Transport and land-use planning: the case of British and French conurbations

Journnl of 7run.r,mr~ Geography Vol 3. No 2. pp 127-141. IYYS Flsevier Science Ltd Pnnted in Great Bruin. UYhh-hY23NS $IU.UU + 0.00

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UTTERWORTH EINEMANN

09664923(95)00012-7

Transport and land-use planning: the case of British and French conurbations Christian Universitt

Mont&s

LuniQre

Lyon

2, C.P.11,

5, uvenue

Pierre-Mend&-France,

69.676,

BRON

Cedex,

France

Although there are institutional and economic differences, the choices made by planners in French and British conurbations follow the same models, where transport is rarely coordinated with land use, despite the intentions expressed. Differences remain, in the political and financial powers of the cities (which are greater in France), and the nature of their public structures. But the policies are similar, even if every conurbation has a specific transport network; the bias towards road transport and to the city centre lead respectively to the fragmentation and polarization of conurbations. Planners end up trying to adapt the structure and operation of conurbations to the ‘natural’ pattern of the transport modes. Keywords:

urban

transport,

land-use

planning.

conurbation,

It is interesting to compare land use and transport planning in France and Britain, because, with similar economies and cultures, their urban planning stems from a common ideology; first Le Corbusier’s Charte d’Ath&nes and Dudley Stamp’s land-use zoning in the 193Os, second identical imported land use-transportation models elaborated in the United States, and adapted, sometimes inadequately, with a time lag of 10 or 20 years and finally the role of the development of deprived areas in defining policies (Mont&s, 1992). The link between transport and the location of activities seems to be accepted by planners, although case studies are not always conclusive (Merlin, 1984). Moreover, the general orientation of French policies was taken from Britain, one of the first nations to define land-use planning procedures; the influence of Sir Colin Buchanan’s studies, for example, was considerable. The recent evolution of planning induced both countries to question the approach elaborated during the long period of postwar economic growth, even if organizations, institutional frameworks and modes apparently differed. France downgraded certain state institutions and promoted decentralization, which permitted the development of local politics. On the other hand, Britain dismantled its local planning structure and recentralized, which hampered the development of local policies. In both cases, a revival of the will to plan and to control the workings of the city is taking place in the 1990s.

polarization,

expertise

The main objective of this paper is to show that, although there are institutional and economic difthe structure of land-use planning in ferences, France and Great Britain is based on the same models, and that the European norm ‘where the plan is typically binding on all parties, including transport authorities’ (Hill, 1993) no more applies to France than it does to Great Britain; transport and land use remain rarely coordinated. This leads, in both countries, to the fragmentation and polarization of conurbations.

Questions

raised by the structure

of planning

An inadequate institutional map French conurbations are smaller in area than British conurbations because of higher population densities owing to more collective housing, and more concentrated production. Greater Lyon, for instance, covers 484 km’, whereas the West Midlands covers over 1500 km*. Urban problems are, however, alike and city limits have become blurred. The inadequate institutional structure stems from the overlap of responsibilities owing to multiple administrative and transport jurisdictions, not always on the same scale, and the private sector with its own structures. Figure 1 shows that, whereas six planning tiers exist in France, Britain juxtaposes planning procedures. However, real local power is emerging in both 127

Transport and land-use planning: C Mont&

France

Great Britain

*

Communes

Districts : UDP, TPP (roads)

I

+

SDAU

Specific areas (UDCs, Action Areas, ...) FTA:FTE : public transport plans

I

KEY: Areas in bold type e.g. State : territorial level with administrativepowers Other areas e.g. Conurbation : area without administrative authority * Shire counties only since the abolition of metropolitan counties in 1986 POS : Plan d'occupation des Sols PPG : Planning Policy Guidance Notes PTA : Passenger Transport Authority PTE : Passenger Transport Executive SDAU : Schema Directeur d'Amenagement TPP : Transport Policies and Programmes UDC : Urban Development Corporation UDP : Unitary Development Plan Figure 1

