Letter: Without Radical Change Our Traffic Problems Will Persist

Published on: 23 Aug, 2016
Updated on: 23 Aug, 2016

Traffic builds along Ladymead on the approach to the Stoke interchange.

From George Potter

At the core of the recent debate on The Dragon about transport there lies a fundamental, but unpopular, truth; fixing Guildford’s traffic problems has to involve stopping cars from coming into the town centre.

The local government jargon for this is “modal shift” which, in essence, means replacing car journeys with journeys by other means of transport.

There are several ways this could be achieved, and none of them would be enough on their own but in combination they could resolve our traffic issues as well as removing much of the air pollution in the centre of town.

Some of the necessary changes are easy wins. For instance, if you travel to the Merrow Park & Ride you are currently forced to pull in off the road, park in the car park, walk to the single ticket machine by the bus stop to discover that the all-inclusive charge for using the park and ride is £2.40 per person.

Whether you think that charge reasonable or not, I’m sure that more people would use the park and ride if the price was actually advertised on a sign before you went into it.

Also, if a simple change like better signage resulted in more people using the park & ride then maybe it would be financially viable to replace the per person charge with a flat charge per car, as is the case with the much more successful park and ride schemes at Winchester.

Together changes like these could well make a significant difference to cut the number of people having to drive into Guildford whether to shop or access services in the town centre.

Similarly, a Guildford “Boris Bike” type scheme, and better promotion of the already quite good car club in Guildford, would help reduce the number of cars clogging up our roads. All of these are relatively easy changes which would be well within the capabilities of Guildford Borough Council.

However, other changes would be harder, but more worthwhile. For instance, if Guildford town centre was closed to private cars other than those of residents who live within the town centre, and if this was coupled with a proper effort to join up bus services and reduce fares on the basis of the greater numbers of people who’d end up using the services, then we could well see far better quality bus services which actually arrive on time and don’t cost more to travel on for a family of four than taking a taxi would cost. In the process the roads in the centre of town would finally become safe for cyclists.

Furthermore, things like creating a non-stop bus service from rapidly expanding Cranleigh to Guildford railway station, or from Guildford station to the hospital and the research park, would also do a lot to cut down on the number of commuters having to travel into Guildford every day by car.

But in the long-term Guildford will always suffer from the problem that to cross the river and the railway line anywhere between the A3 and Shalford you are forced to travel through the centre of the town. The only long term solution to this is to build a new bridge over the river and a new Guildford bypass of some sort to the south of the town.

Given that this would cost money and inevitable involve building a road across green land somewhere it would doubtless be immensely unpopular. Just like closing the town centre to most cars would be.

But realistically speaking it is only unpopular, radical change which will ever resolve the traffic problems in Guildford – and I think that some of the suggestions above are more realistic than spending billions on putting the A3 in a tunnel. Otherwise, even if no new houses are built whatsoever, we’re still likely to be stuck with the existing gridlock until kingdom come.

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