Ealing Liberal Democrats

Transport

Introduction

Ealing is one of the busiest transport interchanges in London. Londoners are sick and tired of a bad transport system.

Research has forecast that traffic congestion will rise by 20% in Ealing by 2010. Government spending on public transport has declined by 14% in real terms since 1997. Ealing council spends 15% less than the London average on public transport.

Liberal Democrat policies would see a significant increase in public transport investment and we will fight for a safer, more reliable, integrated transport system.

Walking

Walking is the most environmentally friendly form of transport and is very healthy. But pedestrians are 18 times more at risk than those driving. We will:

• Improve both the badly maintained pavements and the poorly resourced lighting within Ealing. This will make walking in Ealing safer and easier to get from A to B. Compared with the London average, Ealing has three times as many street lights which do not work
• Increase the proportion of pedestrian crossings that have facilities for the disabled
• Generally install puffin crossings instead of pelican crossings when new crossings in Ealing are needed; these are better for both vehicle drivers (as they detect when someone has pressed the button and run away) and people crossing the road (as they detect when someone is still crossing the road and if so, do not allow vehicles to proceed)
• Convert some existing pelican crossings to puffin crossings, to reduce the large number of road traffic accidents that occur in Ealing
• Signpost more footpaths so that people can see where they may walk. Ealing only signposts 8% of its footpaths from the road, while the average for London is 48%.

Cycling

Labour’s national cycling strategy (to double cycling rates by 2002) has been swept aside and the target date is now 2005/6. Cycling only accounts for 0.6% of the total distance travelled. Liberal Democrats will:

• Deliver policies to quadruple cycling by 2010
• Make sure that there is significant space for cyclists to secure their cycles outside tube and train stations
• Require Ealing Council to develop more ‘Safety Travel Plans’ which increase the number of children who can cycle (and walk) to school whilst improving their children’s health and safety
• Introduce a network of cycle lanes and off-road cycle paths so that cyclists can travel in more areas of the borough without having to move on and off the road network
• Require public transport operators (i.e. bus and trains) to develop plans for carrying cycles on any new vehicles/rolling stock.

Cars

It is recognised that motorised transport generates more fumes and pollution than walking and cycling, so we encourage more environmentally favourable transport types to enable us to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads. Air pollution alone causes 24,000 deaths each year in the UK. And congestion is estimated to cost industry £20 billion pounds a year nationally. We will:

• Set targets to reduce the proportion of traffic that is vehicular by 1% each year. This will reduce the amount of pollutants put into the atmosphere in a measured and targeted way, helping to reduce asthma and other related conditions
• Encourage a higher use of scooters or motorcycles (to replace cars) by having more parking areas dedicated for scooters and motorcycles. Such new parking areas would be more secure than current ones. We will also campaign for bus lanes to be used by scooters and motorcycles, to reduce road congestion
• Introduce a Green Travel plan (to get staff to and from work in groups and so in a more sustainable way) which the council has promised for many years now
• Support the European Car Free day and make more efforts to extend Ealing’s contribution to the event, which demonstrates that society can live without using so many motor vehicles. Back other ways of encouraging people to use their cars less frequently.
• Campaign to allow local authorities to be able to borrow future revenues (from congestion charging schemes) so that money can be spent NOW on improving public transport
• Campaign to place a duty on local authorities such as Ealing to develop an integrated transport policy that takes congestion and pollution into account.
• We will ensure that the council is more forceful in using current legislation to fine companies which dig up roads unnecessarily. This will lead to more utility companies speaking to each other and thus reduce the amount of time that roads are unusable.

Parking management

Many controlled parking zones (CPZs) have been introduced and many have been controversial, mainly because the consultation exercises have been badly conducted. We will:

• Make sure that the CPZ consultations are fair, not biased, and are run competently
• Not permit the same company to run both the consultation exercise and evaluate the responses, and operate any CPZ scheme after implementation — as this leads to perceptions of unfairness
• Feed back all the profits from CPZ schemes into transport schemes within the area from which the profits have come.

We are against the introduction of vehicle clamping. Vehicles parked and causing an obstruction should be removed, not clamped.

Road Safety

The casualty rate for child pedestrians is amongst the worst in Europe. Those cycling still remain at risk as there are approximately 15 times as many cyclist casualties compared to those driving cars. Each road death costs the NHS an estimated £1 million. We will:

• Install more 20 mph zones in residential areas
• Support the current home zone, based in West Ealing, and encourage more home zone projects to be introduced within Ealing.

