Transport Commission Report Published

The transport commission published its findings at 5.30pm today.

The key recommendations from the Executive Sumary were:

"1. Cambridgeshire County Council submit a full TIF bid to secure resources from Government to make improvements to cycling, walking and public transport, broadly in line with the proposals set out in Appendix 2 to our report.

2. Cambridgeshire County Council inform the Government that it has not ruled out the introduction of a congestion charging regime, but that it accepts the clear evidence that such a regime would be unacceptable without a programme of investment, including the TIF investment proposals, A14 widening and Chesterton Station and in any case no such scheme should be introduced without further public information and consultation, and not before 2017 at the earliest."

It is difficult to see how this moves things on much further. Congestion charging simply isn't acceptable to a large part of the electorate, as the full report (p48-49) acknowledges. Yes we will need the transport infrastructure improvements outlined in the recommendations - but if the government doesn't want to fund this without using Cambridge as a congestion charging guinea pig, then we should tell it we aren't going to co-operate with any of their plans to swamp the subregion with massive new housing developments - its as simple as that.