Leader defends council plans for road charges
CARDIFF council leader Huw Thomas has defended proposals that could see drivers charged to enter Cardiff.
Earlier this week plans were announced that would see drivers face a daily congestion charge of £2 to enter Cardiff under proposals put forward by the city council.
The charge, for non-Cardiff residents, would be used to fund the city’s £2bn plans to improve public transport.
In an ambitious time-scale, the city proposes to accelerate the construction of a new tram-train Cardiff Crossrail from east to west across the city.
Councillor Thomas said the most frequent comment he has had since the proposals were published is that public transport in the city has to be improved.
“We want to improve the quality of public transport options in the city and coming into the city. We want to know the problems and see how we’re going to improve them and go about funding it,” he said.
We asked the council leader to answer some of the big questions resulting from the announcement...
It’s being called a tax on the Valleys – why aren’t you proposing to make people in Cardiff pay it?
“People in Cardiff already fund infrastructure in the city that all people travel on. They’re also paying for it in terms of air pollution, congested roads and other health outcomes.
“Half of commuting in the city is done by sustainable travel, walking or cycling, but 100,000 people will come from outside Cardiff daily and 80,000 drive so that’s why we think there’s the scope for behaviour change.
“We’re not proposing an extortionate charge like London, it’s not £10£15, it’s a nudge, but what we want to deliver is that whole transport provision and we’re looking at a congestion charge as one of those options.”
Wouldn’t making it a universal charge have a greater effect on changing driver behaviour and cutting out small journeys around the city?
“There are a number of proposals being made to make the city more sustainable in terms of travel. Within the plan, there’s changes being suggested that is going to make these smaller changes easier, done by walking or cycling, but also harder by car. There will be more cycleways, parking will be made more expensive and more bus lanes in the city – all to have an effect on driver behaviour.”
One of the restrictions is that Cardiff is an old city and that plans for extra cycle lanes and bus lanes have to be built within the existing footprint. Asked how the plans would be implemented, Cllr Thomas said it was “not without some difficult choices”.
“With the cycleway on Senghennydd Road, some parking has been taken away to enable that to happen.”
He said other options were to narrow car lanes.
“On Castle Street [a three to fourlane road], the most polluted, you could see a restriction in lanes that cars can use.
“This is about personal responsibility for personal travel behaviour in the context of climate change. There’s finally a recognition across society that when it comes to climate change one of the biggest personal contributions we make is our travel.”
Rhondda Cynon Taf council leader Andrew Morgan said areas outside Cardiff must see “real positive investment and changes as an alternative to car use” – will that happen and what could those be?
“I think that’s a really fair question and I am grateful to Andrew and other leaders for the constructive way that they’re engaging.
“If you look at the plan, you can see the kind of regional interaction that we want to see. We have the Metro coming to south Wales which we want to supercharge and speed up and want to see direct bus routes from the Valleys which don’t stop 20 times before north Cardiff but maybe at two or three key places. We’re also talking about park and rides and being able to invest in cross-Valleys routes as well.
“What we have published is a Cardiff transport system and we’re only talking at a high level about this wider vision. We’re going to have to have a business case produced and to work with Welsh Government, Transport for Wales and the wider region to develop this.”
Cllr Thomas was asked for his answer to the people who spend considerable time every day stuck in traffic, waiting for a Metro at least three years away and now facing charges.
He said: “If a charge is the mechanism that the business case backs, then we won’t start charging people until the infrastructure is in, it will be 2024 at the earliest”.
Cllr Thomas said that if the Metro or alternatives were delayed, any charge would also be.
“I can’t see any way we could justify it otherwise. What the business case would work out is what kind of income could we be generating from the congestion charge and if we’re going down that route, we would borrow money to fund infrastructure over 10 years and make sure there’s infrastructure there and the South Wales Metro.”
When is the council likely to be able to provide more detail about what the charging area would be?
“The reason why there isn’t detail is if we had published a full business case and plan is that people would say it’s a fait accompli. We’re publishing the vision and signalling that there’s debate about how we fund it.
“In the next 12-18 months I expect an outline business plan to emerge which looks at the options to fund it.”