Sustainable Transport in
Barking
And Surrounding
Areas
Views
28 May 2005 –
Heathway and The Mall – viability
With the news that WH
Smith is to close its branch at Dagenham Heathway came happier – perhaps – news
of B&D council’s plans to pep up the area. What should they do – if anything
– and will it succeed?
The car, I argue, was
the first nail in the coffin of traditional high street retailing. For
Heathway, an issue is the draw of Asda (at Chequers corner) with its free (I
think) car parking. Those without cars have to catch a bus, the inference being
they don’t much like that. No-one is doing much to attract non car shoppers and
the view of many people seems to be that Heathway has to compete on the basis
of attracting more cars.
The purchase of a car
entails fixed costs. Either you pay for it up front or you pay back a loan each
month for a few years, but the point is that you pay that whether you use the
car or not. Other fixed costs are insurance (with very few honourable exceptions),
residential parking permits and the MOT test. These you pay no matter how much
or little you drive the car. The additional cost of actually using the car is
comparatively small. The retail sector knows this and has abdicated the responsibility
of the last link in the distributing chain (to the local shop) to the customer,
who (typically) drives to what is basically a warehouse. Offers like BOGOF (buy
one get one free) persuade the shopper to take the supermarket’s stock off its
shelves and put in their own cupboard or fridge. All this is backed up by heavy
selling of cars – usually with a glamorous pitch – sometimes with a
practicality pitch in the case of small cars.
Even if we accept for
the sake of an argument that motorists are paying, somewhere along the line,
all the costs of motoring, why are these costs “front end loaded”? Wouldn’t it
make more sense if the cost were per mile driven or - better still - per kg of
C02 exhausted? Then people would think twice about driving and local shops
would become more viable and attractive. This would benefit those who do not
have cars and suddenly we hit a virtuous circle: There’s less use of cars and
less need to own one – more people can walk and cycle and there’s more space
for buses – and with ridership up the cost falls. With fewer cars there’s less
need for parking and more space for more useful things – including places to
live for the customers of the vibrant local parade.
The second nail in the
coffin of traditional retailing is - or is becoming - the internet. For
large purchases, the web gives access to the best prices in seconds – prices with
which others must compete. OK, you would have to pay for delivery, but if you
haven’t got a car that can cost in, and if your car isn’t big enough to put the
item in you’d have to pay it anyway. Even for small items the internet is
invaluable. Why scour a bookshop or a record shop for an item you know you want
when an online retailer will make it easy for you to locate, and send it to you
at home?
OK, for some the
internet is out of reach, but broadband is growing rapidly and the technology
will improve to make it easier to use. There are dozens of internet connections
available to the public to accompany the growing number of home connections.
Where does this leave
the local parade? Well more and more
stock will be held in distribution centres ready to be ordered on line and
delivered. Local parades will become more like showrooms. Then there would be
restaurant, bars and cafes – social places where people will always want to go –
you can’t send “atmosphere” over the internet. Then there might be small
specialist shops on the principle that there are many things people want to see
before they buy. This might apply to some take home food where freshness is an
issue.
In this model, the local
parade becomes more a place that people want to go rather than have to go.
Therefore making it visually attractive is important. B&D’s plans for more
trees at Heathway make sense. For traditional parades, trying to compete with
edge of town outlets on parking capacity is folly – compete on character,
quality, and liveability.
Here’s a scenario. Mrs
Jones goes out on her bicycle first thing Saturday morning. She chooses one of
the many cafés – parking her bike easily nearby and orders her breakfast. While
she’s waiting, she can use a wireless-connected computer to order her groceries
on line. This facility is funded by a supermarket that wants Mrs Jones to buy its
products, the council that wants Mrs Jones to be able to use computers and the café
that wants Mrs Jones’ custom.
A service based economy
underpinned with electronic communications is what’s needed for Heathway.
Local Transport 2003/04
Thanks
to the Barking & Dagenham Post (
B&D
“will receive … £3.65 million to carry out a range of local transport projects
…”. This is for 2003/04. Ken Livingstone said, “Most
travel in
The
point that most journeys are less than 3.5 miles is worth commenting on. First,
journeys of that length are readily cyclable by many
people. When one makes that point in
campaigning, someone inevitably responds that they personally would not or
could not, entirely missing the point that it doesn’t
have to be everyone for all journeys to make an impact. The
proportion of journeys cycled is far higher in many cities in mainland
The
last point made by Ken (above) may “raise the eyebrows” of those who know
B&D’s record with cycling. Local people’s transport needs are likely to be equated with what they ask for – their wants – and the car lobby is the most vocal. If you
have, as B&D does, a policy of increasing levels of cycling, it follows that
you must change the built environment so that people can store, park, and ride
bicycles at ease. Otherwise you are left with just exhortation. People who are
immersed in car culture obviously won’t demand these improvements, yet they are
clearly necessary. Where the town centre in Barking (as an example), has
improved in this respect, it is mainly if not entirely as a result of intense
campaigning, rather than council action. On an engineering level, the cycle
facilities along the relief road round Barking are very good, but little or no
help to those wanting to go to the town centre to “attend to their personal
business” or catch a train.
