‘Changing hierarchy on Cambridge road network has to go hand-in-hand with charging’

A shake-up of Cambridge’s transport network away from car use must go hand-in-hand with road charging, it has been confirmed.

The news came as the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s joint assembly considered the initial ideas on developing a review of the city’s road network. The review, which has been described as “one of the most sensitive and controversial” projects the GCP has embarked on, could lead to pedestrians given priority in further parts of the city centre, with motorised access limited to certain times of the day and “to essential need”.

Vehicle movements would instead be restricted to the city’s main distributor roads.

But concerns have been raised that with traffic concentrated on fewer roads the review would not solve the problems of improving public transport, reducing traffic and cutting vehicle emissions.

GCP director of transport Peter Blake said: “It needs to fit into the wider narrative. “We can squeeze the pips on the current network by just managing it in different ways, but if you’ve got 20 per cent less traffic, you can do far more than squeezing pips.”

The GCP previously announced there are two main ways to free up road space and raise money to invest in better bus services and more cycling and walking infrastructure – a road charging zone, or additional parking charges. Road charging measures could include a congestion or pollution charge, or both.

Joint assembly chair Cllr Tim Bick, the opposition Lib Dem leader of Cambridge City Council, said: “Looking at this hierarchy map, just supposing everyone’s neighbourhood said they were just fine about it and they wanted it, my reading of where we are in our strategy is that’s not really possible without Making Connections [road charging] because that’s an enabler for this.

“It’s not going to be really practical to say we’ll have all of the road space reallocation and none of the demand management because, as people have commented, it’s there that you start to get the displacement problems and concentrate traffic on fewer roads.”

Mr Blake added: “I think we do need to be clear about how far you can go by simply managing the network smarter in relation to where we are in 2022 but actually if we did more things in 2023/24 that would deliver far more opportunity around sustainable movements and reallocating road space if there’s a lot less traffic.”

The draft proposals are set to form part of a public consultation in the summer if approved by the executive board.

Mr Blake came under fire from joint assembly members and the public over the allocation of some roads on the draft map published as part of the report.

“I’m agreeing that the map that is in front of you will not be the final map,” he admitted. “Quite what the final map looks like is partly for today, so if the view of the assembly is put that red line down there at your peril then we are here to listen.

“But equally when we go out to consultation we’re here to listen as well. We don’t anticipate that, with our first set of proposals, everybody’s going to crack out the bunting and say this is how we’re going to manage our network going forward.”

Meanwhile the joint assembly welcomed the proposals it was also questioned whether or not the plans were ambitious enough.

Cllr Heather Williams, the leader of the opposition Conservative group on South Cambridgeshire District Council, said: “I think this when it goes for consultation will be probably one of the most sensitive and controversial things that GCP will have done to date.

“I know that there has been a lot of those things, but the difference being that when you are looking at routes in certain places, normally the concern is from those along that route whereas this will have a greater impact on people from across the whole area.

“That means it does need to be dealt with sensitively and we need to make sure that the consultation is done in the best way that we can do and I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned in the way we’ve consulted in the past.”

The news of the draft hierarchy review has been welcomed by many members of the community, as well as across the country with other areas hoping to follow Cambridge’s lead.

But many people have also been hugely concerned about the changes and the impact they could have on the vulnerable, those on lower incomes, businesses and taxi drivers.

Cllr Williams continued: “For people, particularly taxi drivers, this has been a very difficult economic time for them financially. I think had we done this and we hadn’t had the pandemic I think it wouldn’t have been so sensitive but there will be people that are naturally concerned for their businesses.”