Dr. Lynn Sloman:

Obviously, I am speaking as an independent consultant and not on behalf of the Welsh Government. My sense is that there is a wide recognition in Wales that one cannot ride two horses at the same time. We cannot build roads and create increased traffic and car dependence and also hope to achieve modal shift. This is not a universal view politically but there is a growing sense of support from all political parties. I do not think that is necessarily true in other parts of the UK. I certainly do not think it is true in England so different pictures are emerging from different parts of the UK.

The other factor in all of this is that building roads is expensive. If we need to find more money to invest in world-class public transport networks and cycle facilities, it makes sense to reduce the road budget to free up money for that. One of my colleagues has done a piece of work that was published today looking at the potential for investment in rural bus services in England. It is very clear that reallocation of the funding that is currently being spent on road building would enable something akin to Swiss-style public transport service frequency standards, with every village having a service every hour throughout the day. It feels as if these are the sorts of ambitions we need and they are really only possible if we stop spending so much money on road building.

On the point about modal share targets and traffic reduction targets, in the analysis we did for the Welsh Government, we realised that reducing traffic mileage to the extent implied by the Scottish target - a 20% reduction in per capita mileage - is very challenging and requires investment in high-quality alternatives and definitely some form of demand management, whether that is road user charging or other restrictions on car use. The conclusion is inescapable. We need to look at demand management as well as improvements over the next few years.