Bang gang gets sued Designersface legal adion

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08

Bang gang gets sued Designersface legal adion

Proceedings have been issued against designers ofManchester's

"B of the Bang"

Alsointhis issu"

05 News

TfL bids for Metronet

06 News

DfT responds to Eddington

10 News

Help for local roads

26 Civils 2007

Energy is top priority

42 Names and faces

Martin Heath of Halcrow

24

WATERWAY

Peak Distrid

Gaining access to Georgian reservoirs has become a big a job as the project itself

Comment

Antony Oliver

"11oisa genuinely exciling slep.

.~\\" We are edging doser 10 a realistic

'~~\allernative to the fossil-fuel powered car"

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WC;tc .

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We must embrace new transport technologies

We saw the future of sustainable transport this week in the form of hydrogen fuel cell technology.

J

apanese car manufacturers ap- pear to have, as usual, ignored the "it can't be do ne yet" philosophy and Honda looks set to be first to bring the holy grail of a fuel cell powered vehide to market.

Yes, at fso,ooo for a basic car it's a bit prier for most. And as many commenta tors have already notieed, there isn1tanywhere in the UK to refuel a hydrogen powered vehide yet.

But there cali be no doubt that it won't be long before priees corne clown and

availability goes up.

It is a genuinely exciting step for us aIl.

Maybe there is an element of marketing hype associated with Honda's announce- ment which cornes a few years ahead of expectation. But nevertheless we are edging doser to delivering a realistic alternative to the fossil fuel powered car.

It is therefore quite bizarre that in the

35,500 word report this week by the Department for Transport (DIT) setting out the Government's strategy to move towards a sustainable transport system for the UK by

"supporting economie growth in a low car- bon world" there is no reference ta the word

"hydrogen" or to the phrase "fuel ceIl", How cali this be missing in a report sup- posedly addressing the challenges set by the Treasury-commissioned Stern Review of dimate change economies and highlighted by the Eddington study on UK's transport policy priorities?

The DfT report's first paragraph even daims to propose "a new approach to longer term transport strategy" so that "transport will play its part in delivering the overall level of reductions in carbon emissions".

And it highlights that road transport

"currently produces about 93% of aIl CO² emissions froIDdomestie transport". Ir is therefore nonsensieal to ignore a technol-

ogy whieh, although developing is close to becoming commercially viable.

Don't get me wrong, the DIT's report raises some interesting questions not least the fact that introducing non-polluting vehid~s will have no impact on congestion in the UK.

Ta tackle this we will still have ta roll out active traffic management across the entire network, widen roads, introduce draconian road user charging and improve public transport alternatives if we are ta avoid the flObn a year impact on the economy that Eddington predicts.

ln the 12months ahead of next year's transport White Parer, engineers must make their views known about how ta best deliver these goals.

But 1still Gannat get away from the fact that by failing to address the impacts of new transport technologies, the UK government is once again operating behind the curve.

.. Antony Oliver is NCE's editor.