Authorities and planning levels inFranceand GreatBritain

countries. In fact, while classical analyses stated that France was a highly centralized country with powerless conurbations and Great Britain a country with a tradition of strong municipal authorities and expertise, the reality of the 1990s tends to bring both nations closer. In France, this stems from the decreasing importance of the State (Laborie etaZ1985); decentralization set up Communautt% Urbaines (1969) to control conurbations, with specific staff, assets and taxes; the state in 1982-83 granted devolved administration, and transferred power and resources to local authorities. The National Plan is only indicative, and the influence of national research bodies often remains theoretical. Besides, the local echelons of French state administrations have partly lost their role: the Prkfecture, the arm of Central Government in the Dkpartement, only exercises a behind-the-scenes 128

control.‘The Direction Dkpartementale de I’Equipement is superseded by local services in urban development, planning, and even in building and managing infrastructures. SNCF (French Railways) and British Rail both still think in inter-urban terms although British Rail’s influence is declining with the transfer of infrastructure to Railtrack in 1994 and the onset of service franchising. However, existing infrastructures largely result from past state decisions, which organized the conurbations’ structures: for instance, in France, peri-urbanization and urban fragmentation were caused by the priority given, since 1966, to individual housing and Industrial Zones, which influenced mobility without controlling it. In Britain, the government is officially hostile to planning: it never had any global national plan, abandoned regional ones 20 years ago, and abolished

Transport and land-use planning: C Mont&

the Regional Economic Planning Councils (REPC) in 1979. All planning takes place at intra-regional level, where Whitehall favours the district level; in April 1986, the Metropolitan Counties, which were only created in 1974, were abolished enhancing the role of Metropolitan Districts. The two-tier structure in the English and Welsh shire counties and Scottish regions is now under threat from another local government review. Nevertheless, since the end of the 1980s a renewal of strategic planning has been taking place in Great Britain, under the pressure of the conurbations themselves, aware of increasing congestion, and wanting to recover some of their lost autonomy. Between 1987 and 1991, some 20 British urban areas have commissioned - or considered conducting - global transport studies (May, 1991). Often studying whole conurbations, or even regions, they aim to promote a synergy between transport and urban planning. So government has been providing local authorities with Planning Policy Guidances since 1988, which cover whole conurbations. Moreover, since the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 (Hill, 1993), it has begun to reassess the value of planning. However, even with such changes, the planning structure in the conurbations of both countries suffers from the multiplication of decision levels, which fragments the decision process. The multiplicity of planning levels

Three principal tiers exist, where transport and landuse planning follow a different structure: (I) the conurbation Directeur

level. In France,

d’Amtnagement

et

the Sche’ma d’urbanisme

(SDAU) is a long-term plan, generally for 20 years, that follows the conurbation boundaries, which are determined by the state, and is compulsory for all communes with over 100 000 inhabitants. The SDAU coordinates public planning and urban infrastructure policies and links local authorities and state services. The SDAU indicates urban options, land-use modes and intervention priorities and local plans must conform to its guidelines. Transport plans also exist, but they are separate, with a different loyear time-scale, and only deal with public transport. In Britain, there is no comprehensive conurbation-wide plan since the abolition of metropolitan counties in 1986 but only brief governmental Planning Policy Guidances, which metropolitan District Councils have to consider while producing their own plans. Although conurbation-wide Passenger Transport Authorities and Executives were retained in 1986, their public transport strategy plans have no land use remit and their powers and responsibilities have been weakened by local bus deregulation and government-imposed financial constraints.

(2) The

communal

or district level. In France, the des Sols (POS), enforceable by the law, very precisely regulates land use and construction. Partial transport plans are possible, but not compulsory. The SDAU-plus-POS system (set up in 1967) s h ows the triumph of functionalism and zoning. It still is partly state-controlled but only with hindsight. In Britain, the same discrepancy exists between transport and land use; metropolitan districts have to make plans for roads (Transport Policies and Programmes) and other plans for general planning (Unitary Development Plans, which are replacing the former City, Borough and Local Plans: seven in West Midlands and 10 in Greater Manchester, for instance. The first UDPs were approved in 1993). (3) Specific areas. Here lies the main difference between France and Britain. France only has a few, set up by local authorities to reinforce control on ‘vital’ areas, as in the case of the new commercial node of Lyon, la Part-Dieu. British urban policies, on the contrary, are under the control of numerous bodies, imposed by central government, dealing with urban renewal within specific areas, which overlap the main planning procedures at district level. The Conservative Government distrusts local authorities and prefers ‘simplified’ procedures and swift action. Policies are carried out by ad hoc bodies, with streamlined structures which are exempt from many planning controls and common regulations. They disappear after the completion of their essentially economic mission, as shown by their names: Simplified Planning Areas, Enterprise Zones, Task Forces . . . The same applied to housing, the control of which has become more difficult; the 1988 Housing Act changed the local authority role from that of a provider to that of an enabler of housing provision. Plan d’occupation

