What is a “long problem”?
Most policy issues governments consider are framed as matters for short-term planning. Few, like climate change, are considered as long-term problems. Governments struggle with these not least since they operate outside their five-year election cycles.
In March 2025, a High Court decision stated that the UK Government did not have detailed plans to tackle climate change which satisfied the requirements of the Climate Change Act 2008. As this is written, these have not been produced. The Climate Change Committee and other groups and individuals await the new plans, which must be made public by 29 October 2025. Such plans need to include considerable detail about transport as the transport sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. Neither do plans exist for some other obviously long-term problems like the restoration of nature or public health needs in the UK.
Some areas of transport, like aviation and shipping, are decades away from credible carbon reduction. There is touching faith that the market will deliver.
This article considers just how long transport has been creating a “long problem” in British politics, some of the key decisions which have created it, and what policy responses might be needed.
Some academics have been looking at the “long problem” issue for years. One recent work by Thomas Hale looks in detail at long problems and climate change; others consider the limitations of democracy operating over long time periods in the past and into the future.
How long has transport been a major policy problem in England?
What are some of the key decision errors in transport history which made transport more polluting and more pervasive in its various negative effects?
1950-1960
A shift from walking and cycling, both major transport modes between the two World Wars, occurred as a result of a largely unquestioned surge in mass ownership of cars. With the decline of active travel in favour of sedentary transport, there were inevitable effects upon public health.
Neither walking nor cycling have yet recovered from this shift. From 1950-1960, air passenger numbers grew, from 1 million to 6 million per year, leading to expansion of key airports. Railway investment could have helped deter short haul flights but was not adequate to do so.
1960-1989
Motorway construction expanded in the 1960s, as did construction of trunk roads and the beginning of large, urban periphery shopping centres and ever-larger supermarkets.
After 1970, both walking and cycling began a slow emergence into public policy but not on a pre-WWII scale.
A European Commission report of 1989 labelled the UK a bad place to be a cyclist. Railways declined in passenger and freight use from the 1920s to 1980s, due to investment favouring more movement of goods and people by road.
This was made worst by the Beeching Report of 1963, which led to closures of rail lines and stations. Whilst rail privatization in 1993 did lead to a doubling of rail passengers, this may have had many causes, including traffic congestion growth. Passengers once travelling by ship for some journeys took to the air in the 1960s. Freight shipping continued to decline until containerisation fundamentally changed the economics and logistics of the industry after 1990. Car ownership saw a five-fold increase 1950-1970. Road building gave rise to increasing road protests. Passenger miles by 1970 were 77% by car.
1990-present
In 1994, the problem of induced traffic became better understood. In short, induced traffic is where journeys increase as a result of new roads, road-widening, dualling of carriageways, and also where new road bridges or tunnels are added to the overall road system.
We have known about induced traffic since the 1920s. However, instead of avoiding the impacts of more and longer journeys and the costs of yet more road space, governments have allowed road expansion instead of investing in alternatives. We have a road system which is not maintained properly, perhaps because of its vast scale and the costs involved.
Add the problem of pavement parking damage, and a huge programme of repairs would be needed. But increasing numbers of vehicles and heavier EVs mean damage could be repaired only to be made worse by the weight of changing technology.
The Covid crisis cut transport emissions as those who could work at home did so, but the boost to walking and cycling this created, like the use of more online deliveries, was not sustained. Decarbonisation of transport is an option, but government plans for doing so have yet to make use of appropriate advice. An overall transformation of transport to contribute to the future sustainability of the UK is long overdue.
Addressing the long problem of UK transport policies
In order to achieve a system change in transport, linked to imperatives including the climate emergency and continuing air pollution problems, changes must be made that the public find easy to support. This could include steps such as:
Free buses for all
This would create a clear choice for people throughout the country about whether they need or want to use a car for specific journeys, or if they could choose to use a bus instead at no charge.
Extending pedestrianised areas
Surface transport contributes to both greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Both conventional and electric vehicles create non-exhaust emissions. Consequently, both also contribute to road run-off pollution.
In the absence of technological solutions to non-exhaust emissions, likely for decades into the future, pedestrianizing larger areas is a practical and possible response. Since this will make shopping areas more people-friendly, it is likely to be popular with the public, including tourists visiting our most traffic-congested cities and towns.
Pedestrianised areas have been repeatedly shown in research to have higher footfall for businesses than those based on trafficked roads, partially explaining the long-term spread of pedestrian-only shopping centres in the country, with Norwich as an early pioneer.
A pavement parking ban
The Government consulted on a pavement parking ban back in 2020. It appears it did not like the responses and shelved the plan. The current government has promised to take action on this subject, and my MP assured me they will be issuing a response “shortly” in a message to me in September 2025.
Busted and partially or wholly blocked pavements are unpopular, as is the infrequency of repairs. It also appears that action on pavement parking is wanted by 83% of drivers, according to a recent survey. Stopping pavement parking may discourage some types of avoidable journeys, just as cutting car parking spaces might.
Active travel investment
Raising active travel investment would be a major health promotion initiative, helping to reduce pressures on the NHS. Walkers want obstruction-free and wider pavements, both examples of a less-often stated desire for walking networks instead of routes broken by roads. Cyclists and drivers want clear separations between the two types of activities.
Both these forms of investment may have constraints created by poorly realised infrastructure of the past, necessitating tunnels, bridges, and more pedestrianised areas with cycle routes through them where appropriate to ensure good cycling networks.
Cut rail fares
Rail fares are ludicrously expensive in the UK. I suggest a 50% cut in fares with a freeze for a period to bring rail fares down to at least the average for the same distances in mainland Europe. Rail must become a better alternative to car journeys than it is at present. Possibilities need to be considered through a sustainability cognitive frame, perhaps improving upon existing form of environmental impact assessment.
Electronic road pricing as fuel duty income declines
It is evident that the use of electric vehicles is increasing in the UK, although not as much as in some other European countries. Road pricing can substitute for fuel duty income and contribute resources to more electric buses, infrastructure repairs, and active travel investment.
Funding can be assisted by cessation of trunk road building and road-widening, and by abolishing the c.£17.5 billion in fossil fuel industry subsidies each year in the UK.
System change
We may conclude that the UK’s failure to make year-on-year cuts in transport emissions since the early 1990s suggests system change is needed in the transport sector as quickly as practical.
There is political will to be seen as intending to make major changes, for example in shipping, but as usual the sums involved are trivial in relation to scale of need and urgency. Political will is a constant barrier as politicians tend to shirk rapid action or adequate spending on long-term problems. This includes climate change-related issues like transport and areas with long-term implications like health promotion.
Sustainable transport will not be achieved without political leadership and overcoming opposition issue by issue. Some bravery may be required.
Author’s note: Thanks to Hazel Dawe and Professor John Whitelegg for their helpful advice.
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