Agenda item

The draft final report on Traffic Congestion is presented for consideration by the committee.

Members considered the draft final report of the Committee which had examined ways, including Local Transport Plans 1 and 2 (LTP1 and LTP2) and other evidence, of reducing present traffic levels of traffic congestion in York, and ways of minimising the impact of the forecast traffic increase.

To fully investigate and understand the affects that congestion and the improvement areas identified within the remit Members had held a series of meetings between November 2006 and June 2008.

The Committee had concluded that the broad overall solution to both congestion and the climate change challenge was a concerted approach using the following hierarchy of measures:

i.               Reducing the need to travel (through IT, land use planning policies and other solutions)

ii.             Undertaking more of the journeys that still need to be made by green and environmentally less damaging modes

iii.           Improving engine efficiency and switch to lower / non-carbon based fuels

iv.            Undertaking a greater proportion of car based journeys on a shared basis

v.              Improving driving standards (for fuel efficiency and safety, and to make roads safer and more attractive to green travel modes)

vi.            Reducing congestion delays and fuel wastage in traffic queues.

It was reported that comments on the draft final report had been received from Chris Chambers on behalf of the York Environment Forum details of which had been emailed to Members and hard copies circulated at the meeting. The Forum supported the need for an immediate action plan to improve traffic congestion and air quality in the city. 

Consideration was given to all the information in the covering report, the draft final report at Annex A and its associated annexes and to the following options:

i)                    Amending the findings detailed within the report

ii)                  Inserting additional information

iii)                Amending and/or agreeing the vision for York’s long-term transport strategy as suggested in paragraph 69

iv)                Drafting and agreeing a subsidiary vision for public transport for inclusion in the final report at paragraph 70

v)                  Amending and/or agreeing the conclusions and recommendations within the report (as shown at paragraphs 79 – 84 & 91 - 93)

RESOLVED:   That subject to the various amendments and additions suggested at the meeting together with the inclusion of information from the Air Quality Update report, agreement be given to the draft final report and annexes of the Traffic Congestion Scrutiny Review.

REASON:      To progress and finalise this review and to enable implementation of the Committees recommendations.