Cambridge Congestion Charge

[camflyer]

Any thoughts on the proposed "congestion charge" in Cambridge

Greater Cambridge Partnership sets out plans for £5 road user charge and bus network shake-up with £1 fares

The ‘Sustainable Travel Zone’ charge is proposed for private vehicles driving into, out of, or within the zone between 7am and 7pm on weekdays.

www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk

Cambridge congestion charge: Five-year plan considered

The Greater Cambridge Partnership says a consultation showed support for the plans.

www.bbc.co.uk

The CC works well in London as there are plenty of public transport alternatives. Not so sure about Cambridge even with the "biggest ever" investment in bus services.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Cambridge itself has a pretty decent bus service and is good for cycling. But the area around it is poor for public transport, so I think this will require investment in P&R sites (it already has some of course). If any city can do it, though, it's the two "Varsity cities" of Oxford and Cambridge - they've always been fairly anti-car. And having the P&Rs inside the zone as the picture seems to show is a bit counterproductive!

 

[camflyer]

Yes, one of the first things I noticed was that some of the P&R sites, as well as Cambridge North station, were inside the proposed congestion zone.

As you say those most impacted would be those coming from nearby towns and villages which have a limited or non-existent bus/rail service right now. Having a high enough frequency and long enough operational hours to encourage sufficient people to leave their cars at home is going to be tough, especially those who work unsociable hours in retail, hospitality etc who don't have the option of working from home. Personally, I do Newmarket to the Science Park twice a week and I think I would end up paying the £5 to save the time and hassle of using a P&R or bus all of the way. Since returning post-pandemic bad congestion around Milton Road is now a thing of the past anyway.

I was hoping that the scrapping of the Cambridge Autonomous Metro plan (which was a silly idea) was going to be something more radical.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do people generally drive through Cambridge to get places rather than round the ring road? If not I'm not sure slapping a tax on parking (and banning free parking, with all on-street chargeable via phone payment and a tax on free business parking) wouldn't be a simpler way of achieving the same thing rather than having a separate infrastructure.

It would also avoid penalising locals who own cars needing to drive out of the zone to get to places not served by public transport.

I know if you were looking at e.g. Lancaster you'd want to apply a CC as well to get the through A6 traffic onto the M6 instead. But I don't think Cambridge is the same as driving through it is unpleasant and easily avoided.

 

[MikeWM]

I simply don't believe they will remotely deliver on the bus services they promise. Or even if they do, I don't believe most of them would be around a couple of years later. We've already seen massive cuts in bus services in Cambridgeshire over the last 15 years or so, as people have simply learnt can't rely on them. (Look at the top story on the Cambridge 'Evening' News today : 'Stagecoach apologises as buses delayed or cancelled across Cambridge'. And if the C(E)N has got up the energy to report on it, things must be bad).

Though I don't believe pretty much anything the GCP say anyway by this point, they're a useless group of irritating people who have managed to spend vast amounts of money and come up with next to nothing to show for it (other than years of road disruption).

 

[BrianW]

In seeking to discover what the GCP was, and hopefully also what it was for, I came across this from the draft minutes of its June 2022 meeting at item 10:Parking Strategy Update and Residents’ Parking Scheme Delivery:

The strategy was being developed with awareness of the importance of parking revenue to both councils’ budgets, and it was confirmed that if
the resulting interventions led to an overall decrease in revenue, alternative fund streams would need to be found to avoid an impact.

I imagine the Congestion Charge will be expected to contribute similarly.

I have insufficient knowledge of Cambridge to comment on boundaries (I lived over 20 years in the Oxford Travel-to-work area!), other than to note that the TTWA extent for Cambridge is a lot larger; and that across the country:
there are 153 TTWAs for workers with high qualifications, but 416 for workers with low qualifications. This illustrates that low skill workers typically commute shorter distances to work. There is a similar difference between full-time and part-time workers

https://ons.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=397ccae5d5c7472e87cf0ca766386cc2

I note that the Cambridge Independent gave space to consideration of a ULEZ back in 2020:
https://www.cambridgeindependent.co...ultra-low-emission-zone-in-cambridge-9143269/

I would expect such 'developments', together with WFH (Working from Home), and a lot more, to make EWR considerations let alone decisions difficult, and in need of deep thought around 'options' to be guided by the best consultants that money can buy

 

[Magdalia]

I would expect such 'developments', together with WFH (Working from Home), and a lot more, to make EWR considerations let alone decisions difficult

In Cambridge WFH is a red herring.