The planning landscape thus remains blurred at conurbation level because of the competition of various bodies, which share influence and planning powers. In France, there are only nine Communaut&s Urbaines, including Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon and Strasbourg, but neither Paris nor Marseille. The commune often dominates, all the more so since 1982 as it has obtained more power in economic and planning matters and it grants building licences, often in quite a permissive way. Moreover, the decentralization increased the powers of two supraurban authorities, the long established Dkpartement created in 1790, and the postwar Rkgion created in 1956. Non-urban transport is devolved to the former; but in conurbations where travel-to-work areas often go beyond the official boundaries, Dkpartements and cities cooperate closely. In Lyon for instance, Dkpartement and Communaute’ Urbaine both define 129

Transport and land-use planning: C Mont&

and finance transport policies. The Rkgion can work out Regional Transport Plans: in Lyon, it partly financed the TGV stations and the eastern motorway bypass. Moreover, the absence of a hierarchical structure for these territorial levels, which all exercise a fragment of power, precludes the provision of regulatory procedures. Local politicians have a bigger role, because decentralization multiplied the number of political decision makers. Moreover, the consensus sought by cooperative bodies such as the Communautt% Urbaines sometimes dictated a toning down of the plans; indeed, Lyon’s 1992 Plan was accused of producing more text than real action, as Margaret Thatcher once said of the British Metropolitan Counties. In Britain, the government is mainly reasoning in non-spatial terms, following classic economic theory, and coordination between the numerous bodies is poor. Furthermore, the planning applicant profits by a presumption in his/her favour in the exercise of the planning system (Hill, 1993). This hinders planning procedures, since the action of government itself is not coordinated as no specialized department covers urban policies.’ The Departments of Environment and of Trade and Industry are mostly responsible for urban policy whilst transport and finance are mostly dealt with separately at national level (Marche and Reynaud, 1991). Finances and local power: a difficult relationship

Conurbations in both countries profit from various central government grants; in France, state transfers have diminished because of decentralization whilst in Britain they have increased owing to recentralization. In France, the state tends to leave the responsibility and financing of local public investment and services to local authorities. Urban transport grants were halved over 15 years, worsening the public transport deficit, in spite of the Versement-Transport, a payroll tax of up to 2.4% paid since 1971 by every company in medium-sized and big cities, which represents 41% of public transport financing. However, these reductions in expenditure fall short of the British system of ratecapping (now council tax capping), which sets a very strict legal ceiling on local authorities’ budgets. Adopted to counter inflationist trends, the measure hampers any big investment. Moreover, the emphasis on capital expenditure in the Transport Supplementary Grant structure did not allow for strategic initiatives across district boundaries until 1994 (Hill, 1993).* French conurbations thus are

’ However, in 1994 the Government created Government Offices in each region of England combining the functions of the Departments of Environment and Transport regional offices. z From 1994, the Transport Policies and Programme (TPP) Package Approach allowed neighbouring metropolitan districts and Passenger Transport Authorities to submit joint bids to central government for the funding of strategic initiatives.

130

relatively rich compared with British ones - the city of Birmingham’s budget for example is f750 million, against about f1400 million for the similar sized Greater Lyon - and have more flexible financing capacities. To diminish dependence on the state, some thought of working with the private sector; private capital, however, remains too weak outside the capitals of both countries to promote major urban developments, even if the French Chambres de Commerce et d’lndustrie carry more weight3 than their British counterparts. A new approach nevertheless appeared in the 1980s with ‘partnership’ as its motto. It leads essentially to new financing, linked to the crisis in local finances. Since 1986, French local authorities have been allowed to call upon private financing for the building of major roads, whereas this was only possible for car parks before. In Britain, specific areas with a strong commitment of private capital, such as Enterprise Zones (1981), have been created since 1980, the Urban Programme was modified, and urban public transport was deregulated in 1986 and progressively privatized. Partnership indeed permitted the establishment of new relations between the public and private sectors, enabled ‘new developers’ to arise, who set up local public management and ended in France the era of mighty para-public developers. But its results are mixed, and it remains marginal in both countries, because public-private associations ‘do not offer any remedy to infrastructure deficiencies, especially for road network and public transport, which ask for expenditure only government can meet’ (Goodchild, 1991, p 116). Besides, the result of the deregulation and privatization ‘has often been oligopolistic control of particular transport markets instead of competition’ (Knowles and Hall, 1992, p 34) instead of comprehensive planning, which needs coordinated planning tools and public control (Lewis, 1992). But local authorities sometimes go beyond official requirements. West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority for instance set up in 1992 a season ticket covering the whole conurbation, which allows passengers to ride on the services of 40 different bus companies and on local railway services. Inadequate planning tools

Planning tools remain specialized, and their ideological and spatial basis, land-use zoning, no longer corresponds to current realities, which encourage mixed and diversified activities and locations. Plans are numerous and each one follows its own procedures and timing; even if they are theoretically in a hierarchy, with Schkmas or Guidances providing the general framework, POS or UDP the city-scale precisions, local action areas the concrete action, the reality differs.

