom the explicit abandonment of 'predict-and-provide' as a desirable- or possible - strategy. This leads to a recognition of theimportance of a co-ordinated approach to public transport, walkingand cycling, together with policies aimed at reducing less necessarytravel where possible, ensuring that the costs of congestion andenvironmental pollution are, as far as practical, met by those whocause them (in which the revenue from new pricing systems would bekept under local control and used for transport improvements); anemphasis on better maintenance and management of the road systemrather than increasing its capacity; consider- ation of the effectson transport of other policies in land-use, health, education etc,development of insti- tutional structures or contractual arrangementsable to bring these changes about, and conditions in which people'severyday behaviour and attitudes may be in harmony with policy,finance and environmental constraints. These themes did not arise outof the blue following the general election in 1997. They evolved overmany years, especially in nearly ten years of intense discussionconnected with the previous two governments' recognition t
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