The Council has released a draft of its proposed Movement Strategy, a document that will guide Newcastle’s transport development until 2045 and wants to hear residents’ views on how they move around the city by 29th November 2024.
The Council’s website states:
“The Movement Strategy will guide Newcastle’s transport development until 2045. Our goal is to reduce traffic, improve public transport, promote active travel like walking, wheeling and cycling, and reduce carbon emissions, all while ensuring the transport system works for our residents, businesses and visitors.”
There is an information booklet to read that details what is being set out. You can find this on the Council’s website and you can share your views through an online questionnaire.
Are the proposals any good?
There are a lot of good points in the document released by the Council. The fact that transport accounts for 1/3 of the city’s CO2 emissions is mentioned early on, along with the fact that 37% of Newcastle households don’t have access to a car (a number that is higher for large parts of Heaton).
Creating a high quality cycling network is included along side investing in public transport schemes and ensuring car parking doesn’t dominate public spaces. “Reviewing some of our roadside space (where parking often occurs) to provide other opportunities such as low-emission vehicle bays, bike parking, seats and shelters.” could lead to some interesting changes depending on how it’s interpreted.
The prioritisation of pedestrians gets mentioned and is very welcome.
A section on reducing private vehicle use is heavy on strategies and digital rather than anything concrete, but using parking to discourage car use gets a mention earlier on, so there is a lot to build on.
More consultation?
Anybody who lives in Heaton and would like to see improved public transport and better active travel facilities may be suffering from consultation fatigue after years of proposals and little action.
The Streets for People process, originally started in late 2016 eventually lead to the extension to the Heaton Road cycle lanes opening in 2023. 2022 saw the implementation of the trial Safer Heaton scheme after a year of consultation. 2024 more consultation before the scheme removed.
2024 also saw the Council release a report that included options for installing a bus lane on the Coast Road before immediately ruling out installing bus lanes on the Coast Road, but there wasn’t any consultation for that.
So is it worth contributing to this process?
Yes.
Two things can be guaranteed with most consultations.
- Very few people will contribute over all.
- Most people contributing will be of the ‘no change’ view.
It’s vitally important that the Council knows that there are lot of people wanting to travel around easily by walking, wheeling and cycling and that those people support the changes required to allow that and want to see them happen.
What can you do?
Firstly have a read of the proposed Movement Strategy, then contribute your thoughts.
By contributing to the consultation you can help shape the future of transport in the city. The process is fairly straight forward. Along with some multiple choice questions where you can say if you agree with something or not the consultation has 4 other questions:
- Are there any other priorities you think should be included?
- If you have any suggestions for additional principles that should be included in the Movement Strategy, please include them here.
- If there are any additional actions you think we should take to improve transport in Newcastle please tell us about them here:
- If you have any final comments or suggestions about the proposed Movement Strategy, please tell us about them here:
There is a wealth of things that could be added in response to these questions and SPACE for Gosforth has compiled a comprehensive list that is worth reading.
For priorities, the proposed strategy mentions “Creating a high-quality walking and cycling network”, but this needs to be a complete network sooner rather than later. In Heaton we have seen bits of a network installed, but without being finished and linked to other parts the usefulness is limited. This is a crucial part of enabling children living in Heaton to access schools north of the Coast Road safely. It is no good having high quality protected cycle lanes that stop short of very busy junctions.
Additionally, the strategy has a section on “Promoting low-emission vehicles”. Any move to electric, zero emission vehicles should be welcomed, but it also need to be acknowledged that, other than tail pipe emissions, two lanes of electric cars queuing for a mile on the Coast Road will delay the same number of bus passengers as two lanes of petrol powered cars. There is mention of encouraging alternatives to the private car, but this needs to be a headline priority.
The strategy talks about encouraging alternatives to driving, which is good. However, the Council has tried to implement schemes to do just that in the past few years only to remove them all. There needs to be a focus on what would be effective, not would would upset the least amount of people.
For additional principles, we think Vision Zero should be included:
“it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system”, or in other words “Life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society”
In the five years 2019 – 2023 five pedestrians or cyclists were killed and over a thousand were injured on Newcastle’s roads. It should be a fundamental principal that anybody should be able to wait for a bus, walk to school or travel to work without the fear of being injured or worse.
Any final comments – There are a lot of positive things in the proposed Movement Strategy. However one thing needs to be remembered. No matter how much consultation has been done, a strategy is no good unless and until it is implemented.
Once the consultation exercise is finished and the strategy finalised Newcastle needs to seem some leadership, and see tough decisions being made for the benefit of all the city’s residents, not just those with the loudest voices.
It may also be worth reminding the city’s councillors they are almost half way through the time they gave themselves when they declared a Climate Emergency and that transport could play a huge part in meeting their target.
Respond by 29th November
You can find out all the details about the Movement Strategy on the Council’s website.
Make sure you take part and get your voice heard by the 29th November by filling in the questionaire here.