Thirty years ago, planners proposed a dual carriage ring road to solve York's traffic problems. The road was never built but the jams are still here. CHRIS TITLEY considers past and present approaches to beat the jams.

YOU had to give it full marks for ambition. Plans for a York inner ring road, published this week 30 years ago, would present "the greatest challenge to the city since the coming of the railway". This was no tinker round the edges, hedge-your-bets proposal. This was a three-mile dual carriageway designed to make traffic congestion a thing of the past.

York had been talking about such a road since 1948. The first concrete proposals came in 1967, with the city engineer pencilling a route just outside the city walls.

That encountered too much opposition, so consultant engineers and landscape architects were hired to come up with an alternative proposal.

After 16 months' work they put forward a 92-page report detailing an £8 million route that would have changed the face of York.

It was to be built in two stages. The first, from Gillygate, would have gone over a new bridge across the Ouse, behind York Railway Station then climbed onto stilts over the railway line to The Mount. The Evening Press called it a "road in the sky plan".

Section two went from The Mount over a second bridge at Clementhorpe to join Foss Islands Road near Walmgate Bar.

Protecting the environment had been paramount when it came to choosing the route, the report said. The dual carriageway would be lined by trees. And, although the road would bisect Bootham School playing fields, a wall would be built to minimise the impact on pupils.

But not everyone's feelings had been taken into consideration. Around 300 houses would need to be demolished to cater for York motorists' needs. These included six Grade II listed properties.

Many houses on and off The Mount were lined up to be flattened. Homes in Holgate Road would also be sacrificed, and the then 120-year-old St Paul's Church would be removed and replaced with a new church.

Moss Street residents reacted with anger to news that their homes were expendable. "We've all spent hundreds of pounds improving our homes. The price of houses here will drop immediately if anyone wants to sell," said one.

A correspondent from The Mount was also unhappy. "Virtually the entire housing in the central part of the present Mount Road, together with many of those in the surrounding area, are to be pulled down," he wrote, in a letter published on April 6, 1971.

"I feel when residents realise the extent of the proposal they will want to object strongly to the scheme."

Nevertheless, after packed council meetings and a public inquiry, the inner ring road was approved. It was only stopped in 1975 when the Environment Secretary Anthony Crosland said that other ways to solve York's traffic jams had not been explored.

City engineers and planners have been exploring them ever since. Today big road schemes are largely out of fashion, and the emphasis is on traffic reduction and management.

Jams are still with us, of course. A sunny Easter will prompt an exodus from York to the coast, turning the A64 into a giant car park. Meanwhile, shoppers and tourists will crawl into York on narrow roads and compete for scarce parking spaces.

City of York Council's Local Transport Plan reveals how far transport policy has travelled since those heady days of roads on stilts 30 years ago.

The 1971 report made it clear that motorists were king: cycles, mopeds and footpaths would be banned from the new inner ring road. Today, the council has a very different set of priorities. Its 'hierarchy of transport users' ensures pedestrians are the first consideration. Cyclists are placed at number three, public transport users at number four, powered two-wheeler riders at five, and car-borne commuters last, at number eight.

While the 1971 plan included a multi-storey car park off Clarence Street, the present council wants to cut spaces on the Union Terrace car park that now stands on this site.

The council is committed to limiting overall traffic growth to four per cent over the next two years. "This represents a significant reduction compared with the 'do nothing' situation and contributes to achieving a seven per cent reduction in cars coming into the city by 2003," the Local Transport Plan states.

Traffic jams in every city are a major economic headache. Urban areas account for 80 per cent of the time lost on congested routes. That amounts to 1.6 billion wasted hours a year.

Rush-hour commuting is a major cause of congestion, and three quarters of car commuters have a workplace parking space. That is why the Government wants to bring in workplace parking charges. But support for this idea is slumping, according to a new survey.

Research by the Institution of Civil Engineers revealed that only eight per cent of local authorities are still keen to charge people to park at work - significantly down on the figure for 1998.

Even fewer councils - six per cent - support Government proposals to make drivers pay to enter city centres.

In York, charging motorists to enter the city and park at work were put forward as potential ways to fund the ambitious Local Transport Plan. But then the Government came over all generous and stumped up £28 million towards the plan. So the need for these charges was negated.

However, a council spokesman said it will still offer encouragement to any business which unilaterally decided to charge staff for parking at work.

The Government cash is earmarked to build three new Park and Ride sites, introduce new train stations, develop bus services and improve integrated transport.

Major road improvement schemes are conspicuous by their absence from this list. But such is the turnaround in transport thinking over the last 30 years, that even the Road Haulage Association is unworried by the development.

Northern regional director Geoff Dunning says his lorry-driving members have two primary concerns. One is deliveries within urban areas, the other is long distance journeys.

When it came to making deliveries into York, the association was aware of the city's special status and "respects what York city council has done to protect the unique nature of York". Members were working within these restrictions.

"As far as long distance routes are concerned, really there's only one thing on the list: the outer ring road to the north of the city, between the A19 and the A64, also extending along to the A59.

"There's a good argument for the whole of the outer ring road to be dual carriageway, also along the A19 going north, and the A64 going east."

That may be some years off yet, but Mr Dunning is confident it will happen. In the meantime he is supportive of any action that will reduce the number of "one-person car journeys" clogging up the roads.

Updated: 10:32 Thursday, April 05, 2001