In 1994, a government committee report showed that building roads can generate traffic. Since then, there has been a lot of interest in whether the opposite is true - can reducing road space for cars cut traffic? This could be particularly important when introducing policies like bus lanes, which could provide a cheap and effective way to improve the attractiveness of public transport, but which would be untenable if displaced traffic brought neighbouring roads to a standstill.

Therefore London Transport and the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) commissioned research to investigate the question, and employed a team at University College London (UCL) to look at the evidence (as reported here), and the consultancy MVA to look at the modelling implications. Consequently the UCL team examined nearly 60 locations where road space had been taken away from cars and put to other use. In some cases, road space for cars had been reduced because of deliberate policies like bus lanes or pedestrianisation, in others it was because of problems like roadworks. Irrespective of the cause, in such circumstances, there are often predictions of major traffic chaos.

Examination of the evidence suggested that these predictions rarely, if ever, prove accurate. Prolonged, long-term gridlock is simply not reported, although there can be short-term disruption, and some increase in problems on particular local roads. In many cases, there were actually significant reductions in the total amount of traffic on the networks studied. In 1994, a government committee report showed that building roads can generate traffic. Since then, there has been a lot of interest in whether the opposite is true - can reducing road space for cars cut traffic? This could be particularly important when introducing policies like bus lanes, which could provide a cheap and effective way to improve the attractiveness of public transport, but which would be untenable if displaced traffic brought neighbouring roads to a standstill. The same issue is often raised during plans to introduce street-running light rail systems, cycle lanes, wider footpaths or pedestrianisation schemes.

Therefore London Transport and the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) commissioned research to investigate the question, and employed a team at University College London (UCL) to look at the evidence (as reported here), and the consultancy MVA to look at the modelling implications. Consequently the UCL team examined nearly 60 locations where road space had been taken away from cars and put to other use. Examples were studied from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, the USA, Canada, Tasmania and Japan. In some cases, road space for cars had been reduced because of deliberate policies like bus lanes or pedestrianisation, in others it was because of problems like roadworks. Irrespective of the cause, in such circumstances, there are often predictions of major traffic chaos.

Examination of the evidence suggested that these predictions rarely, if ever, prove accurate. Prolonged, long-term gridlock is simply not reported, although there can be short-term disruption, and some increase in problems on particular local roads. In many cases, there were actually significant reductions in the total amount of traffic on the networks studied. On average, 14-25% of the traffic that used to use the affected route, could not be found on the neighbouring streets. However, the results varied substantially, depending on the context. For example, where schemes made public transport more attractive, they were more likely to encourage people to change mode than those which did not.

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More Information: www.cts.ucl.ac.uk/tsu/tpab9828.htm