Cambridge's Success - A Blessing or a Curse?

I came into work early this morning in order to crack on with some outstanding work... but now feel I need to get this quick rant/post off my chest first before I do!

Basically then, it's to do with the (Greater) Cambridge City Deal. I heard this morning that some form of protest is taking place later today in opposition to Council plans to shut down various city roads at different times to help address the traffic problem.

Now, the reason I want to rant is not because I disagree - or agree - with these protesters. It seems quite illogical to me that if you want to help protect trade in our dying town and city centres, the first thing you do is make it difficult for workers to get to work, goods deliverers to deliver and shoppers to shop. That said, a successful, and ever-growing, place like Cambridge needs to try and do something about its already serious transport problems otherwise things will get (far) worse. (And that, indeed, is what the City Deal purports to do.)

So, where is the rant?

Well, it just got me thinking about Europe. Yes, looking across to the continent for potential solutions to our problems doesn't seem to be very popular right now it's true, but I was thinking about both what radical plans some cities there employ to address the similar problems Cambridge has, and also, what cultural differences exist alongside them that help enable those solutions to be genuinely successful.

And I'm thinking about Belgium. Yes, that small, divided, country with two languages (three actually), an EU Parliament, and an alleged obsession with chocolate, lace, chips and (really, let's be honest, the best) beer.

When some small towns over there start to develop similar traffic issues that Cambridge is experiencing, I believe they have two distinct advantages.

1. They (tend to) have powerful, decision-making, local mayors.
2. They have a different approach to when to do business.

Regarding the first point, this is something we are slowly beginning to understand and take on board in the UK. The powers of The Mayor of London (the real one that is, rather than the one that wears a silly hat) are now seen as helpful and aiding decentralisation of Government, so proposals are popping up everywhere for other similar roles to be made for other large UK cities... and, indeed, wider areas. Will the, rather bizarre, plan for a directly elected Mayor of East Anglia be successful? Who knows. Either way, it doesn't appear that powerful roles for administering smaller cities (on their own) seems to be on the agenda yet.

And regarding the second point, this is where I feel there is an issue then, and a need to rant...

To address this then, I want to ask a couple of questions first.

Why does Cambridge have a traffic issue? 

Well, because it is ever-successful, but at the same time constrained by geography and history. You can't knock down its old buildings to widen roads! (Well, you can... but there are limits!)

Where are commuters heading? 

Cambridge has thousands of people heading into - or through - the town every morning in order to get to their place of work. Commuters heading to the train and bus stations in order to go beyond the city, students wanting to get to class, lecturers wanting to beat them there in order to teach them, scientists, researchers, regular business workers and so on. And, of course, this is the pretty much the same thing that happens in every town, wherever you go...

But it also has shop workers trying to get into work to set up shop (of course) and deal with the goods deliveries that (need to) take place ahead of opening time. Again, the same as in other UK cities... but not necessarily Belgium.

Shopaholics

In the UK, we are used to Sunday being a rest day, and down-town shops usually opening between the hours of 9am and 5pm every week day and Saturday. But in Belgium (and many other European countries), you sometimes find shops closing on a Monday or Tuesday, and not Sunday (despite an arguably more influential Church). You also find shops open well into the evening on most days, but not necessarily during the morning.

Why? Well there are different local laws in different cities (see Point 1!), but generally speaking it's because there is an acknowledgement that having everyone (try and) do the same thing at the same time not only creates traffic congestion, but it also also prevents good, strategic, business from taking place. As I see it, shops that can afford to be closed at 10 am in the morning clearly have a decent financial strategy... or at least, a balanced one.

Long story short, I believe we need to tackle the current mindset we have in the UK... or Cambridge at least. Shops should be allowed to open before 9am... and/or after 5pm. In Cambridge, we do have late closing on Wednesdays now, and that's good, but that just makes the working week longer. Those shops closing at 7pm, etc. should also be opening at 11am in order to give their workers the same working conditions that other office workers have. Also, having your workers work longer means the pressure is on to make a greater profit in order to then pay them (and address the other overheads). It needn't be that way... (shock-horror!) making extra profit isn't everything*.

Different frogs, Different times

So, if we have office workers going to their office for 9, but shop workers going to their shops for 11, we stagger the impact of the daily commute and resulting traffic on our city's transport infrastructure. Do you really need to widen roads that remain empty half the day?

Also, imagine finishing work on a weekday at 5 and being able to then do some clothes shopping in town before you head home! No need to bunch everything together for one mammoth shopping operation on the Saturday... when everyone else is thinking - and trying to do - the same thing.

Walk, bike, bus, car, train...

For me, very little that takes place in Cambridge over the next few years to help address its transport problems will have the genuine impact that helps all. Doing something will have a positive impact somewhere for sure, and it may even help a certain section of the community or a set of businesses... but what it will also likely do is upset others at the same time, or prevent some other option from doing better.

Today's planned march seems to illustrate that point well.

But I am also thinking of the Busway as I type this, too. I won't go into detail here, but the fact the Busway is now well used (and perhaps even admired by some) doesn't mean we should then forget about what could have been...

And now we hear of plans for a new Busway for Cambridge! One that takes out countryside this time (rather than a pre-existing railway track), and all for trying to, admirable though it is, remove the car from the transport equation.

Anyway, whilst my desire for there to be an orbital underground railway with spurs linking existing out-of-town Park and Ride sites in Cambridge seems fanciful and extortionate, it is worth noting that all the other transport "solutions" still cost a lot of money**... and a lot of that money ends up in feasibility studies and legal disputes rather than in actual construction.

Right, rant over: I wanted this to be short. Back to work!

Cheers,
ZeeOx

*You may disagree... but I am not trying to be a Communist here! Radical growth and profit that cannot be sustained usually results in failure, long term. That is boom and bust economics in a nutshell.

**Money in terms of budget... and money in terms of lost revenue to those businesses negatively impacted by the new operations.