3 They sometimes

manage

ports

and airports,

as in Lyon.

Transport and land-use planning:

Lyon well exemplifies these difficulties. In fact, the text which should have provided the basis for all planning never did: the first S&ma was approved only in 1978 (and as it had started in 1969, was already obsolete; the 1990 Sche’ma was cancelled because of its flaws in 1991 and revoted in 1992. The communes of the Communa& had to carry out POS without any point of reference, and thus without real coherence. The Greater London Council’s 1984 Greater London Development Plan and Metropolitan Counties’ Strategic Plans, finished shortly before these Councils’ abolition, met with the same fate. As for local plans, they are difficult to manage and subject to permanent revision in France, and are short term in both countries, when one consider that the construction of a new road takes about 10 years. Plans also fail because they lack effective monitoring and results are hardly ever evaluated. Extensive studies dealing with the effects of urban motorways or underground rail systems remain the exception and so, inevitably, land-use planning is generally a matter of hindsight. Communautks Urbaines or Metropolitan Counties were created to reorient developments already under way in expanding conurbations, and most transport plans were created to stop the uncontrolled growth of road traffic. Such ‘patch repair’ policies cannot easily exercise a major influence on transport, except at a local scale where, for instance, a new underground line can be part of the renewal of a neighbourhood. Planning aims are comprehensive, but action remains selective. The fragmentation of local expertise stems from the multiplication of urban bodies and from the persistent divide between transport and land-use expertise (Annales de la Recherche Urbaine, Nos 4445). Transport expertise is technical: three-quarters of transport experts are civil engineers in France, and they have also dominated Passenger Transport Authorities and Executives in Britain. Landuse expertise remains more complex: in France, ‘architects-urbanists’ dominate, often more preoccupied with the ‘landscape’ of the city than with its transport network; in Britain, since 1979, planners have often yielded to economists, consultants and private developers. Contacts between the two domains of expertise are rare, they do not yet share the same culture, and politicization has introduced the replacements of top planners after every change in political control, at national and conurbation level in France, and at conurbation level in Britain (as in Birmingham). Besides, because of political changes, regional government offices have either disappeared in Britain (REPC) or partly lost their mediation role in France, as in the case of the Direction Dkpartementale de I’Equipement (DDE). Before the decentralization, being almost the only ‘urban expert’, DDE also acted as a go-between between central services, where its agents had colleagues, and local power. In Lyon for instance, the first mttro studies

C Month

were elaborated by one DDE civil servant before any governmental decision, but with the full approval of local authorities. However, a change is taking place. A local expertise is appearing in France, thanks to decentralization; it is being revived in Britain, where city administrations have a strong technical tradition, even with limited finances. Local expertise has been developed, to demonstrate independence from central government, to support their applications for grants and to help solve the local economic crises. For instance, in September 1991, Newcastle upon Tyne created a Development Department (250 people), by fusing the Economic Development Unit, Planning Department and Architects Section, but transport remains separate. In 1985, Birmingham created an Economic Development Unit (250 people), and will institute a monitoring system, to ‘evaluate the main social and economic trends affecting the City and providing the basis for any policy adjustments’ (Birmingham City Council, 1991, p 4). Lyon wants to do the same. The effect of recentralization in Britain has been similar to that of decentralization in France, namely the rise of a local expertise; but it is more limited, sectoral and not coordinated. Thus, planning does not fully control the workings of the urban system. It mostly remains autonomous, jeopardizing the initial endeavour to structure conurbations logically. Action is mostly corrective; thus, conurbations are imbalanced and fragmented.

