Cambridge is a unique city in Britain, in that it has a population about the same as that of your average medium-sized county town, yet has an economic output much more on the scale of somewhere like Manchester. It is without doubt that the world-renowned university and hospitals have made the city an attractive place for productive industries such as science and technology to set up shop, but with this desirability comes higher house prices. Unlike other cities on a similar economic scale, Cambridge doesn't have much in the way of suburbia, therefore residents who cannot afford to live in the city have no choice but to move out to the numerous satellite villages within Cambridgeshire. The issue with this is that due to the rural nature of the county, it is largely not economically viable to provide public frequent transport to the villages. Consequently, this means that most of Cambridge's workforce have no choice but to commute in by car, leading to chronic congestion within the city boundary which is constrained by narrow, historical streets and not much room to widen them. Over time, politicians and entrepreneurs have been coming up with possible solutions to tackle these, but as already discussed on numerous threads, none of these are straightforward:
Cambridge Congestion Charge
On its own, it sounds great. A traffic free city centre, except that this will just push the congestion elsewhere. With poor public transport alternatives, a congestion charge will just cause many businesses to shut up shop and move out of town since their target market is people who need a car to transport their goods, leaving Cambridge as nothing more than a glorified tourist attraction. You need to combine this with at least one of the below options for it to work.
Bus improvements
Probably the easiest to implement, whether in the form of introducing bus franchising or expanding park and ride sites, but those buses will still get caught up in the usual congestion unless you can achieve complete modal shift. This is most likely to be done by providing a turn up & go service from P&R sites at the least, since it would be impossible to do so from every village in Cambridge's hinterland. In theory, commuters would drive to the P&R and get the bus into town, but unless you implement measures to restrict cars from the centre, this in practice won't happen as people don't like changing modes and it is usually quicker to drive door to door rather than divert off course, lock up the car and pay for parking before waiting 15-20 minutes for the bus which will only get stuck in the same traffic as your private car would.
Busway expansion
The next step up from the above as this allows buses to bypass the congestion, but the biggest issues here are related to construction of the infrastructure in terms of space and funding. This also ignores the current driver shortage - Seeing the recent Stagecoach cuts which have been happening, you'd probably need to axe all services apart from those entirely within Cambridge's city limits or those already on the busway to provide services frequent enough that will encourage modal shift, and we know how well that's going down in Newmarket and Royston. With costs spiralling, you may as well build a tramway which won't be much more expensive but would provide a much better business case, speaking of which...
Tram conversion
You wouldn't think light rail would be a viable solution for Cambridge's transport problem, but as a historical city with a lot of inward commuting, this is a very sensible option. Unlike buses, trams are fully electric and use steel rather than rubber tyres, making them the best choice environmentally. People also prefer trams to buses so the additional revenue should also outstrip the additional cost compared to building busways. The biggest issue would be getting it through Cambridge City Centre, since you would either need to thread the tramway through the city centre, making it less friendly for pedestrians and cyclists, or burrow it in a tunnel which would be more expensive and pose a geological challenge considering that the ground is not far above sea level.
Autonomous Metro
Don't even get me started on this...
Basically, what Cambridge(shire) needs is a mass-transit system that can at least serve some of the main population corridors, and the busway is a good start. It just needs to be more reliable, expansive, and allow through ticketing to villages away from the busway, possibly through subsidising taxi fares from P&R sites to places that cannot sustain a bus service. Can you think of anything better?
Cambridge Congestion Charge
On its own, it sounds great. A traffic free city centre, except that this will just push the congestion elsewhere. With poor public transport alternatives, a congestion charge will just cause many businesses to shut up shop and move out of town since their target market is people who need a car to transport their goods, leaving Cambridge as nothing more than a glorified tourist attraction. You need to combine this with at least one of the below options for it to work.
Bus improvements
Probably the easiest to implement, whether in the form of introducing bus franchising or expanding park and ride sites, but those buses will still get caught up in the usual congestion unless you can achieve complete modal shift. This is most likely to be done by providing a turn up & go service from P&R sites at the least, since it would be impossible to do so from every village in Cambridge's hinterland. In theory, commuters would drive to the P&R and get the bus into town, but unless you implement measures to restrict cars from the centre, this in practice won't happen as people don't like changing modes and it is usually quicker to drive door to door rather than divert off course, lock up the car and pay for parking before waiting 15-20 minutes for the bus which will only get stuck in the same traffic as your private car would.
Busway expansion
The next step up from the above as this allows buses to bypass the congestion, but the biggest issues here are related to construction of the infrastructure in terms of space and funding. This also ignores the current driver shortage - Seeing the recent Stagecoach cuts which have been happening, you'd probably need to axe all services apart from those entirely within Cambridge's city limits or those already on the busway to provide services frequent enough that will encourage modal shift, and we know how well that's going down in Newmarket and Royston. With costs spiralling, you may as well build a tramway which won't be much more expensive but would provide a much better business case, speaking of which...
Tram conversion
You wouldn't think light rail would be a viable solution for Cambridge's transport problem, but as a historical city with a lot of inward commuting, this is a very sensible option. Unlike buses, trams are fully electric and use steel rather than rubber tyres, making them the best choice environmentally. People also prefer trams to buses so the additional revenue should also outstrip the additional cost compared to building busways. The biggest issue would be getting it through Cambridge City Centre, since you would either need to thread the tramway through the city centre, making it less friendly for pedestrians and cyclists, or burrow it in a tunnel which would be more expensive and pose a geological challenge considering that the ground is not far above sea level.
Autonomous Metro
Don't even get me started on this...
Basically, what Cambridge(shire) needs is a mass-transit system that can at least serve some of the main population corridors, and the busway is a good start. It just needs to be more reliable, expansive, and allow through ticketing to villages away from the busway, possibly through subsidising taxi fares from P&R sites to places that cannot sustain a bus service. Can you think of anything better?
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