Non-residents could be charged £2 a day to drive into Cardiff after the city council unveiled a £2bn vision to transform the transport network in the city and South East Wales.
The council said its Transport White Paper ‘lays out an ambitious 10-year plan to tackle the climate emergency, reduce congestion and improve air quality in the Welsh capital’.
The paper lists a series of projects to promote sustainable travel including:
- expanding current plans for a Metro rail service
- new bus rapid transit services and Park and Ride sites
- significantly lowering the cost of bus travel
- delivering safer walking and cycling routes
- and ‘offering real travel options designed to get people out of their cars and onto public transport’.
The council said the £2bn plan could be part-funded by a daily road-user-charging scheme, with an exemption for Cardiff residents.
Cllr Caro Wild, cabinet member for strategic planning and transport, said: ‘Right now we are living in a world where the Climate Emergency is changing how we feel about our future. It is beginning to shape our behaviour and point towards the actions we will all have to take to save the planet for our children and grandchildren. Getting our transport system right is so important for our city's future and for our children's future too.
‘This is why I have become more and more convinced that to undertake the kind of radical change required we will need to investigate bringing in some form of charging mechanism to fund the infrastructure required in the city and the wider region.’
He added: ‘One option might be a simple, universal, £2, low-charging system applied to non-Cardiff residents who drive into the city which could reduce congestion, whilst raising money towards paying for improvements to our transport network.
‘We need to get people out of cars and on to public transport. To do that we need to give them the best public transport options. And to do that we need to raise money to pay for them.’