The fragmentation of conurbations Transport: an important role in plans

The themes discussed in both countries are similar, and have recently been changed. While the 1960s plans wanted to adapt the city to economic growth and to the motor car, and the 1970s plans were interested in traffic management and employment, current plans, apart from urban and transport policies, lay stress on environment and social development, and aim to build a city ‘pleasant to live in’, within strict financial targets. In plans, the will to become an ‘international city’ comes first, followed by economic recovery and balance of employment inside the conurbation. The same goes for transport: the keynotes are accessibility, mobility, modal equality between private and public transport, and urban ‘quality’. In both countries, the market is considered as the main element in economic recovery, moderated by social policies, even if governments are asked to take measures in favour of modes other than the motor car. Too much deregulation can mean a worsening of traffic congestion, as shown for example in Glasgow and Sheffield in Great Britain since local bus deregulation in 1986. Whereas the local level can control its economy only with difficulty, as it is subordinated to external 131

Transport and land-use planning: C Mont&

decision centres, transport still ranks high in local policies as local authorities issue regulations, and finance its infrastructures, even its operation. Studies carried out for more than 30 years have clearly shown the importance of transport networks and politicians have openly targeted them. The reasons are many: the rise in the power of local politicians, the current constitution of expert teams, and the growing and politically sensitive traffic congestion. Three examples allow a comparison of policies. The City of Birmingham (935 000 inhabitants in 1991, out of the conurbation’s 2.5 million) produced its lo-year strategic Unitary Development Plan in consultation with adjoining authorities. Primarily viewed as a land-use plan, it nevertheless also provides ‘a well argued strategic context, with statutory backing, to strengthen annual resource bids such as the TPP submission’ (Birmingham City Council, 1991, p 3); for transport, it only provides ‘the framework within which further complementary work will be necessary in successive TPPs and through the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority Plans as well as the plans of other bodies such as British Rail to achieve the City Council’s objectives’ (1991, p 41). So Centro (the corporate name of West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive) worked out in 1992 a Twenty-Year Strategy for public transport. In Newcastle, however, the UDP (&year strategy) ‘combines a strategic land use and transportation overview of the city with detailed area, site and road proposals’ (City of Newcastle, 1991, p V). It is a legacy from the 1970s vision which led the Labour-controlled Tyne and Wear County Council to favour public transport; a Metro System was built (1984), with the objectives of improving accessibility and fostering employment. In Lyon, the responsibility for urban passenger transport, highways and car parks rests with the Communaute! Urbaine (72 communes with 1 160 000 inhabitants in 1990), which also produced a Schkma Directeur in 1992, and directly manages the POS. One might think that, unlike in Britain, it is able to conduct a comprehensive planning policy. The very words of the SDAL indeed seem promising, with two main objectives: . to ensure a really complementary road and public transport network in a global and coherent system.

. . to ensure the coherence between transport and urbanism, between transport and urban planning. (SEPAL, 1992, pp 105-106)

In fact, coordination is seldom put into practice. Moreover, with few exceptions, the private car and city centres have always been favoured in the plans implemented to date. The triumph of roads and passengers

Road transport is a politically delicate area generating important resources, with powerful lobbies such as 132

the British Road Federation. It is linked to a major industry and is presented as a symbol of liberty. The road network is part of a system extending far beyond the conurbation; for instance, the polarization of the economy and of transport flows in Enterprise and Industrial Zones and technopoles, and the belief that roads could help foster urban renewal (Starkie, 1982). So, since the 1960s road investment has been considered a major element in the urban modernization process (Buchanan, 1963). It is therefore not surprising that modal distribution policies, despite official policy, essentially favour road transport, which in both countries is the dominant mode. In Britain, the Road Research Laboratory only belatedly became the Transport and Road Research Laboratory and more recently the Transport Research Laboratory whilst the annual TPPs concern only the road network. Mrs Thatcher, then Conservative Prime Minister, declared for instance in 1979 that nothing must be allowed to obstruct the forward march of the ‘great car economy’. In Lyon, the extensions of the underground which were initially planned were soon abandoned and, out of the f1.3 billion dedicated to transport for the period 1990-95, f0.75 billion went to roads and parking, and the f0.55 billion left to public transport has almost disappeared because running costs far above forecasts have necessitated increased subsidies. In Birmingham, the Inner Ring Road motorway was opened in 1971 and surrounds the city centre (Figure 2). Its objectives were to exclude through traffic from the centre, where traffic would diminish and be controlled, and to enable city centre retailers to fight the competition from the supermarkets built at the periphery since the end of the 1950s. The same argument had been put forward to justify the construction of Lyon’s me’tro! Birmingham’s hopes were not fulfilled for landuse reasons: the motorway surrounds the CBD too tightly, inhibiting its expansion and reducing the value of the adjoining land (Plate 2). The 1992 UDP thus decided to downgrade it to become an ‘urban boulevard’ and to expand the pedestrianization of the centre, while the Middle Ring Road, once completed, will act as a new ‘Inner Ring Road’: the CBD will grow considerably, and the development of its land use will change greatly. The location of Aston University and Science Park, and the construction of the International Convention Centre in 1991 outside the limits of the old Inner Ring Road, were forerunners of such changes. This is an example of a modification of the road system, which takes into consideration an evolution in land use independent from transport, but not of any comprehensive planning. However, even if road transport is favoured, plans mostly deal with passenger traffic, in a context of great mobility growth. Urban freight flows have been forgotten, because they were private and little

Transport and land-use planning:

,’

C Month

Cross City Line (1978)

.

