Help shape future of Travel for a Healthier Reading

A NEW Transport Strategy for Reading sets out an ambitious vision for the future of travel in the borough up to 2040 – and it is available to comment on from today.

The strategy outlines the Council’s vision of providing even better bus and rail services as well as improved walking and cycling facilities to provide more attractive and affordable alternatives to the private car.

The ambition is to reduce congestion, tackle poor air quality which blights parts of Reading and create a healthier town for residents.

The document remains draft until resident and business comments are received, and it is adopted by the council’s Strategic Environment Planning and Transport (SEPT) Committee in early 2024. The consultation runs for a period of 12 weeks and can be found at Reading Transport Strategy 2040 - Reading Borough Council.

Reading’s powerful economy means it is a major centre for business and employment. As a result, people want to live, work, socialise and visit the town. The Council’s new draft strategy outlines how Reading can successfully absorb additional demands on its road network generated by the thousands of new homes which will be built inside, and on the edges of Reading in future years.

The Reading Transport Strategy is also a key element in Reading’s net zero carbon by 2030 ambitions. It similarly plays a key role in the Council’s wider ambition of ensuring every resident can share in the town’s success.

The Council’s aim is to provide residents and visitors easily accessible alternatives to the private car, with a key focus on affordable travel options to help tackle social inequalities, allowing all residents to easily access education, training, employment, and leisure opportunities.

The draft strategy contains ambitious proposals to rise to the challenges the future brings. These include doubling the number of bus journeys in Reading in 2040 to 28 million, and rail journeys to 20 million, as well as increasing the number of people using park and ride tenfold to a million.

Taken together, the improvements could help the Council reach its overall target of half of all journeys into the town centre being made by public transport.

Encouraging more people to walk or cycle part, or all, of their journeys is also a key thread, which has positive health and wellbeing benefits for the individual and decreases emissions from cars. The Council’s overall aim is to cut road transport emissions by almost half by 2040.

To achieve these targets, the strategy sets out proposals to create more bus lanes, bus priority corridors, and additional cycling and walking routes.

Cutting the proportion of car journeys to, from, and through Reading town centre by 60 percent from 25.4 percent to 10 percent of the mode share, is also a key aim, as is encouraging residents to consider switching to electric vehicles by increasing charging infrastructure.

There is also an emphasis in the strategy on exploring options to tackle the many thousands of vehicle journeys which have no origin, no destination, and no purpose in Reading, and continue to use the town’s roads and communities as a rat run, polluting Reading’s air and damaging the health and wellbeing of residents. While demand management schemes would be explored as part of the strategy, the Council is clear that any future scheme would not involve proposals to charge Reading residents or Reading businesses. Instead, options would focus on deterring through traffic which does not stop in Reading, and highly polluting vehicles.

Councillor John Ennis, Lead Councillor for Climate Strategy and Transport, said:

“We know that Reading is a successful town and a place where people want to live, work and visit. Our new draft transport strategy outlines how we can successfully absorb that growth without both grinding to a halt and damaging the health of local residents.

“The only realistic way to do that is by investing in even better public transport alternatives to the private car. To make public transport attractive to people, we need to make it quicker and more reliable. It is also about making it easier for people to choose to walk or cycle somewhere, particularly for shorter journeys.

“We are realistic, and we know that there are good reasons for car journeys, but if we can encourage people to consider switching to electric vehicles by building more charging infrastructure, it will make a real difference.

“It is a tough balancing act for any town or city, especially a successful one like Reading.  I know lots of residents will have ideas and opinions which we want to hear so that they can be fed into determining a final strategy for Reading, aiming to get buy-in from the people who live and work here and are therefore directly affected.”

You can find out about Reading’s future transport challenges, and how the strategy aims to tackle it, at  www.reading.gov.uk/RTS2040.

Add your thoughts on the consultation at www.reading.gov.uk/RTS2040consultation.

The consultation is open for 12 weeks until 11 December, for comment.