Better Transport

Our work aims to make travel easier without a car, while improving our quality of life and protecting our environment.

Here are some of Campaign for Better Transport's successes over the past year:

June 2010:
Costly new roads are stopped
Several costly and damaging road building schemes were postponed by the Government, with a comprehensive review of transport projects to come. Among them: work on 21 miles of the A14, which would cost £1.3 billion. We've campaigned on many fronts to show that such schemes are not cost-effective.

May 2010:
Government rules out major airport expansion
The Government ruled out expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports. Back in March, the High Court tore up the case for expanding Heathrow and ordered the Government to rewrite its aviation policy to take account of climate change. We'd pulled together unions, businesses and other groups to argue against expansion and conducted research into alternatives.

April 2010:
New housing will have minimal traffic impact
A bus service was launched which will help make a new housing estate in Leighton Buzzard a world-leading example of sustainable development. The estate will also have great cycling facilities and new, local services such as shops and schools. We lobbied the Government to fund this work as an exemplar project, and supported local campaigner Victoria Harvey in her relentless campaigning.

March 2010:
High speed rail plans are announced
The Government announced plans for a high speed rail line linking London and the North. We'll continue to campaign for the line to get people out of cars and planes and cut carbon.

February 2010:
Trams will benefit from level playing field
An all-party parliamentary group supported our proposal which will make it easier to set up new tram networks. Until now, tram schemes have had to pay more of the cost of moving utilities (water, gas mains, sewers etc) than road schemes. The proposal levels the playing field.

January 2010:
Station travel plans become a requirement
The Government requires new rail franchises to include station travel plans - plans for making it easier for people to get to the station without a car. We convinced the Government of the need for these plans.

December 2009:
Fares to be reviewed
The Transport Secretary agreed to review and cut fares on the Government-run East Coast line. The announcement was a 'step towards victory' for our ongoing campaign to cut train fares.

November 2009:
Station is saved
Our support of local campaigners helped persuade decision-makers to change their mind and keep Blackpool South station open, making it easier for locals to leave their cars at home.

November 2009: 
The Government changes its view of traffic
The Government launched a campaign encouraging people to drive less, recognising what we’ve been saying for years: car use needs to be reduced. This serious Government-sponsored campaign marks a big change. Up to now, the Department for Transport had put its faith in green vehicles to cut carbon.

October 2009:
Our roads campaign gains a big supporter
The Committee on Climate Change praised our roads work it their first annual report. The committee looked at our work on regional transport spending and agreed that building new roads makes it harder to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

September 2009:
Local campaigners are helped
We held two day-long workshops in September, where dozens of people learnt how to influence local transport plans.

July 2009: 
More public transport choices
Nottingham received approval to extend to its tram network. The extension will be paid for through a workplace parking levy – an innovative way for local authorities to pay for public transport improvements, which we secured as part of our work to improve the 2000 Transport Act.

July 2009:
The Government looks to reduce C02 in transport
The Government published a strategy for reducing carbon in the transport sector, making good on a promise we secured from the transport secretary a couple of years ago.

June 2009:
Others join our fight to reopen rail lines
The Association of Train Operating Companies published a report arguing for 40 rail lines to be re-opened, which would help 1 million people to take the train. Such industry support was a great boost to our continuing efforts to promote the re-opening of rail lines.

April 2009:
Bus passengers get a new ally
Our success at securing a bus passenger watchdog last year was made real in April when Passenger Focus, the rail watchdog, added bus users to its remit.

April 2009:
Government transport appraisal is improved
We convinced the Government to make changes in how it appraises transport projects so that appraisal isn’t biased towards road building. The reformed appraisal system will take into account the health benefits of walking and cycling schemes, and will no longer treat tax losses from lower petrol sales as a negative.

April 2009:
Bus operators work together
The "Network St Albans" partnership is the first to take advantage of new powers in the Local Transport Act 2008, which we helped to secure by commissioning a legal opinion (pdf) which showed that the Office of Fair Trading’s interpretation of bus competition had been too restrictive.

February 2009:
National Park is saved
The Peak District would have seen thousands of lorries trundling though had the Mottram-Tintwistle bypass (A47 / A628) been approved. After years of effort, our work and that of local campaigner groups Save Swallow's Wood and Friends of the Peak District paid off when councillors refused to fund the £315 million road.

January 2009:
Motorway widening plans are dropped
Our campaigning resulted in the Government promising to consider making better use of the motorways we’ve got instead of widening them. In January it made good on that promise by scrapping some motorway widen plans, saving billions of pounds, lots of land and 100,000 tonnes of carbon.

Every year we publish an annual review. Our latest review (pdf) covers the year ending March 2009.

If you’d like to know more, please contact us.