I
don’t know what specific proposals B&D has put forward – but they surely
must include some cycling schemes – I suspect based on previous LCN plans – but
B&D still has some way to go before it “gets the idea” of sustainable local
transport.
Let's say for the sake
of an argument that the European directive making motorists always liable in
collisions is unfair. The point is, what would happen
if it were enforced? Opponents would have us believe that cyclists would
practically run riot and pay no heed to the law whatsoever. Car drivers,
fearful of hitting a cyclist or pedestrian would drive more cautiously,
therefore slowly, and thereby reduce the number and severity of collisions.
Thus the end apparently justifies the means.
Anyway, I find it hard
to believe that, because the motorist is liable, cyclists will recklessly put
themselves in danger from motor vehicles. The fact that the motorist is liable
does not balance out the effect of being killed or seriously injured.
A natural extension of
this ruling is that cyclists would automatically be liable in the event of a
collision with a pedestrian. Somehow I think that will be more popular, though
in my last collision with a pedestrian I came off by far the worst. I was
'de-biked' and rolling down Green Lanes listening to the still upright
pedestrian saying "sorry mate". Neither of us was seriously hurt.
Though I blame the pedestrian for stepping out without looking, I still
wouldn't wish injury on him because it was his "fault". He made a
stupid mistake.
In conversations about
the directive, this is the attitude I find chilling: If as a cyclist I am in
collision with a car, I will come off worst. If it were the driver's fault,
then presumably s/he would accept liability. If it were my fault - a mistake,
say - I still come off worst, but my mistake is punished severely if I am
injured. This punishment does not fit the crime.
These two scenarios
seem to me to be the most likely. The reckless cyclist inflamed by his/her
freedom from liability riding around causing collisions right left and centre
does not seem to me to be a likely scenario at all.
So runs the headline to
the Barking & Dagenham Post's report (21/11) of a topic at the
recent
Technology can of
course help improve the throughput of the road system, whether generally, or when road works change the normal patterns -
the Volunteer flyover removal being a case in point. I have some doubt
though, that any significant gains in throughput can be made by such methods.
It is a tinkering with the edges of the problem.
Transport campaigners
bring another solution to the table: traffic reduction. It is not taken too
seriously, usually though. The aim would be achieved by (in no particular
order): (a) Improved public transport; (b) "Modal shift" to cycling,
stimulated by improved cycling facilities and reduced road danger; (c)
Technology - advanced electronic communications reduce the need to travel; (d)
Planning - services are provided nearer to where people need them.
Thames View Estate is a
case in point. Quite a self-contained place, but suffering
appalling severance because of the A13, all the worse with the current problems
caused by the junction re-ordering.
The most obvious public
transport improvement would be the building of the proposed new rail station at
There is major scope
for improving cycling facilities throughout the borough and further afield, but one obvious step forward would be the use of
the tunnel from
I wonder how many
people have to travel off the estate to use services that could be used
electronically. Here is a golden opportunity, for example, for B&D to get a
step change in its levels of electronic service delivery. Those who do not have
the skills to use the electronics could be assisted in cyber cafes and
libraries by those who do.
As
for planning, town planning itself is rather long term, though no less
important for that.
Planning in its broader sense would include co-ordinating journeys onto and off
the estate. Goods and services being brought to the people would involve far
less traffic than the people going to the goods and services. I am sure there
is scope.
The point is that the
current suffering because of major road works brings into focus the ongoing
problems of traffic growth. Solving or easing the particular problems here and
now, is a valuable learning experience for other places in the future.
One of the archive
films shown as part of Footprints In Time,
B&D's weekend of events to launch its heritage strategy, showed what we
would call a kerbside paper recycling scheme in operation in 1948.
Made for the then
Borough of Barking, it showed the complete waste paper to new paper cycle.
