I was the person who warned them. Five years on, where are we with a transport solution for our city? In a congestion-charge and orchard-felling quagmire
Before I get stuck in, anyone who wants to help with my election costs (I’ve almost run out of leaflets from yesterday as so many people took them at my guildhall sulk over the Hobson Street Cinema demolition proposals), please see https://ko-fi.com/antonycarpen. (Electoral Commission laws apply)
The main agenda item was about a ‘Mass Transit Options Appraisal’ – to which I sent in a public question. It was on the back of concerns raised by Smarter Cambridge Transport here.
This video from 31 January 2018 makes for astonishing viewing when you consider what has followed. (Also embedded below)
Above – my public question to Mayor James Palmer on 31 January 2018 at the old Shire Hall in Cambridge.
You can read the meeting papers here
I asked:
- What assessment did the consultants make of the current and future levels of tourist growth?
- What assessment they made of the annual income likely to be generated by a scheme barring tourist coaches/traffic from the city and transferring passengers to light rail underground?
- What historical analyses the consultants did of past unexecuted transport schemes for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire?
The response was from Mayor Palmer himself rather than the consultants as I had hoped for.
Where are we five years later? Exactly
Cambridge Conservatives and Cambridge Greens went head-to-head on the abandoned proposals for the CAM Metro on BBC Cambridgeshire on the Jeremy Sallis Show – listen in from 17m49s. (Expires 19 May). Not being in a political party meant I wasn’t invited to participate.
Question your candidates on the future transport strategy for Cambridge. (This is ***not the same*** as maintenance of the existing road network – i.e. ‘Potholes’ – which county councils remain grossly underfunded for).
Go to https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/, type in your postcode, and your candidates will come up. Ask them about what they think the future transport system for Cambridge and surrounding towns & villages could include. Why? Because of the City Council’s seat on the Combined Authority Board and the GCP Board.
Please keep it polite
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The Cambridge Town Owl 