The consultation period on the new transport plan for Kent started at the end of June, and the survey will be open until September. You are advised to read the plan before filling in the survey. Basically, the plan is trying to do two things: make journeys in Kent easier and achieve net-zero carbon targets. It is also trying to achieve healthier outcomes, by encouraging active travel and better air quality.
Car transport incentivised
In my view, these aims do not fit well together. For example, building more roads, or improving them, incentivises more car travel. This causes new traffic jams and gridlock, with more emissions of harmful particulates into the air we all breathe. My problem with the survey is that it will garner responses depending on who it reaches. As both the plan and the survey require good literacy and digital access, it is likely to attract more responses from car owners and fewer from users of public transport. So the data analysts really need to know more about the characteristics of the respondents. There is an optional extra to give some of these details, as required by Equality legislation, but it just covers age, gender, race, disability and carer status. It does not provide the essential data on whether respondents are mainly users of private cars or users of public transport.
There is an open box for comments on most pages, so I added the information that I was filling it in as a committed user of public transport and a non-car owner. Indeed, on the last page about policy options, I selected only those that apply to public transport and pedestrians, and left blank any that apply to “improvements” for traffic and roads generally. So – note the warning – this is also the perspective from which I write this article about this emerging transport plan.
Aims of the plan
There are nine aims listed for the emerging plan, as simplified in the list below:
- Transport networks satisfactorily maintained
- Road safety improved
- Support International routes positive for Kent economy but reduce negative effects of road haulage
- Restore international rail links
- Improve infrastructure (highways and public transport) to reduce congestion due to development
- Create better access to Kent leisure destinations
- Roadside air quality improves as traffic decarbonises
- Grow public transport
- Active travel (cycling and walking) encouraged to improve health
At one point, these are placed in a checklist beside the four aims proposed in the four-year strategy for Kent produced last year:
- Levelling-up Kent (there are deprived coastal communities in Kent)
- Infrastructure for communities
- Environmental step-change
- New models for care and support
Public transport users
So far, so good. But, as I asked above, are the bus users of Seasalter (Regents bus) or the non-car-owning carers (trying to get an outpatient by Stagecoach bus C to William Harvey hospital for a 9 am appointment) really going to respond to this survey? In my view, public transport often seems to be planned without really considering different types of users. The one type of passenger that is considered for the buses is for the school run, with special term-time provision. But there are other types of institutions that should be considered in planning, especially for buses. I have met fellow bus passengers trying to get to a hospital from a rural place, where the bus connection is complicated.
In my own experience with appointments for skin ailments on the sole of the foot at the Kent and Canterbury hospital, this necessitates a train ride from Ashford to Canterbury and then a WALK to the bus station through town to catch the hospital bus. Why not a regular bus direct from the station, as the East Kent Hospitals Trust has a large catchment area beyond Canterbury?
Another example is from Ashford, where the C bus wends around the Willesborough suburbs for 20 minutes, often held up by careless parking on narrow turns, before getting to the hospital. Why not more fast buses down Hythe road, and a bus shelter with seats at the S stop in Wellesley Street, where passengers, sometimes infirm, wait in the sun and the rain? So, to sum up, the transport survey should not be just a digital effort on a website: they should send out researchers to meet the users where they are.
No control over transport companies
One problem, which the KCC document acknowledges, is that they do not have control over the transport companies. Buses are all run by private companies (Stagecoach, Arriva, Regent). Southeastern, for the train network, is a company wholly owned by the national government. So, how much say does KCC have? I tested this out for the buses. There is an infuriating cross-over stop for Stagecoach and Regent buses at Faversham: the buses arrive at the same time, but they will not wait for each other. I asked the Regent driver why not, and he replied that KCC would fine them if they were late. (Really? For a wait of 5 minutes at the most?) I then spent about six months trying to ascertain this from KCC, and finally got the reply that they had forwarded the query to the bus companies! Nil response from them so far.
The good news is that KCC has been quite skilful at gathering money for transport improvements recently, about £400m. But I suspect the temptation is to spend money on flashy bus projects, like Fasttrack in Dartford and now in Dover, rather than more gradual improvements based on careful user research in various areas.
Short-term politics
Also, there is the allure of fast politics rather than slow politics, which looks at what is needed 40 years ahead, or for the next generation. Politicians have to respond to what voters say now, as that is what powers election contests. But transport planning and infrastructure need much longer timelines. Many respondents to this survey will be car owners frustrated by potholes, traffic jams, lack of parking space, and lack of e-chargers. They simply cannot imagine a future with fewer cars, with streets where children can play again, and better air quality.
We could start with more incentives for shared rides to work. Currently, there are some e-billboards that exhort this. But looking at the traffic jams (mostly during the school rush), I think the survey needs to be done within each institution or enterprise. How do the employers and the users get to that destination? Then, KCC should start giving incentives to the employers (and schools and hospitals) who manage to reduce car use. Why isn’t each school required to ask parents how they get their children to school and send the data to KCC? Also, of course, the Councils (KCC and the districts) should have an incentive scheme for their own employees to shift to active travel, or at least to shared cars.
I was shocked once to be sitting in the Faversham to Ashford bus at 4 pm in a 40 min traffic jam at a roundabout, almost all consisting of cars with one driver in them.
In short, my response to the survey was to tick anything that encourages a shift to public transport and active travel, and to discourage increased use of private cars.