The Biomedical Campus already employs more than 20000, and is expected to exceed 30000. Lots of those jobs are in hospitals, of which there will be 5. Most of the others are in scientific laboratories. Very few of these jobs can be done by WFH.

And the pandemic has been a giant experiment to test whether online learning can replace face to face contact. The answer is an emphatic no. Teachers and students are still going to need to get to/from places of learning.

in need of deep thought around 'options' to be guided by the best consultants that money can buy

The GCP has already done a lot of that.

I simply don't believe they will remotely deliver on the bus services they promise. Or even if they do, I don't believe most of them would be around a couple of years later. We've already seen massive cuts in bus services in Cambridgeshire over the last 15 years or so, as people have simply learnt can't rely on them.

Cambridge bus services have been cut significantly since the pandemic.

Do people generally drive through Cambridge to get places rather than round the ring road?

Lots of them get on their bikes.

But I don't think Cambridge is the same as driving through it is unpleasant and easily avoided.

Long distance traffic mostly uses the M11/A11/A14 to avoid Cambridge altogether. The "so called" ring road is mostly local traffic, but I don't know anyone local who calls it that.

 

[MikeWM]

In Cambridge WFH is a red herring.

Partly so, but not entirely so by any means. If you tried to drive out of the Science Park at 5pm on pretty much any weekday before March 2020, you were in for a *long* wait in traffic, often queueing back halfway around the 'ring' road. Look at it right now, or any other night nowadays, and no queue at all.

Cambridge bus services have been cut significantly since the pandemic.

Yes, but I'm more referring to services in the wider county, which were doing rather badly even before covid. They've been mostly and incrementally cut for 15 years or so. As a trivial example, there was a half-hourly 'Ely circular' service when I moved to Ely in 2016 that stopped at the end of my street. But it was removed soon after, leaving effectively no bus service at all for most of Ely. Eventually they've extended some trips on the 9 to add to coverage of some of the outer bits of Ely, but only every 2 hours.

I certainly wouldn't have moved to Ely if I'd had to rely on buses to get around, and that applies even more to all the villages that don't benefit from also having a railway station. It will take a *long time* with an excellent, frequent and reliable bus service running to restore confidence and get people out of cars. And who do the GCP think is going to run all these extra buses - Stagecoach? Who can't even run their current reduced network?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's certainly true that Cambridgeshire has pretty poor bus services, but that's why this can only really work if park-and-ride is core to it. The Busway is excellent for that on the St Ives side, but there are the other sites, though obviously these need to be exempted from the charge area.

Because of the poor location of the stations in relation to the centre I don't think rail can really contribute much - it'll need to be bus based.

 

[camflyer]

In Cambridge WFH is a red herring.

The Biomedical Campus already employs more than 20000, and is expected to exceed 30000. Lots of those jobs are in hospitals, of which there will be 5. Most of the others are in scientific laboratories. Very few of these jobs can be done by WFH.

Very different on the (Milton Rd) Science Park which has been very quiet since the end of the pandemic. In pre-COVID days it could take 20-30 mins just to get out of the Park at 5pm now you can get straight out. There are a few buildings on the site with laboratories but most are office based.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Aug 2022 ==

It's certainly true that Cambridgeshire has pretty poor bus services, but that's why this can only really work if park-and-ride is core to it. The Busway is excellent for that on the St Ives side, but there are the other sites, though obviously these need to be exempted from the charge area.

Because of the poor location of the stations in relation to the centre I don't think rail can really contribute much - it'll need to be bus based.

Bus services are even worse once you get over the border into Suffolk as Cambridgeshire CC won't subsidise cross-border services. The last bus to Newmarket or Bury St Edmunds is around 7pm while they run to Cambourne late into the evening.

