Transportation

Transition in Action, Totnes and District 2030, an Energy Descent Action Plan Transportation The Challenge Around the world, on average people make about 1000 trips (e.g. from home to work – that’s one trip) In 2009, about a third of our overall current con- per person per year. Travel behaviour research55 sumption of energy is used on transportation that from across Europe, the United States and Austra- we use for personal mobility and distribution of lia consistently shows that 10% of people’s trips are goods and services. With around 95% of transport shorter than 1km, 30% are shorter than 3km and 50% fuelled by oil, our systems are set to become in- are shorter than 5km. This large number of small creasingly vulnerable to the changes that the global trips means that, even before relocalisation really peaking of oil production brings. starts to take hold, we have the potential to immedi- ately intervene to support more cycling and walking The climate change implications of our travel choic- trips - much more quickly than for any technological es are clear. In the UK car use alone accounts for 13% development and at a fraction of the cost. of our total CO2 emissions and (even ignoring avia- tion) the forecast around the world is for transport Furthermore, if we can get people out of their cars emissions to continue increasing. This contrasts and onto their feet or bikes, we get a long list of with the emerging scientific view that targets for additional benefits. Increased health is just one of safe levels of greenhouse gases should be negative these – reduced traffic means cleaner, safer streets, – i.e. we need not only to become carbon neutral, more freedom for young people to roam and com- but also to remove some of the current concentra- munities no longer divided by roads. This plan is tions of those gases from the atmosphere. How should we respond? Strangely, the default assump- tion appears to be that our reaction must somehow enable us to keep on travelling as far, and as fast, as we want - an approach that could turn a (soluble) problem into an (insoluble) predicament. Dramatically cutting emissions while travelling fur- ther and faster demands a technological fix, but many technical “solutions” lead straight to new, worse problems. General embrace of agro-fuels as the substitute for oil based fuels has fallen as it became understood how they compete with food production or, via the rush to plant palm oil, cause rainforest destruction. Similarly visions of fleets of “clean” electric or hydrogen or hydrogen fuel cell powered cars raise a range of questions such as just how much extra energy will be needed to construct the necessary new infrastructure. A truly clean car would require all stages of its life to have been powered by renewable energy from the mining of raw materials, through its manufacture, shipping, sale and disposal, as well as for each and every electric charge used to power it. 168 Transportation EDAP 1.indb 168 01/04/2010 20:05:30 A Timeline to 2030 3 founded on moving away from our current unsus- Local Mobility in Totnes & tainable patterns of mobility towards enabling more people to walk, cycle and use public transport for all District of their regular journeys, applying 3 basic guidelines: Cars are clearly the transport mode of choice for 0 Make it quicker, safer and more attractive to walk, most of the 23,000+ residents living the district, and cycle or use public transport than to use the car although 18% of households don’t own a car, 45% have just one, while 2% have 4 or more. The central 0 Take road space away from cars roads of Totnes and the villages were built before 0 Spend more on walking, cycling and public cars and driving through the middle and parking is transport infrastructure and promotion: you get as a result difficult, often making these busy roads what you pay for. dangerous. The rural hinterland is predominantly Freight transport has increased since 1980 by 44% farmland and there is an extensive network of nar- to 2 billion tonne kilometres, with 60% of this now row lanes, with some passing places for cars; some travelling by road, 21% by water, 9% by rail and virtu- of these are notoriously dangerous with poor vis- ally all the rest by pipeline. The opening of the M6 ibility and no pavements. A Car share scheme has Preston Bypass in 1958 and the first section of the recently begun in Totnes, but has had problems M1 in 1959 marked the beginning of the motorway finding a parking place. There are some off-road era, which changed dramatically the terms of com- cycle and footpaths, including the extensive route petition between rail and road for goods traffic. In which links Totnes station with the Steiner School 2007 as part of its White Paper ‘Delivering a Sustain- at Staverton and (apart from a short stretch on the able Railway,’ the Government has set aside £200M Plains where the cyclist has to take to the road) on to 56 of investment for the Strategic Freight Network . Ashprington. There are recommended cycle routes The social implications of our transport system are on quieter lanes which link up, and some plans for huge. “Injustice is experienced by millions of people more off-road cycle and footpaths, for example at in the UK who do not have a car, or struggle to af- Littlehempston a short off road link is due to be de- ford one in the ‘must-have-car’ society which we veloped later in 2009, and another at Berry Pomeroy have created. These injustices include difficulties is currently under consideration. accessing work and other opportunities; enforced One key service is the excellent Community Bus indebtedness; reduced opportunity to lead an active service we know as Bob the Bus (whose passenger healthy life; and ironically, proportionately greater numbers trebled in the past 2 years). The Totnes exposure than average to pollution, road danger and Rickshaw Company has brought in 3 Indian (motor- 57 noise caused by those who do have a car” . bike based) rickshaws that run on recycled biodiesel from the chip shops, bringing people up the steep rise of Fore street to the Market Square and the higher Narrows. These link in with expressway buses and local village services on the Plains, the Dart River boat services, the open top Round Robin summer buses and the mainline Totnes railway station. The casual observer could be seduced into thinking a comprehensive public transport service has been taken care of. However, Bob the Bus is a private vol- untary service, the drivers give their time for free to provide mobility, yet few of the buses run at capac- ity. The Rickshaw taxis, despite many attempts have yet to be granted a Hackney licence by the local council. Totnes town enjoys a good bus service, but access to and from the rural hinterland is very lim- ited and fares can be prohibitive. There are no early or late services to the all the housing estates. Some of the surrounding villages have no service, Dipt- Creative Energy Systems 169 EDAP 1.indb 169 01/04/2010 20:05:31 Transition in Action, Totnes and District 2030, an Energy Descent Action Plan ford for example has had no public transport since crowded. Little freight arrives or departs at Totnes Beeching’s disastrous transport plans of the 1950s Railway station, not even the mail. Freight arrives in took out the Primrose Railway which linked the vil- juggernauts, which often get jammed in the middle lage and its farming community with Totnes. The of Totnes or clog the already busy A384 through bus services to the other parishes are not all served road which links Torquay to the A38 and Dartmouth. by a daily service; Stoke Gabriel (pop. 1,349) for ex- Goods leaving the area take similar routes by lorry. ample only has a Friday bus service to Totnes. Many The old Totnes to Buckfastleigh steam train operates roads either are too dangerous for children to walk in the summer months, essentially as a tourist at- or cycle to school or are perceived to be too danger- traction. ous, which leads to the same result. The majority of tourists visiting Totnes arrive by car While Totnes station is conveniently close to the using the Round Robin trips for pleasure. Caravan- town with good services and a welcoming café, ning, camping, walking and cycling holidays are all most commuters to Exeter and Plymouth travel by popular. Car parking is tight even in the winter and car along the busy A38. The train route from Ex- in the summer on a hot day, tempers can rise as cars eter to Plymouth is one of the most scenic in the circle the town and the villages looking for a parking country; following the wide mouth of the Ex full of space. Totnes’ Christmas market draws shoppers boats, the pretty town and rich red cliffs of Dawl- and visitors in from a wide radius, car parking is free ish, clinging to the coast and diving into tunnels at on those nights, and a Park and Ride scheme oper- Teignmouth, heading on to Dartmoor and Plymouth ates, but the number of parking spaces remains the via Totnes and a beautiful and inviting rural land- same. The recent introduction of parking meters in scape, but at busy times, the train itself is often over- Totnes has not been popular with everyone.

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