Paper/cardboard was shown being picked by hand from landfill (near Creekmouth) and transferred step by step into larger and
larger containers until it was compressed and bound into large bales by a huge
machine and taken to Thames Board Mills where it was made into new
paper. A second stream of waste paper / cardboard was collected from outside
homes and shops. The justification for this labour intensive operation was to
save the shipping space occupied by [materials to make] new paper and aid the
country's post WWII recovery. Figures were quoted for how much paper came into
the borough and how much was recovered as waste. Citizens were requested to
save "every scrap".
The beauty of the
scheme was that it created work and largely - so it seemed - operated within
the Barking Borough boundary. The philosophy of not wasting things was
associated with wartime austerity, and it is easy to understand why society
turned its back on this, allowing wastefulness in by the back door - a great
pity.
I went to the Dome
today. One of the best attractions, in my opinion, was the 'Journey' zone,
(sponsored by Ford). The car giant was exhibiting an electric powered, largely
recyclable "city car" there. Whoever wrote the accompanying text made
a telling Freudian (?) slip: S/he said: "If only we all drove cars like
this, what would it be like?" (Or similar). I
thought -'absolutely grid-locked'. What s/he meant was "if only all cars
were like this". Electric, recyclable cars go some way to addressing
pollution concerns, but not concerns about road danger, energy conservation,
congestion, car-dependency, out of town shopping, and the giving over of large,
sometimes prime, spaces for parking.
September 2000
Petrol 'Strike'
Of course there is
sympathy for those who couldn't make vital journeys for want of fuel during
this strike, and some sympathy for those in rural areas who have no choice but
to depend on private cars for their day to day transport * . But the effect of
the strike has been positive in some senses in cities and large towns. Many
people took to cycling or walking. Certainly some will continue to do this even
after the petrol situation returns to normal. This means that the sustainable alternatives to the car for these journeys is, as we argue,
very much possible. Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining. Even a cloud
of exhaust fumes.
*
Presumably in areas where there is little by way of subsidised public
transport, local taxation reflects this?
One subject I haven't
heard or seen discussed at this time is "food miles". Bananas, for
example, are docked at
It seems basically fair
that the cost of motoring be related directly to the amount of fuel used. At
the moment, the fixed costs (the HP, road tax, MOT, Insurance, etc) far
outweigh the variable costs (fuel, oil, wear and tear) meaning that the
marginal cost per mile of driving is small compared to the overall cost. This
encourages driving over short distances. If the cost were evenly spread per
unit of fuel consumed, there would be complaints that this is unfair on rural
communities. I don't believe that these communities have exhausted all
possibilities of cutting fuel use, however. Perhaps the "polluter pays"
principle will stimulate their imaginations and organisational skills.
In the Barking &
Dagenham Post on
Travelline
On the very same day
the government announced this new service, I was trying to find out from the
web how to get to Broxbourne council's offices in
Critical Mass
If you've ever ridden
with a group of cyclists large enough to take command of the road you'll know
the feeling of "Critical Mass". You feel dominant and you feel in
control. This feeling can be experienced regularly at the London Critical Mass monthly ride. This is a protest, yes, but
there's a carnival atmosphere as you take a gentle ride around
The ride starts from
the South Bank alongside
... Arising from
"Dr Bike" at the 1999 Barking Festival:
Keep your
brakes properly adjusted. If you're not sure, get them professionally checked.
I can
personally recommend Shimano Nexus 7 speed hub gears. There is also a
four-speed version. Hub gears may be heavier than derailleur gears, but sealed
away from the elements the mechanics stay clean and reliable and hardly ever
need adjusting. The so-called disadvantage that you have to
pause pedalling before changing gear is negligible the tiniest pause works.
Also you have the major advantage of being able to change gear whilst
stationary - this is brilliant in stop start traffic. Watch the derailleur
riders "honk" (stand up to pedal) to move off in too high a gear and
listen to their chains crunching around as they try to change down under heavy
load.
Bikes in Parks
The news that LBB&D
is to allow cycling in its parks and that three park rangers use bikes for
their work is excellent. The change seems to be in the interpretation of Bylaw
3(1) - "No person shall without reasonable excuse ride ... a cycle
in the ground" (My emphasis). The question is what is "reasonable
excuse"? Further, B&D can use the 3(2) and "set apart a space in
the ground for use by vehicles of any class". (The term "ground"
refers to a list of Pleasure grounds, public walks and open spaces
Local Cycling Group
I am considering trying
to form a local cycling group to press for better facilities for local
cyclists. I already campaign for The
There may be others who
don't want to pay the subscriptions to be in LCC or CTC, or may not feel they
live in