Green Party Councillors at Warwickshire County Council ensured that transport projects overseen by the Council should prioritise active travel and then public transport before considering the motor vehicle.
This ‘transport hierarchy’ has been around for a long time in theory, but rarely implemented in practice.
Green Party Councillor Jonathan Chilvers who proposed the amendment said:
“The Council’s new local transport plan is too vague and has taken far too long to produce, but by making sure the transport hierarchy is included in future design documents it provides a clear steer for developers and transport planners: active travel considerations come first.
There are times when the private motor vehicle is the only option, especially in rural areas, but when new transport schemes are designed they must prioritise providing safe routes for shorter journeys to work and school and affordable frequent public transport on key trunk routes. Too often the default position has been ‘build a bigger road across our countryside’.
Active travel and public transport improve health and air quality and free up road space for when we do need our cars.”
The full proposal agreed by the Council reads: “That Council adopts the Local Transport Plan for Warwickshire (LTP4) at Appendix A which supersedes and replaces the existing plan (LTP3) and will adopt the guiding principles of the Transport Hieararchy set out in LTP4 within the Council’s Design Guide and project lifecycle documents to embed and demonstrate the application of those principles across our transport infrastructure projects.”
You can read the new LTP4 here: https://democracy.warwickshire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=275&MId=3653&Ver=4
