Planning Sustainable Transport

Chapter 7

The problems

Congestion

Gridlock: the political imperative

For many people, public and professional alike, the major transport problem is ever-worsening traffic congestion leading to eventual gridlock. In 1999 John Prescott, the then deputy prime minister responsible for transport policy, began the Foreword to Breaking the Logjam, the government’s public consultation document on congestion, with:

Everybody hates traffic jams. They cost time and money. They pump out pollution. They take the pleasure out of driving.¹

He ended with:

On recent trends, traffic is due to grow massively in the next 20 years. If we don’t act now, we will be heading for gridlock.

Prescott was restating a long-held view. As early as 1853 William Malins wrote: ...