Increased traffic and congestion
A) The project is expressly designed to foster new cross-river journey patterns leading to increasing car mileage in the locality of the tunnel and further afield.  Its private funding status requires the concessionnaire to seek to increase traffic whereas local councils are required to seek to reduce traffic.

B) The locality of the tunnel is already overcrowded (1) and traffic needs to be reduced.  As ever, construction of a new road is at best a very short term relief to congestion problems.

C) The Government seeks to reduce traffic through local traffic reduction targets (2) and through planning guidance (PPG13) which calls on planning authorities and developers to minimise traffic generation.  The proposal for a new tunnel does exactly the opposite.

Additional roadworks required
D) Substantial additional roadworks would be required to accommodate the extra traffic generated and restore major junctions to even their present level of congestion, if the tunnel were built.  These roadworks would be required to be funded from the public purse and this additional cost of the tunnel construction is not declared in the promotional literature.

E) There would be a congestion knock-on effect. These extra roadworks would not accommodate new traffic on other than main routes and junctions.  That means that the existing network of residential and access roads throughout South Tyneside and North Tyneside would suffer an increase in traffic with no improvements possible (3).  This would lead to yet more parking on pavements and pressure for the construction of new roads - see (F).

F) One route, for which pressure for a new road to be built must increase if a new tunnel is permitted, runs from end to end of the two-mile-long Hebburn-to-Pelaw Riverside Park.  This route has been safeguarded for many years as the "Riverside Route".  The option was (significantly) dropped from the current Gateshead UDP on grounds including the area's exceptional scenic interest.  However the route is now once again the subject of a joint feasability study by Gateshead and South Tyneside councils.

This is a bad sign.  The Hebburn-to-Pelaw Riverside Park is an area of outstanding scenic interest and it is currently a large semi-rural haven, free from traffic noise, and situated next to major housing areas in a densly populated urban area.  We believe that driving a road through this park would be both unnecessary and reactionary.  Such a development would run against both Government guidelines and the evolving, more environmentally-aware, spirit of the times.

Increased pollution
G) We believe that references by the tunnel promoters to "reducing pollution" don't square with a more-than-doubling of tunnel traffic which the new tunnel is intended to generate.  A short-lived reduction of pollution from vehicles now waiting to enter the present tunnel will be more than offset by pollution from vehicles waiting in traffic jams caused by this extra traffic, elsewhere in the locality and closer to local communities and schools.

We need traffic reduction - NOT increase
H) If the tunnel promoters wish to continue to make the point that the tunnel will be adequate to cope with expected traffic levels for the next 30 years, we ask:
H 1) On what assumption of traffic growth is this presumption made?
H 2) Does not the failure of the present tunnel to be adequate to meet expected traffic levels suggest that a new tunnel would do the same?
H 3) If measures are assumed to have been taken by local and /or national government to reduce the rate of increase in traffic growth as is government policy (2), then why substantially increase traffic when the intention is to reduce it?
H 4) A large majority of MPs from all main parties voted for the Road Traffic Reduction Bill which sought a reduction of road traffic in absolute terms.  This intention was watered down in the Bill to a reduction in the rate of traffic increase.  Alliance members believe that an absolute reduction in road traffic is required to reverse the damage that excessive car use is already causing to our rural and town landscapes and to our health.  They will continue to press for targets to be set in subsequent bills to achieve this objective. In that circumstance, traffic increase which runs against the tenor of present legislation - and even more against likely future legislation - is clearly inappropriate.

I) The long-standing planners' and politicians' presumption that increasing road space increases commercial competitiveness is not supported by studies (4) (5?).

J) The long-standing presumption that you can "build your way out" of traffic problems by increasing road space is explicitly rejected in relation to the North East's emerging Regional Planning Guidance (6), and in the practical evidence from experience with the Tyneside Western Bypass.

Planning for less traffic
K) This "completion of the A19 corridor" will increase the level of traffic between Teesside and Tyneside, and dramatically increase the likelihood of ribbon development along the whole length of the East Durham coast.  The whole concept is an outdated road-based solution to regional development (7). Our note on confusion regarding the purpose of the proposed tunnel (N) also refers.

L) Alliance members consider that employment should be zoned near to centres of population or on public transport routes convenient to local and regional centres of population.  Indeed this point is made in local and national government documents (8), (9). The implication for North and South Tyneside is:
      L 1) that local industry should be encouraged which suits local catchment areas (on the same side of the river) and not regional needs unless regional public transport access is in place or will be provided.  Training and retraining are essential to enabling people to adapt to new job opportunities in their localities.
      L 2) that River Tyne waterside land must be safeguarded and developed for maritime industry for which the River is a resource of national importance, and not for waterside housing (10).  Maritime skills training and retraining are essential to the regeneration of a healthy industry and jobs in this strategically sensitive zone.  Training and retraining are essential components of any development package (waterside or elsewhere) which seeks to enable local people to benefit from new job opportunities.
      L 3) that workers should be encouraged to move house when they move to a new job at a considerable distance and not accessible by public transport.  Clearly this is often difficult (schooling, social commitments and job insecurity being three reasons).  But this is in general a better solution for the community as a whole than the present presumption that residence remains fixed and jobs move, whatever the transport implications.
      L 4) that arguments that users of the retail complex at Royal Quays and the leisure complex at Boldon Business Park need better access for customers from the opposite sides of the river defy Government planning guidance and protocol.  Developments such as these should at least contribute to the cost of roads needed to serve them. To supply extra roads for commercial developments post hoc, is, we believe, improper.  If unofficial assurances have been given to these two groups of developers that they will enjoy the benefit of tunnel acces in due course to increase the number of their customers, these assurances are invalid.

The role of public transport
M) There are several ways to make public transport more able to accommodate the needs of people who have to cross the river by developing existing resources:
      M 1) Priority access lanes to the existing tunnel for buses, emergency vehicles and possibly HGVs in conjunction with lessening congestion in the areas local to the present tunnel would enable bus routes through the tunnel to run reliably (1).
      M 2) Existing plans for more ferries and ferry landings could be developed to provide a viable route to work in conjunction with bus routes to the ferry terminals (12).
      M 3) Frequent bus services with access right up to the present pedestrian tunnel terminals at both ends could much increase use of the tunnel by pedestrians.
      M 4) Access with a sense of security through the present pedestrian and cycle tunnels would be much enhanced by the reintroduction of permanent staff and the provision of larger lifts and / or permanent use of the escalators. (Could new technology make these more efficient?).
      M 5) Alliance members have not abandoned the idea of a new Metro bridge or tunnel (probably between South Shields and Tynemouth), and we feel that this option has been dismissed without sufficient consideration of the options, and of new technology.

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Notes

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