Transport is one of those subjects that everyone has an opinion about, because it affects us all.
Whether we travel by bus or train, drive a car, ride a bike, walk or do all of the above, we all spend varying degrees of our time travelling. And of course, we all want to get to our destinations as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
The problem comes when you have a hugely successful town with a growing population and a road network with restricted capacity.
Last week, the Reading Transport Strategy 2040 was adopted after a substantial public consultation. It attracted a record number of responses which showed strong support for a more sustainable future.
The detailed 180-page document is ambitious, aspirational and creates a vision of a future Reading as an attractive, clean and healthy place to live, work and visit.
Achieving that goal is a big challenge. Reading boast one of the UK’s fastest growing economies and is a major centre for employment, leisure and education in the Thames Valley. That means it attracts many thousands of inward journeys from people who do not live in the town. While we welcome so many people wanting to work and visit our town, it puts enormous pressure on our transport infrastructure.
It is essential we ensure there are high quality and realistic sustainable alternatives to the private car and our transport strategy sets out how that is to be achieved.
We already have one of the best bus services in the country and we want to make travelling by bus even more reliable, convenient and easier. Our town is also very well served by the railways. A modern central station, sits alongside a new station at Green Park, an upgraded Reading West and new customer lifts at Tilehurst station.
We also need more external funding to deliver a trulyintegrated cycle network which encourages people to get on their bikes and quality pedestrian infrastructure to support walking.
Aside from people travelling to Reading for work, leisure and education, there is evidence that a significant proportion of traffic in Reading – particularly on the Inner Distribution Road and the two bridges over the Thames – have absolutely no business in Reading. We cannot just sit on our hands as thousands of vehicles and lorries which have no origin, destination or purpose in Reading use our town as a short cut, causing additional traffic, polluting the air and damaging the health of Reading residents.
I was interested to note the recent call by six parish councils in Oxfordshire for the Third Thames Bridge to be removed from Reading Local Transport Plan. There is nothing new in that of course. Their fear is that they will be overrun with traffic. The subtext, of course, is that it is fine for that traffic to sit idling in Reading however.
There is no guarantee that a Third Thames Bridge, and the associated park and rides to the north of Reading, which would also be required, will ever come to fruition of course, given the dire state of national finances inherited by the Government. In the meantime however, we make absolutely no excuse for including it again in Reading’s new Local Transport Plan, despite the predictable objections of some neighbours.
The Council and its partners have achieved a great deal to improve sustainable travel in Reading but there is still a lot to do and the Reading Transport Strategy 2040 lays out how we plan to do it.Liz Terry is the leader of Reading Borough Council
