The degrowth of traffic in Exeter is a critical issue.
On a normal day - prior to the coronavirus crisis - 35,000 cars pour into Exeter in the morning from outside the city, and 35,000 exit the city in late afternoon. All the major routes into the city have been designated as an Air Quality Management Area as pollution levels all exceed the standards set by the government. As a consequence between 40 and 100 people die of Particulate and Nitrogen Dioxide pollution in Exeter every year. The City of Exeter has produced an Air Quality Action Plan with 17 recommendations, but there is little hope that this will reduce the death rate on our streets, because the city is growing so rapidly.
Radical Traffic Reduction has to happen soon. And an imaginitive Car Free Exeter vision is now a possibility.
This is the text of an email I sent to Phil Bialyk - the Leader of Exeter City Council after I read that he was supporting a Car Free City Centre on the front page of the Express and Echo (Exeter's weekly newspaper)...
Hi Phil,
I
was really pleased when I read about your support for a Car Free City
Centre on the front page of a recent Express and Echo.
Exeter
City Council has come a long way since we last met in the Guildhall
(about a year ago) after that council meeting which failed to back
the Green Party’s call for a Climate and Ecological Emergency
Declaration. Since then ECC has declared an emergency of course and
set itself a challenging target. But what is unique is how ECC and
Exeter City Futures is creating a space for radical
community-activated thinking.
The
COVID crisis will make some of the more trickier changes required in
the future a lot easier to do because we now have a population that
really does want to build back better. That recent poll
carried out by YouGov - which
found
that only 12% of the UK population want to prioritise economic growth
over the health and well-being of citizens – is
evidence
that
must inspire us not to go back to business as usual.
I
was
lucky to attend the recent Transport Roundtable organised by Exeter
City Futures, along with 100 others (including yourself) and was
impressed that all the participants were on the same page, seeing
that this Coronavirus crisis has given us a short term
window to make rapid progress.
I
would like to put forward an idea to you that takes the idea of a Car
Free City Centre and extends it to it’s logical long term
objective; a
Car
Free Exeter. It
is something that actually happened for a few weeks immediately after
the
lockdown
was announced on
the 23rd
March.
I
have been working on the
Car Free Exeter
project for a few weeks now and have developed a proposal
which you can read here…
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TSHrzgRrMY2CoQekE9EJ69xZZhcoBx9ksyNADUc4i5g/edit?usp=sharing
The
document gives
a lot of the background evidence to suggest that electric cars might
not be that much better environmentally than petrol or diesel cars.
It
shows that other cities are also looking at large
car free zones.
Recent initiatives like Open Streets and Play Streets can enable us
to move even
further
in the right direction. As such we should target substantial
traffic
reductions, and ultimately a largely traffic free city.
A
Car Free City won’t be totally free of vehicles. Maybe a 90% - 95%
reduction. Allowance will have to be made for the emergency
services, vehicles for disabled people, taxi services, CoCars
and hire cars, refuse vehicles, van for local businesses, and other
reasonable exceptions that I haven’t thought of. But it will make
Exeter a beautiful city that will be the envy of the world.
I
hope that we will be able to talk more on this subject. I hope to hear from you shortly
Maurice
Spurway
Email sent 2nd June 2020
copied to Exeter City Futures
...................................................................................................................................................................
Within 2 days Phil has replied.
He talks about a city-wide conversation that must take place now involving a large number of organisations and agencies.
Hello Maurice
Many thanks for your email.
You are right that the City Council has set itself a very challenging target to be a Net Zero Carbon city by 2030. This is not something we can do on our own, but I sense a real willingness among organisations, businesses and individuals right across the city to make this happen. We are on this journey together, and no one should doubt our commitment to it.
The roadmap to a Net Zero Carbon Exeter produced by Exeter City Futures was last night adopted as policy by the Council’s Executive, and will inform everything we do going forward.
Better transport is an important part of the solution. I agree with your comment that we have a population that really does want to build back better. This came across strongly at the recent Transport Roundtable organised by Exeter City Futures, which I know you took part in.
You will have read and heard my comments recently on creating a car-free city centre. I think this is achievable and would produce a major boost to quality of life in our city. But a proper strategic plan will need to be in place, which ensures safe access for all, and that’s the conversation that we have now started.
I understand your desire to extend this further to a car-free Exeter, with the possible exemptions that you highlight. It is certainly an interesting long term plan, but a considerable amount of work would need to take plan by a number of different organisations and agencies before that becomes a reality. But I read your proposal with interest and appreciate your contribution.
As I said, it is important that we start a city-wide conversation about how we can best provide access to safe and sustainable transport for all in the city, encouraging active travel wherever possible, without the need for reliance on the private car.
Thank you for your continued interest in this subject.
Kind regards
Councillor Philip Bialyk
City Councillor for Exwick ward
Labour
Exeter City Council Leader
Email sent 4th June 2020
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