Mobility

Develop a county-wide renewable energy strategy that would:

• Facilitate and normalise remote meetings e.g. virtual consultations with doctors, and encourage flexible and home working to reduce rush hour congestion–could business rates be used to incentivise this?
• Improve internet connectivity and speeds
• Ban engine idling
• Require children to attend the school closest to their home

• Re-establish old railway lines, reinstate dual tracks where they have been removed and ensure smaller stations, e.g. Lapford, have a regular service that is useful
• Increase the frequency of buses and trains and extend the times of day they operate to include later in the evenings
• Consultation about routes and timing of buses needs to be done in a proactive way i.e: approaching each community and asking them for ideas
• Minibuses for lesser used routes instead of large buses
• Dedicated bus tramways, like the Cambridge example. This could be implemented on the old railway from Exeter to Tiverton
• Subsidise public transport
  • Use commercially viable routes to make a profit to subsidise less commercial routes
  • Free for everybody
• Provide school buses for 16 to 18 year olds.
• DCC should create model Local Development Order (LDO) for the districts to introduce a prior approval quick-planning regime for public transport infrastructure –eg community bus shelters, small rural park/ride-share areas, bike shelters/parking etc
• Buses and trains that can transport bicycles
• Nationalise bus services
• Bring all train operators under one company
• Bring together all community transport schemes into one company
• Run community transport on a weekly or monthly subscription basis, as is happening in Torbay
• Direct buses from commuter towns to key employers, such as the hospitals
• Priority lanes for buses on all main roads
  • Make all roads in Exeter one-way so that a carriageway is freed up for a bus lane
• Provide a fleet of County owned buses (Like American Yellow Buses) use them for School/College transport in the morning; Transport elderly and disabled throughout the day and then transport school pupils in the afternoon/evening. The massive financial and environmental cost of ‘Parent Cabs’ at peak times (which completely disappears in school holidays) would be removed, alleviating highway damage, congestion and harmful emissions

• Develop Car Free Strategies for cities and towns
• Travel information for all modes in one online location or app
• Provide schematic maps of public transport networks (like the Tube map)
• Integrated ticketing across modes
• Realtime information at bus stops
• Better integrate transport modes: e.g. making railway stations wider transport hubs with connecting modes like hire electric cars, bikes and buses
• Increase the availability and use of shared car clubs
• Where it is necessary for clients to travel to a service venue, businesses should provide clear advance information on how to get there without a car, and have a layout which privileges access on foot (e.g. not having to walk needlessly round a boundary to get to the entrance).
• Offer incentives to parents to find alternatives to driving their children to school
• Implement an inner-city vehicle-free zone in Exeter, including buses, based on the roman fortifications to make the high street safer and less polluted
• Review online and printed maps of towns and larger villages to check that all walking shortcuts in regular public use are shown
• Ensure pavements, alleyways and pedestrianised areas have well maintained surfaces without trip hazards, including dealing with obstacles on walkways by encouraging people to report them on the Devon CC ‘Report a Problem’ website
• Implement a car-free day in Exeter once a week. Sundays would be appropriate
• Make sustainable travel choices fun through the area-wide competitions between businesses and schools
• Free public transport for NHS workers
• Implement a transport carbon budget for all citizens and businesses
• Grants to purchase bikes
• Diesel car scrappage scheme

• Promote car sharing through communications and apps
• Free, or very low cost, parking at motorway and trunk road junctions to enable car sharing
• Low emissions zones
• Use workplace parking levy to deter commuting by car
• Rat running through residential areas to be stopped
• Congestion charge in Exeter and ring fence the revenue to implement further sustainable transport measures
• Immediately stop building any new car parks
• Use number plate recognition to ration the days that vehicles are allowed in city and town centres
• Increase car park prices
• Charge for all car parking within 1 mile radius of schools
• Resident car parking permits to be limited to one per household with a second available on a need basis
• Close car parks in town centres and turn them into green spaces
• Deter use of larger vehicles by individuals
• Ban 4×4 from green lanes
• Introduce dynamic road pricing to reflect the true cost of carbon emissions, pollution and congestion are factored into travel choices
• Reduce the A38 to single lane and rewild the closed lane

• Establish a reliable electric vehicle charging network with county wide coverage, including on-street, park and ride and at tourist sites
• Develop semi-autonomous vehicles
• Use synthetic fuels so that we can carry on using existing vehicles
• All taxis to be electric
• Provide electric and hydrogen buses
• Electrify all of the railway lines in Devon
• Bring forward the dates for Euro certification for commercial vehicles

• Increase of freight carried by rail to reduce the number of HGV trips
• Urban deliveries through cycles and electric cargo trailers, e.g. Nuwiel GmbH

• Use spatial planning powers to promote mixed developments which reduce the need to travel and provide integrate public transport and active travel
• Cease large scale road widening and building where aimed to increase car capacity
• Ban drive-through food outlets
• Towns and cities designed so that every resident lives within a 20 minute walk of amenities such as schools, shops, green space and health services, thus minimising the need for motor travel. Help Local Authorities to acquire land for these facilities at current use value rather than having to include “hope” value that ups the price of land to what it commands once planning permission for development has been granted. This will mean repealing the Land Compensation Act of 1961. There may well be a case for introducing a Land Value Tax (LVT) which is levied annually on bare land regardless of improvements such as building
• Imbalances in the way new highways infrastructure is costed needs to be rectified e.g. WebTAG tool

• Cut flights by two thirds especially for domestic travel, through:
  • aviation fuel tax
  • oban frequent flyer programmes
  • tax frequent flyers
• Planes fly slightly slower to save fuel
• Some use of synthetic fuels
• No expansion of Exeter Airport
• Discourage the purchasing of items from overseas
• Ban air shows