Tube

Liberal Democrats have been opposed to the Government's tube privatisation plans since they were first proposed and have consistently campaigned for an alternative solution, using bonds, that would keep the Tube in public hands and allow for investment to modernise the tube network whilst improving safety. You can find out more about our campaign at http://www.getlondonmoving.org. Locally, we will continue to:

• Campaign for Piccadilly Line trains to stop at Turnham Green tube station
• Push to upgrade disabled access at stations such as Ealing Broadway so that disabled, elderly and infirm people have better access
• Persuade London Transport to install more signs displaying when tubes are due and where they are going (particularly on the District Line)
• Support the campaign to introduce a tube station in Southall
• Campaign to ensure that more tube stations have toilet facilities

Rail

Much has been said about the reliability and level of service which train companies offer to customers. Ealing has a number of train stations which certainly deserve a better quality of station. To do this we shall:

• Work to make sure that all Ealing’s train and tube stations become accredited with a ‘secure station’ charter mark [this was introduced in 1998, however only 1% of stations currently meet the criteria]. This means that the station will be safer because of good lighting and CCTV. It will have a low crime rate and have better staff presence in case of emergencies. This will help those more at risk such as the elderly and women
• Make sure that better and more up-to-date information is available to the public outside the stations. For instance, signs at bus stops could show when the next train is leaving from a nearby station
• Campaign for rail services on existing track linking Ealing Broadway to High Wycombe, Kingston and St. Albans
• Support the CrossRail proposal, with stops at stations from Paddington, Hanwell, West Ealing and Southall.

Buses

Bus use in Great Britain has been declining for years; bus passenger journeys fell by a third — from 6.5 billion to 4.3 billion. Between 1997 and 2000 fares increased by 6% up to an average fare of 63p, whilst the average cost of motoring has increased by just 2%. Only 63% of users are satisfied with bus service reliability and only 59% of users are satisfied with bus stop information. We will:

• Step up the enforcement of bus lanes by using cameras and more traffic wardens on buses, and ensure that those using the bus lanes when they should not are fined
• Advocate that the 207 bus route terminates at Coldharbour Lane, not the Hayes bypass, thus allowing people to change for Heathrow (using the 140 bus route) or Feltham (by the 90)
• Encourage more night bus routes from outside Ealing, such as Brent
• Extend bus lanes so more are joined to each other and promote bus use

Air travel

Liberal Democrat policy on this subject relates very much to Terminal 5 (T5) policy. We do not support the T5 initiative locally due to the large negative environmental and noise effects; however because the decision has been taken we think it useful to make the following points:

• That a strategic approach be adopted for airports, so that several London airports increase by smaller amounts rather than just having a large increase at one airport
• We do not agree with the idea of a third runway at Heathrow
• We will campaign to phase out and then ban night flights
• We will campaign to phase out noisy aircraft using the regulations that exist, and reimpose the limit of 275,000 flights over Ealing per year (in 1996 it was 435,000 and growing).

West London Transit

The Mayor of London will soon decide whether to replace the 207 and 607 buses along the Uxbridge Road with either trams, trolley buses or higher quality buses.

The consultation document sent out in October 2001 was not broadly circulated enough and did not make it clear enough that, whichever vehicle type is chosen, the planners expect it to have its own dedicated lanes on the road. This will of course prevent it being delayed by road congestion (which would otherwise make it a waste of time since congestion would prevent travel time from being reduced). However, for much of its length the Uxbridge Road is not wide enough for four lanes (two for the new transport vehicles, and two for everyone else) and nothing in the plan shows where all the displaced traffic will go.

So while we are in favour of the concept, we believe that installation costs and disruption should be kept to a minimum by using buses along strictly enforced bus lanes. Other buses which use parts of the Uxbridge Road can then use the same lanes and, if the project is a success, a more sophisticated vehicle system can be considered in the future.

These points must be also taken into account:

• The public should be consulted fully throughout the project so that their opinion counts
• The price of using the scheme should be cheap enough to encourage this type of public transport
• If a bus is used, it should be a non-polluting vehicle, not a conventional diesel vehicle
• When any engineering work has to be carried out it should be done in such a way that local businesses do not suffer, especially in West Ealing, Southall, Acton and Hanwell.

Improving access to travel for the disabled

• We will make sure disabled parking places are more suitably located within a new development by ensuring that this is requested within a planning application. We will also campaign to ensure that that there is adequate disabled parking facilities within the borough and that disabled parking spaces are strictly enforced.
• We will campaign for all Ealing’s train and tube stations to be made accessible to the elderly, disabled and infirm (by installing lifts and ramps). This is especially required at Ealing Broadway station.
• We will increase the number of pedestrian crossings which have facilities for the blind or the disabled.

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Published by Martin Tod on behalf of Ealing Liberal Democrats all at 23 Fairlawn Court, Acton Lane, London W4 5EE. Printed and hosted by freenetname, 113 - 123 Upper Richmond Road, London SW15 2TL