Better Transport

Building roads is no long-term solution to dealing with congestion and traffic. As the Government itself readily says, "we cannot build our way out of congestion". Building more roads simply leads to an increase in traffic growth, pollution, noise and carbon emissions. It also means that money is diverted away from the sustainable alternatives.

Rather than building more roads, the Government needs to dramatically cut the roads programme and to reduce traffic. Scientists tell us that we need to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 80% by 2050. We urgently need to reduce emissions, not increase them.

Building roads is hugely expensive, with only limited and short-term benefits The £12 billion road building programme contains many damaging proposals and that money should instead be directed into rail, light rail and bus schemes so that we have good alternatives to taking a car. Most journeys are under three miles and could easily be cycled or walked, but this won’t happen if we continue to encourage a car-dependent culture by building more roads. We need to make walking and cycling more attractive and safer, and that happens when we reduce traffic.

We wrote to the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, in January 2008, offering more detail about how taxation could be used to tackle climate change.