The Government has published a slew of transport policy documents in recent months, including a Climate adaptation strategy for transport, a Pavement parking policy and a Road safety strategy. Each of these areas undoubtedly requires attention. But an important question remains: are the Government’s responses sufficient to meet the challenges they purport to address?
How the Government engages with the wide-ranging issues created by a long period of transport policy failures is critically important. This article examines three recent initiatives to assess what kind of transport futures may be emerging.
Climate adaptation strategy?
The Climate adaptation strategy for transport follows an earlier draft consultation published by the previous Government in 2024. The new strategy begins with a welcome emphasis upon how extreme weather, driven by climate change, will require appreciable changes to transport systems. Maintaining people’s ability to access employment is identified as a key priority, alongside improving safety for both staff and passengers.
Implications for road building and investment
However, the scale of the challenge is stark. The strategy notes that the Environment Agency estimates that 38% of roads and 37% of rail lines are currently at risk of flooding, with projections rising to 46% of roads and 54% of rail lines by 2050. Addressing these risks will require significant investment in physical protection and improved drainage.
Such costs could be expected to indefinitely stop new road creation in the UK. Rising costs are likely to deter investment in new road building, suggesting that new roads should be very low among national transport priorities. This is reinforced by new figures showing a backlog of £18.4 billion in local road repairs, a figure boosted to £25 billion when bridge maintenance is included.
Reducing the need to travel
Reducing the need to travel, especially for the working population, should also form part of the policy response. One approach could be legislation conferring a statutory right to remote working across a wide range of occupations. At the same time, extending a right to flexitime, altering the traditional nine to five, could allow employees to plan more time for family, study, volunteering, and more.
Funding and governance gaps
The consultation on the previous Government’s Adaptation Strategy identified funding for adaptation; expanded access to training and skills development; standardised adaptation reporting across government; and improved tools and data for decision-making. Allegedly, adaptation is a devolved matter. But councils must be allowed to set their own council tax levels, subject to minimum policy delivery requirements, as part of bringing a permanent end to prolonged financial constraints.
Ultimately, the urgency of these issues is underscored by broader policy failure: domestic transport has risen to 30% of territorial UK emissions.
Road safety strategy
UK performance and missing explanation
The Government’s Road safety strategy begins with a foreword noting than 22 other European countries have reduced road deaths over the past decade, all outperforming the UK. However, the strategy does not clearly explain why the UK is so behind.
The Government proposes a 65% reduction in overall deaths and injuries, and a 70% reduction in deaths and serious injuries of under-16s by 2035. There is, however, no commitment to a Vision Zero, which seeks to eliminate all road death and serious injuries. Oxfordshire County Council, Greater Manchester, and Transport for London have already adopted this framework.
Gaps in the strategy
The strategy does not recognise that those most at risk include pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and children. However, addressing these risks demands fully funded goals. One potential framework would involve making journeys more evenly distributed: one third by walking and cycling, one third by public transport, and one third by car, alongside policies to reduce car dependency.
Considered as a whole, the strategy leaves several important measures unaddressed. For example, it does not propose increasing the costs of learning to drive and making the testing more challenging which could improve safety standards. Nor does it suggest that all cycle tracks and cycle forward areas should be colour-coded as a clear indicator to drivers to keep them clear.
There is also insufficient commitment to expanding pedestrianised areas and developing coherent walking and cycling networks both within and between settlements. Similarly, the document does not address the gradual replacement of shared-space with pedestrian- and cyclist-only routes.
Strategy improvements
These omissions are aiming to help prevent even more severe urban congestion with road traffic potentially increasing by as much as 54% by 2060. A more comprehensive strategy would therefore include:
- Clear road traffic reduction targets, particularly for the busiest roads.
- Investment in alternatives to car use, such as 50% reduction in rail fares and free buses.
- Improved street design standards, including features such as Dutch-style kerbs as standard to help improve walking networks.
- Dedicated traffic police with powers of arrest and other sanctions in areas with concentrations of traffic offences.
- Reductions in the permitted size of SUVs and restricted access to urban centres.
- Universal controlled parking zones across towns and cities.
- Formal recognition and expansion of low-traffic neighbourhoods.
- Stricter regulations for drinking and driving, potentially moving towards a near-zero limit.
- Stronger penalties for those apprehended with no valid license or insurance.
- A more regulated approach to e-scooters which are, for example, banned in Paris, including designated parking and restrictions on pavement use.
- Universal 20 mph limits in residential areas.
- Compulsory re-testing after serious collisions where drivers are held responsible for injuries or a death.
- Systematic periodic tests of capacity by doctors of those still driving aged over 70.
- A sustained commitment to active travel funding of at least £1.5 billion per year in England.
- A shift in road maintenance policy toward long-term quality improvements rather than reactive repairs.
- Greater use of average-speed enforcement cameras.
Pavement parking options for change
Pavement parking options for change provides the current Government’s response to consultation evidence that had previously been set aside. Notably, the current Government has devolved decisions about pavement parking to local councils, despite 71% of those responding to the earlier Government consultation wanting a complete national ban.
This approach transfers responsibility to local councils without the necessary funding or enforcement powers to successfully execute this initiative. While a ban is nominally supported, exemptions are permitted at local authority discretion. A policy that relies on exemptions is unlikely to deliver change.
Furthermore, given the exceptionally poor condition of pavements in many areas with frequent pavement parking, it is difficult to see how exemptions can be justified if the intention of the policy is to repair and maintain pavements. Our pavements were not designed for the weight of vehicles and with the increase in heavier electric vehicles, this issue will only worsen without a suitable solution.
Enforcement and loopholes
The Government also considers exemptions for loading, unloading, and delivery vehicles. However, this appears to rest on an implicit assumption that driver behaviour will remain unchanged. Without dedicated traffic police in larger numbers, enforcement will be difficult and compliance limited.
A similar issue arises with vehicles such as vans used in construction and service work. Broad exemptions may, in effect, create vehicle-sized loopholes such that nuisance to pavement users and cyclists will be perpetuated. Vehicles most likely to be a problem to others may be allowed to pavement park for varying periods, amounting to a ban that is no ban at all.
The response also avoids addressing the growing number of SUVs and the increasing size of them. These cars are frequently observed among vehicles parked on pavements.
Overall, the Government has given a slight impression of sharing public support for stronger action, while ultimately relying on under-resourced local authorities to manage the issue rather than imposing an essential national ban.
The need for joined-up thinking
Effective leadership on climate adaptation, road safety, and pavement parking requires far greater resources for local government and for local traffic policing than successive governments have been willing to provide. Local authorities are being tasked with increasingly complex responsibilities, yet their powers remain insufficient to deliver meaningful change.
Existing national spending clearly has the wrong priorities, which could be realigned. Currently, £17.5 billion a year is spent subsidising fossil fuel corporations, approval of new road building continues, and airport expansions have taken place when the transport infrastructure serving them requires government spending for maintenance. More airport use means more national funding for repairing road and rail serving airport sites. This could be avoided by the contraction of civil aviation on climate grounds.
In this context, the central problem is not the availability of money, but the absence of political will. Without realigning spending priorities or empowering local authorities with resources, the Government’s ambitions across these policy areas are unlikely to be realised.
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