6. Debate on the M4 Corridor around Newport

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:44 pm on 25 June 2019.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 4:44, 25 June 2019

Okay. But in the future we will have 5G infrastructure that will enable us to plan the minutiae of thousands of daily journeys and deploy the public transport system to meet that demand. But we are some way off that for now. So, we absolutely have to get on with the issues that will relieve the congestion today.

So, I'd like to press the Government on the timelines for the things that the Minister announced on 5 June, which are expediting the recovery of vehicles in an area where there are problems on that road, the date for providing an additional traffic officer patrol with extended hours, the live journey time information on the roadside signs—that sounds a little bit more difficult to provide immediately—and a driver behaviour campaign to reduce these incidents that cause the traffic officers to have to be deployed in additional numbers.

We can use the road space differently by, in certain places, having road space designated for buses and those who have more than one passenger in the car. But we really do need to find alternatives to the commuter—mainly commuter— congestion problem. So, I do hope the South East Wales Transport Commission is going to consider, for example, making bus travel in and around Newport free to entice people out of their cars and onto existing buses. We know that the lifting of the tolls on the bridge has led to a 20 per cent spike in traffic on the M4; no doubt this was a deliberate ploy by the current Secretary of State for Wales to try and gain the relief road decision, but let's turn the table on that: what about reintroducing tolls at busy times on the stretch of the M4 where the most difficulties are being experienced? 

So, looking at the south Wales metro electrification projects, we hope we're going to see a sea change in terms of frequency and capacity on those north-south Valleys lines into Cardiff, but this is a north-south affair; the east-west rail services are not devolved, they're currently run by GWR. So, what discussions is the Welsh Government having with (a) the UK Government, (b) Network Rail and (c) GWR on using the four lines between Cardiff and Newport and beyond more effectively? We only need two to be dedicated to the long-distance express services. Why are the other two lines not available for suburban trains?

Last month, I went on a magical mystery tour on an electric bus, which is manufactured by Alexander Dennis in Scarborough, and I'm confident that Cardiff council is now going to buy some of them—or, if not these ones, other electric buses—to deploy in parts of Cardiff. So, that's all good stuff, but what about some of these electric buses around Newport as well? Because they are much more comfortable than the buses that are currently circulating—the dirty buses that are currently circulating—you can charge your phone on them, and it seems to me very much the way in which things are going. 

But I also need to point out that the 12 million trips taken by bike in Cardiff last year mean that there's over 11,000 cars that are not on the road that would have been otherwise. So, I think that there are many things that we can do, and I agree absolutely with Jayne Bryant that Cardiff council has a duty and a responsibility to ensure that there are different ways of getting to these large-scale events taking place in Cardiff, and that means putting in things to actually make it less advantageous for people to travel into Cardiff by car when there are other modes of transport available, so long as we can marshal them.