 

[Magdalia]

Because of the poor location of the stations in relation to the centre I don't think rail can really contribute much - it'll need to be bus based.

In Cambridge the historic centre is important for retail and tourism but the traffic flows for employment and education are widely dispersed around the City, much more on the edges than in the middle. Cambridge North is quite close to the Milton Road Science Park and Cambridge Regional College. There's a lot of employment around the main Cambridge station. Cambridge South will be on the edge of the Biomedical Campus. Rail already contributes significantly and will do more, especially once Cambridge South is built. The one big employment/educational area not rail linked is the Western Site near M11 Junction 13 and the Madingley Park and Ride.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Aug 2022 ==

Bus services are even worse once you get over the border into Suffolk as Cambridgeshire CC won't subsidise cross-border services. The last bus to Newmarket or Bury St Edmunds is around 7pm while they run to Cambourne late into the evening.

This is an issue all round the southern side of the City, with Saffron Walden in Essex and Royston in Hertfordshire.

But Stagecoach do still run in the evening to Haverhill, which is in Suffolk.

Maybe evening travellers are expected to use the train.

 

[PTR 444]

I am very much in favour of this idea as long as the park & ride sites are outside of the boundary and there is an exemption for residents living inside the zone. There is no reason for private vehicles to be driving into Cambridge when adequate transport provision from suburbs to the city already exists.

 

[gingerheid]

I'm unlucky enough to live about 100m inside the zone and work 58 miles away. I'm not impressed, especially as I hate driving and as the promised improvements to the GA franchise in the form of an earlier train to Ipswich and an hourly train from Ely to Ipswich didn't happen and appear to be more or less completely off the table

I can see this causing tremendous parking problems for places just outside the zone.

 

[johncrossley]

Why are congestion charges uncommon outside the UK, even in cities with exceptional public transport, like in Switzerland? That suggests that congestion charges might not be necessary if you do what those cities do.

 

[stuu]

I'm unlucky enough to live about 100m inside the zone and work 58 miles away. I'm not impressed, especially as I hate driving and as the promised improvements to the GA franchise in the form of an earlier train to Ipswich and an hourly train from Ely to Ipswich didn't happen and appear to be more or less completely off the table

I can see this causing tremendous parking problems for places just outside the zone.

Residents parking permits?

 

[johncrossley]

Residents parking permits?

In somewhere like Cambridge you would have thought that a large proportion of the city is already covered by residents' parking zones.

 

[camflyer]

Why are congestion charges uncommon outside the UK, even in cities with exceptional public transport, like in Switzerland? That suggests that congestion charges might not be necessary if you do what those cities do.

I would prefer a model as seen in many small cities in Europe of having a virtually car free central area with high frequency local public transport rather than allowing those willing to pay to be able to drive. The commuting ("travel to work") zone is harder to fix and would need a massive expansion of the bus and rail network. The problem is that once outside of the Cambridge city limits the population density is very low so providing good connectivity is going to be very expensive.

 

[Ediswan]

Cambridge itself has a pretty decent bus service and is good for cycling. But the area around it is poor for public transport, so I think this will require investment in P&R sites (it already has some of course). If any city can do it, though, it's the two "Varsity cities" of Oxford and Cambridge - they've always been fairly anti-car. And having the P&Rs inside the zone as the picture seems to show is a bit counterproductive!

Hopefully an error.

I did one day only (mid-1990s) have a reserved parking space at the chemistry building.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would prefer a model as seen in many small cities in Europe of having a virtually car free central area with high frequency local public transport rather than allowing those willing to pay to be able to drive. The commuting ("travel to work") zone is harder to fix and would need a massive expansion of the bus and rail network. The problem is that once outside of the Cambridge city limits the population density is very low so providing good connectivity is going to be very expensive.

Looking at Switzerland, there's basically no such thing as free parking, not even in e.g. supermarket car parks. I don't know if that's legally mandated though?

If there's no free parking at all, that has a similar effect as a congestion zone while not preventing residents taking their cars outside of the city to places without public transport, which is what Cambridge needs being a cycle-and-public-transport-friendly city that is basically in the middle of a huge field.

