3. 3. Statement: The Programme for Government — ‘Taking Wales Forward’

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:04 pm on 20 September 2016.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 3:04, 20 September 2016

I think there are a number of ways of doing that. Improving the public transport offer is absolutely key and, by that, I don’t just mean the metro—important though that is—but encouraging cycling. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, of course, was hugely important in terms of starting the process of, and I use the word, as far as the public are concerned, ‘normalising’ cycling—that, where a new road is built, a cycle path is automatically built with it. I think that’s absolutely the way of the future. In some ways, the people who built the old Briton Ferry bridge were ahead of their time by putting a cycle track on the bridge in the 1960s. That is what we have to encourage: that, where we have road schemes, therefore, cycling is part of that, where we can segregate cyclists from cars—[Inaudible.]—as well, of course. We know that there are some parts of Wales where there’s so much traffic that cars are idling and the air quality’s poor. Unless that’s dealt with, it’ll continue to be poor.

But, for me, it’s about making sure that the public transport system that we have is second to none, that it’s cheap, it’s reliable, it’s comfortable and it’s safe. That’s what the two metro systems have been designed to deliver: to make it far easier for people to feel they don’t need their cars. If you look at the north of Cardiff, for example, there is no way of building a road to the north of Cardiff that’ll help with the A470, but there are opportunities for increasing the frequency on the railway lines and, indeed, looking at light rail options further on down the line in order to provide those options. In doing that, of course, we can help then to look to reduce carbon reductions as far as transport is concerned.