Inner Ring Road (downgraded motorway) Middle Ring Road (new inner area limit) =*Strategic

Highway Network built up area pedestrian zone

International Convention Centre

1OOOm Figure 2 Birmingham:

Plate 1 Birmingham:

an inadequate

lnner

A

Aston,University and Science Park

l

main office concentration

urban motorway

Ring Road (southwards)

Nofe:

On the left is the old centre; on the other side of the urban motorway (Queensway). a zone with modern buildings, waste-ground and advertisement hoardings; this is the area of the planned extension of the ccntre; in the background. the Hyatt Hotel, part of the 1991 lntcrnational Convention Centre.

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Transport and land-use planning: C Month

known, so hardly controlled, except through regulations. French conurbations differ from British ones because they are currently setting up multimodal distribution hubs; yet, these mostly deal with interurban flows, whereas intra-urban freight flows are only rarely taken into account, as in Nancy. However, efforts have been made, especially in France, in favour of multimodalism, even if different local authorities control the different transport modes. Traffic management policies have existed since the 1970s such as the ambitious and ill-fated ‘zone and collar scheme’ in Nottingham, 1975-76, and were succeeded in the 1980s by traffic-calming policies. In Lyon, the Communaute’ Urbaine de Lyon (COURLY), with the help - and money - of the Dkpartement, tries to foster a multimodality essentially based on coordination between road and

public transport; it has set up the first stage of a Regional Express Network (similar to the Paris Rheau Express Rkgionaf) in the western part of the conurbation, where the public transport network was poor, because its relief is hilly and its population middle class (Figure 3). The new network, aiming at a modal transfer to public transport, is built around the terminus of the new underground line opened in 1991; it includes a park-and-ride car park, an urban and inter-urban bus station, and a reopened local railway station. In Britain also, things are slowly changing: the 1994 review of the government’s road building programme has abandoned the construction of new radial highways into inner cities. Road pricing is being considered, for example in London and Cambridge.