Hopefully an error.

I suspect it is - or rather, that the most direct route from the outside to the P&R site will be exempt even if surrounding streets are not.

Mind you, that logic is not always followed. If the signs are anything to go by, the M67-M60 interchange roundabout in east Manchester is within their abortive LEZ because the physical roundabout is nominally an A-road, which is madness itself and would have caught loads of people out.

 

[johncrossley]

Looking at Switzerland, there's basically no such thing as free parking, not even in e.g. supermarket car parks. I don't know if that's legally mandated though?

Is there a charge for parking at workplaces in Switzerland?

 

[Magdalia]

Cambridge needs being a cycle-and-public-transport-friendly city that is basically in the middle of a huge field.

Cambridge is not in the middle of a huge field. On the northern and western sides it is hemmed in by the A14 and M11 respectively. On the south eastern side it is hemmed in by the Gog Magog hills.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Cambridge is not in the middle of a huge field. On the northern and western sides it is hemmed in by the A14 and M11 respectively. On the south eastern side it is hemmed in by the Gog Magog hills.

I didn't mean in that sense. Rather I meant that it isn't near other substantial towns/cities that would give rise to the feasibility of good quality, frequent interurban bus routes. The surrounding places are all small and distributed until you start reaching the London built up area or Bedford/St Ives/Huntingdon (or the sea). It does have good public transport towards Bedford (905), St Ives/Huntingdon (busway) and London (rail) of course. Which is why park and ride has to be core to this proposal.

 

[camflyer]

Cambridge is not in the middle of a huge field. On the northern and western sides it is hemmed in by the A14 and M11 respectively. On the south eastern side it is hemmed in by the Gog Magog hills.

I think the point was that Cambridge doesn't have extensive suburbs and satellite towns in its commuter zone - it really is surrounded by fields. Once you get past the A14 and M11, the population density drops off a cliff meaning it is hard (and expensive) to provide a public transport network for the "Greater" Cambridge area.

 

[Julia]

A lot of the Science Park / Business Park is software companies, who have really taken to WFH like a duck to water (my own employer there now only wants us in one day per fortnight). Very different from the bio science going on in the south. Even at 5pm the roads are quiet and free-flowing.

It appears there will be charge-free routes from the outside to all the P&Rs.

 

[A0]

If I were a developer, I'd be looking for a nice, large plot just outside that proposed Charge zone to put a *very* big retail park and look to attract the likes of Currys, Next, Boots at least one of the supermarkets and all the other companies on the Cambridge Retail Park with the advertising strapline of 'No £5 charge for your customers'.

If Cambridge Council want to rip people off, then fine - but retailers should make positive moves out of Cambridge and onto the margins to protect their business.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think the point was that Cambridge doesn't have extensive suburbs and satellite towns in its commuter zone - it really is surrounded by fields. Once you get past the A14 and M11, the population density drops off a cliff meaning it is hard (and expensive) to provide a public transport network for the "Greater" Cambridge area.

It's a textbook example of a place where the private EV is the correct tool as part of the transport system long term (i.e. an example of where the "cars are evil" people are totally wrong) but the place to park said EV is a park and ride* on the outskirts of what is a very dense small city within which you want as few cars as possible.

If you don't drive or don't want to drive, a rural village in Cambridgeshire is the wrong place to live.

* Bus or bicycle - "park and cycle" is a common use case from the two Busway P&R sites! And cycling to bus stops/stations also has to be part of it for villages near those, so cycling improvements on some of those rural roads.

 

[Magdalia]

I didn't mean in that sense. Rather I meant that it isn't near other substantial towns/cities that would give rise to the feasibility of good quality, frequent interurban bus routes. The surrounding places are all small and distributed until you start reaching the London built up area or Bedford/St Ives/Huntingdon (or the sea). It does have good public transport towards Bedford (905), St Ives/Huntingdon (busway) and London (rail) of course. Which is why park and ride has to be core to this proposal.

I think the point was that Cambridge doesn't have extensive suburbs and satellite towns in its commuter zone - it really is surrounded by fields.

