Policies on the environment and transport need to be more closely integrated so that resources are conserved for future generations, states Government evidence to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution*.
The evidence makes it clear that long-term measures must be developed to tackle the effects of transport on air quality, climate change, noise and the urban and rural landscape. It also reiterates Government policy that transport users, so far as possible, should face the full economic and environmental costs which they impose.
Among the issues which the Royal Commission is being asked to consider is the role of pricing measures “in bringing home to transport users the wider environmental and economic costs of their travel choices, and in encouraging them, where feasible, to travel less and to choose more environmentally friendly means of transport”.
There is also the question of the the extent to which land-use and transport-planning systems need to be co-ordinated in order to enable decision-makers to take full account of the implications of new transport developments, and vice versa; and how far new development needs to be controlled so that greater possibilities are offered for walking, safe cycling or using public transport.
Further research is needed to enable a better understanding of the environmental effect of transport and methods of reducing it; for example, research on the factors affecting traffic growth or the effect of alternative economic or regulatory instruments.
The most immediate priority, the Government evidence suggests, isto give increased emphasis to developing economic instruments to achieve environmental objectives,in transport as elsewhere, as themost cost-effective solution in many cases.
*Joint evidence by Departments of the Environment and Transport to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. DOE,PO Box 135, Bradford BD9 4HU.