d‘Abeau

5km

0 *

.~.~~.~.~.~.~,~~.~.;s.

~~~~

core

area

::::::: ....... :.:.:.:.:.:.:. . . . . . . . built up area

-_-----

m1111m1111 metro

134

la Part-Dieu main railway line

*::::::.

commercial development 0 Figure 3 Lyons: a metro-linked

historical centre

modernization?

motorway and dual carriage way never built motorway

Transport and land-use planning: C Mont&

But this still does not make a comprehensive policy. Public transport has a social function, it allows captive passengers to move, especially in France where a 1982 Act instituted a ‘right to transport’. Passenger policy is therefore not tackled as a planning issue, but as a public utility: one cares more about quality, service and costs than about networks in a constrained space and about demand analysis. As for the road network there are not spatial or planning logics, but economic ones; the main aim is to revive centres in Britain, to ‘strengthen’ them in France. Centre-orientated

planning policies

Even if there are differences, city centres have the largest concentration of jobs and are going through a certain renewal in France, while they often concentrate inner-city problems in Britain - city centres hold a privileged position in all conurbations, for ideological reasons to strengthen the metropolitan function and because ‘natural’ development tends to reinforce the ‘strong’ centre, where traffic concentrates. In Birmingham, for instance (Lyon’s wording is almost the same, SEPAL 1992), the UDP states that the city centre is ‘the cornerstone of the City Council’s commitment to the promotion of Birmingham as a major international City and the

Plate 2

strengthening of its status as both the regional capital and the nation’s first provincial City’ (Birmingham City Council, 1991, p 12). Accessibility to the centre thus remains the principal element of transport policy; radials were long preferred to bypasses; in central Lyon, moreover, several underground car parks are being built (with space for 3000 cars), inconsistent with the establishment of peripheral interchange stations. Yet global planning in the centre of conurbations proves difficult, because it means the rethinking of an already structured space, the workings of which are based on a road system and on buildings mostly dating from the last century. Inertia prevails and costs are high and attempts at changes are thwarted by political and economic interests, so that local authorities often fail to achieve large-scale developments. In Lyon, no clear link was found between the first me’tro lines and land-use changes. Tn fact, the me’tro serves already urbanized areas; the first underground line merely followed the existing busiest bus line, without any traffic study. The early more ambitious plans were downgraded for financial reasons, and replaced by ad hoc transport planning, whilst aiming at enhancing a modern image for Lyon. The attempts to transform Lyon into an ‘inter-

Lyon: La Part-Dieu: the regional business and shopping centre

Note: In the foreground

is an urban and suburban bus station built upon a buried boulevard (1983). In the middle ground, the en& xed cube ( 1975) houses the shopping precinct (260 shops) and a car park on its roof. In the background, to the left, is the 75 000 m’ CI edit Lyonn lais tower (1977), the highest building of the conurbation, (a hotel and offices), which is the signpost of the miniature mot jern busine :ss district of Lyon.

135

Transport and land-use planning:

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national city’ met with a similar fate, because of different authorities and time scales. The main idea of the 1964 plan, which coordinated transport and land use, was to build a modern business and commercial centre at La Part-Dieu, as at La Defense in Paris or The Barbican Centre in London (Plate 2). It was also to become a multimodal crossroads, with intra-conurbation (bus and underground stations), and national (railway station and urban motorways) links. Control of the 1964 plan was quickly lost to the state and, for financial causes, to the private sector. Plans were altered, particularly for transport, so that the ambitious motorway plans were not implemented, leaving only sections of semi-motorways. Moreover, the SNCF decided only in 1972 to build its inter-urban station linked to the TGV scheme at la Part-Dieu. This was too late for a direct m&o service as the centre opened in 1975 but the station (Plate 3) only in 1983. The bus and road systems had to be reorganized. However, the building of the

station was accompanied by land-use planning. Paradoxically, whereas the urban transport part failed, the land-use part succeeded. The specific planning zone of 24 ha (the original La Part-Dieu covered 35 ha), includes the station, a hotel and restaurants, housing and offices, for a total of 100 000 m2, and allowed enlargement towards the east of la Part-Dieu, where 20 000 people work and more than 20 000 shop daily. The TGV indeed required the building or rethinking of stations, which led SNCF to reason in terms of land-use and not only transport planning. Big developments arose, as in, Lille (Euralille) and Paris (Gare Montparnasse) or are planned (as around the King’s Cross-St Pancras stations linked to London’s second Channel Tunnel terminal). Such associations are an old tradition in Britain; Euston Station in London was rebuilt between 1961 and 1968 with 40 000 m2 of offices but parking for only 40 cars! In Birmingham, New Street station was overlaid with an ugly shopping precinct in 1968, and the reconstruction in 1984 of Snow Hill station came with an office development; but these are more real estate developments than urban planning (Plate 4). The transport system and the polarization of conurbations

Plate 3 Lyon: Part-Dieu station Note: Seen from the roof of the shopping centre. Opened in 1983, the station (with a glass front) is totally integrated into a block of offices and housing, and fronted by a pedestrian square. Prolonging La Part-Dieu to the east, the bus station (in the foreground) had to be reorganized and the road system buried.