Cambridge is encircled by a ring of market towns all about 15 miles away. Going round the clock there is Ely, Newmarket, Haverhill, Saffron Walden, Royston, St Neots, Huntingdon and St Ives. Individually, none are very big, but together they have a lot of people and have traditionally been thought of as part of Cambridge's economic hinterland.

If I were a developer, I'd be looking for a nice, large plot just outside that proposed Charge zone to put a *very* big retail park and look to attract the likes of Currys, Next, Boots at least one of the supermarkets and all the other companies on the Cambridge Retail Park with the advertising strapline of 'No £5 charge for your customers'.

The Cambridge Retail Park is in the wrong place. It would be better if it was out nearer to the M11 or A14. It takes up a huge amount of land (especially the car parks) that would be better used for housing, and makes Newmarket Road a nightmare for traffic.

It's a textbook example of a place where the private EV is the correct tool as part of the transport system long term (i.e. an example of where the "cars are evil" people are totally wrong) but the place to park said EV is a park and ride* on the outskirts of what is a very dense small city within which you want as few cars as possible.

I agree. EVs are changing the calculation with regard to pollution.

* Bus or bicycle - "park and cycle" is a common use case from the two Busway P&R sites! And cycling to bus stops/stations also has to be part of it for villages near those, so cycling improvements on some of those rural roads.

Not sure what you mean here? People driving to the edge of the City then parking and using fold up or hire bikes? Or people cycling to the edge of the City then getting the bus?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Cambridge is encircled by a ring of market towns all about 15 miles away. Going round the clock there is Ely, Newmarket, Haverhill, Saffron Walden, Royston, St Neots, Huntingdon and St Ives. Individually, none are very big, but together they have a lot of people and have traditionally been thought of as part of Cambridge's economic hinterland.

The problem, of course, is the bit in bold. None are very big, so most can't really sustain the kind of bus service to Cambridge (say half-hourly from 6am to 11pm) that people would see as good enough for people not to use their cars. Some of them do have the railway, and with Cambridge being quite car-unfriendly people do use it. And of course for Huntingdon and St Ives there's the Busway which in terms of how it attracts people acts a lot more like the railway than a bus. But the vast majority of the rest of it is just too low density and distributed for bus to work well, hence park and ride being an essential part of the setup.

Not sure what you mean here? People driving to the edge of the City then parking and using fold up or hire bikes? Or people cycling to the edge of the City then getting the bus?

A surprising number of people drive from further west to the St Ives and Longstanton P&R sites, but instead of getting on the bus they take their bike out of the car and ride it along the safe, segregated Busway path to Cambridge (with the bonus option that if you get there and it's tipping down you can just leave it in the car and get the bus instead). I think it's a use-case nobody really quite expected when it was built, but it's very popular, particularly as a leisure activity on weekends but a lot of commuters also do it.

I don't doubt there's also the opposite of people cycling to the Busway and continuing by bus, but judging by the bike rack size and occupancy that doesn't seem very popular (unlike at railway stations going to London where you get that a lot).

 

[A0]

The Cambridge Retail Park is in the wrong place. It would be better if it was out nearer to the M11 or A14. It takes up a huge amount of land (especially the car parks) that would be better used for housing, and makes Newmarket Road a nightmare for traffic.

When it was built - about 30 years ago I'd guess - the local authority would have wanted it there to promote people coming into Cambridge.

Now they've decided to declare "war on the motorist" that changes the dynamic and a developer with a bit of foresight should look for a site just outside the reach of Cambridge City Council, easily accessible by the M11, A10, A14 etc - people who live outside Cambridge will be able to go there without being fleeced - Cambridge residents will get fleeced, but then again they've voted for the politicians who will be imposing the charge, so if they don't like it, the way to change it is in their hands.

 

[camflyer]

The Cambridge Retail Park is in the wrong place. It would be better if it was out nearer to the M11 or A14. It takes up a huge amount of land (especially the car parks) that would be better used for housing, and makes Newmarket Road a nightmare for traffic.

I suspect Newmarket Rd would be even worse for traffic if the retail park was converted into housing. Just wait until they start building on the airport when Marshalls move out.