Question
In autumn 2020, the Climate Emergency Task & Finish group from the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee presented a report to the Executive that advised that “the commitments in the current WBC Capital Programme would increase the number of vehicle miles travelled, thereby increasing CO2 emissions whilst not reducing the level of traffic congestion across the Borough.” This advice was based upon the "fundamental law of traffic congestion" developed by academics. The Executive seems to have ignored this advice and doubled down on its error, increasing to £17m investment in making driving easier within the climate emergency budget.
My question is; what is the predicted reduction in CO2 emissions from this £17m investment, and what is the methodology by which it has been estimated?
Minutes:
Question
In autumn 2020, the Climate Emergency Task & Finish Group from the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee presented a report to the Executive that advised that “the commitments in the current WBC Capital Programme would increase the number of vehicle miles travelled, thereby increasing CO2 emissions whilst not reducing the level of traffic congestion across the Borough.” This advice was based upon the "fundamental law of traffic congestion" developed by academics. The Executive seems to have ignored this advice and doubled down on its error, increasing to £17m investment in making driving easier within the climate emergency budget.
My question is; what is the predicted reduction in CO2 emissions from this £17m investment, and what is the methodology by which it has been estimated?
Answer
The £17m investment is for reducing congestion which means that there will be fewer cars travelling slowly, heavily braking or accelerating, or idling in traffic queues across the Borough. The project makes use of existing capacity and aims to improve and smooth flows, reducing journey times for cars as well as for buses as the funding also enables us to upgrade our signals to facilitate bus priority. This will result in air quality improvements as well CO2 savings as vehicles making their journeys will be travelling for less time.
Additionally, by making bus journeys more attractive, we will be encouraging an increase in bus usage as we recover from the impacts of Covid-19.
We must accept that there are many who cannot, or choose not to, travel by more sustainable means. Our aim is to assist these people whilst also providing for those who would travel by other modes if they found them more attractive. This is likely to reduce the likelihood of them choosing to drive on their shorter journeys.
Carbon accounting is an emerging discipline and whilst we are sure that this project will have an impact in terms of a carbon emissions and air quality it is amongst the hardest to quantify, and consequently we have not included any of these savings in the Climate Emergency Action Plan at this stage.
We believe that reducing congestion will reduce idling time, reduce braking and accelerating time, ease movement across our Borough, reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality. All positive benefits for our residents and for our environment.
Following recommendations in the Climate Emergency Task & Finish group report approved last September the Council is introducing an assessment tool which will be used to estimate the carbon savings of all major council decisions, including budget decisions going forward.
In demonstrating its commitment to funding new projects that can help reduce carbon emissions, the Council seeks to encourage its residents, businesses and schools to also do what they can to reduce their own carbon emissions.