I move amendment No. 36:
In page 14, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following subsection:
"(3) (a) Each road authority shall ensure that in carrying out its functions to maintain and construct public roads, due regard is had to the needs of various road users, including pedestrians, pedal cyclists, disabled persons and parents or guardians of children in prams, etc.
(b) Each road authority shall therefore, at least every five years, carry out a survey of its road users and categorise them as follows:
(i) pedestrians,
(ii) pedal cyclists,
(iii) motorists (including buses and motor cycles),
(iv) road users with special needs (i.e., disabled persons and parents and guardians of children in prams, etc.).
(c) Each road authority shall then apportion the resources available to it for road maintenance and construction in accordance with the proportion of road users in each category.".
This section deals with the responsibility of road authorities for the maintenance and construction of public roads. This amendment raises the question of for whom public roads are constructed or maintained. It appears to me, that throughout road policy, there is an assumption that roads are for the use of motorised traffic of one kind or another — cars, motor bikes, lorries, buses and so on. By and large all that other road users have been getting is a certain amount of lip service: they would be pedestrians, pedal cyclists, road users who have special needs, whether they be disabled, elderly people or, say, parents pushing prams/buggies, or whatever. In practice what is happening is that, first of all, roads are designed and constructed primarily for motorised users, in some instances, with no regard at all to the needs of other road users. For example, very few roads, other than a couple on an experimental basis, have provision for separate cycle lanes. In many cases new roads constructed, particularly in urban areas, are constructed without footpaths. I can think of a number of dual carriageways in my own constituency which were designed and constructed within the last ten or 15 years, without footpaths. This means the only people who can use those roads in safety are people who are motorised.
Similarly, the resources available to road authorities, particularly since those resources have become more limited, are applied virtually exclusively to the motorised road user or to the sections of the roads which are used by motorised road users. For example, the provision of pedestrian crossings and traffic lights is dependent on traffic and pedestrian counts which, in my opinion, are far too high and then these facilities go to the bottom of the list of priorities. Regarding the construction of footpaths, local authorities have little or no resources available to them, or make little or no resources available, for the construction or maintenance of footpaths.
This creates two problems. First, there are areas, particularly urban areas, where there is clearly a need for provision of footpaths but no resources are made available for their construction. I can list a number of roads — again in my own constituency — where if one wanted to walk from one end of the road to the other by footpath — one would have to cross the road at three or four different places because there are whole sections which do not have a footpath at all. Even where footpaths are provided there is the problem of their maintenance. Some footpaths are simply no longer usable, particularly by people who may be a bit feeble, people in wheelchairs, people pushing prams/buggies, anything of that kind.
What this amendment seeks to do is, first of all, to put an obligation on roads authorities — when they are constructing, designing or maintaining public roads they must have regard to the needs of all road users; second, when resources are being divided up for road use or maintenance, there must be some proportionate method of allocating money to the needs of various road users.
I know, in most local authorities when it comes to estimates time, the allocation of money and so on, the natural inclination is to provide the money to fill the pothole on the road where the car is travelling. Very often the local authority do not have sufficient money to carry out even that function. Always the road user who loses out is the unmotorised one, whether it be a pedestrian or cyclist. What is proposed in my amendment is that a survey be undertaken, say, every five years on the basis of which resources would be allocated for the needs of various road users.