A MONORAIL, electric buses and a new motorway junction – could these be the answer to Lancaster's traffic gridlock?
Transport specialists Faber Maunsell believe they could be.
Their £120,000 report, released this week, has thrown up a number of ideas, including:
n A rapid transport system between Lancaster, Morecambe and Lancaster University – which could be in the form of a hanging railway, a monorail, a light rail system or electric buses.
* A new River Lune bridge to carry either HGVs or public transport.
* Widening cycle paths where the monorail or other public transport would run.
* Six new park-and-ride sites around the district.
* Moving junction 33 of the M6 two kilometres north or
building a new slip road to avoid congestion through Galgate.
* Changes to the one-way
system, which could include a bus lane or reverting it to
two-way flow.
Congestion charges, however, were ruled out by the report as being an ineffective use of funding.
The strategy was commissioned by Lancaster & Morecambe Vision Board to tackle traffic problems, look at ways to encourage more public transport use and review Lancaster's one-way system.
The Vision Board – comprising private and public individuals – was awarded £60,000 towards the cost of the study by the North West Development Agency. A new bus scheme could cost £1.4milllion per kilometre while a light rail scheme could cost £14million per kilometre and a hanging rail or monorail scheme would be £20million per kilometre.
A new motorway junction would cost in the region of £40-50million, while changes to the city centre gyratory would cost £1.4million per kilometre.
Prof Paul Wellings, chairman of Lancaster & Morecambe Vision Board, welcomed the report.
"We have always seen overcoming congestion hotspots, improving access to and from Morecambe and Heysham, and all forms of movement within the district as fundamental issues which must be addressed if we are to unite our people and resources into a successful economic and social community," he said.
"This major piece of work will pave the way for resolving some of these seemingly intractable fault lines."
The action plan will now be considered with Lancashire County Council looking to take some schemes into further design stages and seek appropriate funding where needed.
The full report can be viewed at
www.l-m-vision.org/reports/transport
strategy/The full article contains 392 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