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France and Britain both base their transport planning on, first, the restriction of central traffic, not by road pricing which is politically still too sensitive, but by a varying proportion of traffic management and parking control and public transport priority and, second, the diversion of through traffic to bypasses, which become development axes. Their reasoning is the same, because they reckon the centre will die if it is not easily accessible. Although all conurbations consider the suburban periphery after the centre, the periphery benefits from a dysfunctioning urban land-use/transport system, worsened by the economic crisis, which disintegrates urban space and society. Originally the recipients of the urban sprawl of population and activities, some peripheral areas with good road accessibility are considered as potential development poles as the conurbation centre and the transport network become overcrowded. However, relations between local authorities at the centre and periphery of conurbations are still characterized by suspicion, which hinders the coordination of planning policies. In the West Midlands, districts, particularly the Black Country ones, distrust Birmingham which they consider to be too big a city which is able to dictate to them its own conditions. The situation, however, has evolved; Birmingham participates today in the West Midlands Regional Forum, a study group which aims to ‘consider the strategic physical, transportation and economic planning issues of the Region’ (WMRF, 1991). Moreover, the first line of the Centro light rail system will link the city with the

Transport and land-use planning:

C Month

Plate 4 Birmingham: Snow Hill station Note: Entirely rebuilt, the station - topped by a car park - is located on the fringes of the centre; it is part of a development office buildines flank its discrete entrance in a recentlv , rebuilt is to be occu;ed by offices, as is the top of the station.

area. The programme

Black Country from Birmingham Snow Hill to Wolverhampton, a distance of 20 km. Plans, however, show that, far from adapting the transport system to the demands of the planned urban system, planners end by trying to adapt the structure and operations of conurbations to the ‘natural’ pattern of the transport modes, especially the road network, which leads to the internal reordering and continuing extension of conurbations. This happens even in cities which had theoretically strongly related land-use and transport plans, such as Newcastle upon Tyne. Public transport has been favoured since the 1960s and the Metro was explicitly designed to serve the new employment areas linked to the revitalization of a region heavily affected by the demise of the coal and shipbuilding industries (Figure 4). Impact studies (CURDS, 1990) conclude that neither housing nor offices, trade nor jobs localization were related to Metro; but it ‘helped to strengthen the dominance of Newcastle city centre as the pre-eminent shopping location in Tyne and Wear’ (1990, p 57). The reasons are many; the Metro used converted conventional railways lines, as does Metrolink in Greater Manchester, which perhaps explains the British choice of light rail serving the conurbation centre and periphery,

is not completed:

scheme. Two the site of the (improvised) car park

whereas in Lyon, Lille, Bordeaux or Toulouse underground routes were chosen partly for prestige but also to lessen urban sprawl. Light rail indeed minimizes costs, but the network, by using a 19thcentury route alignment, is based on an often obsolescent spatial organization. Also the 1981 Structure Plan does not strongly tie development to the availability of public transport, because since 1979 central government has suppressed land-use proposals which led to focusing growth in favour of a balanced conurbation. Moreover, following the abolition of the Metropolitan Counties, the bodies imposed by the state such as Urban Development Corporations, located their developments without reference to the public transport network. The northern part of the old 1930s Team Valley Industrial Estate became an Enterprise Zone, although it is badly served by public transport; it nevertheless has tens of thousands of jobs and the same is the case for Metrocentre, Europe’s biggest retailing and recreation centre. These layouts were linked to simplified planning regulations and fiscal incentives but also to the new outer ring road. Housing is even more widespread with the development of infill sites making the conurbation more road-orientated, even though it has one of the lowest car ownership rates in Britain. 137

Transport and land-use planning: C Mont&

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. ............... ... ...... ............... ... ..........

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B.P : BusinessPark (JWDC)

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district of Newcastle boundaries -

built up area

Figure 4

metro

-

IRII~IIIII

motorway and dual carriage-way w major development

historical centre

n

Newcastle: from Metro to motorways

Transport and reorganization

of conurbations

Policies favouring the conurbation centre and road transport explain ad hoc urban development, which in hindsight aims at reorganizing a periphery which is undergoing chaotic development. The pattern of urban growth differs in France and Britain; the French reason in terms of axes, and try to avoid ‘a ripple effect’; unsuccessfully, because defining development axes meant to combine mobility management, urban sprawl orientation and optimal economic functioning naturally leads one to consider the most versatile mode of transport, the road. It also allows ad hoc urban development: widening or extending a road is easier than moving an airport! Britain wants to contain development within a precise framework, through the Green Belt policy. But the Green Belt is perforated where there are 138

-

former Tyne and Wear metropolitan county boundaries .--..-.l-..-.......

core area

0

-

strong development pressures as in the case of the M25 motorway around London, and in Newcastle around the airport, and everywhere there is pressure for new housing. However, both countries have built new towns (32 in Britain, nine in France) to focus new development. In Lyon, the 1959 Plan wanted poynuclear radialconcentrism: ‘a harmonious arrangement of urban units, with a size adjusted to their functions, united by the necessary services, but separated by vacant spaces, green if possible’ (p 46, quoted in Mont&, p 265 (1992)); this ‘Garden City pattern’, which depended on a dense motorway network, failed. The concentration of Industrial Zones followed a different principle; the centre was always favoured and the control of commercial developments too weak. National Road No 6, like the main access roads to

Transport and land-use planning:

every French conurbation, was transformed despite planning principles into a linear shopping centre, which has more shopping space than the ‘official’ regional shopping centre of La Part-Dieu. So, since 1970, the motto of Lyonese planners has become ‘restructure the conurbation’; but the SDAU was based on a rational principle-gravitational economic model and its zoning was too strict because it was too precise. So the planning had to be based on POS, which themselves are too inflexible (they were elaborated by the same planners), have their own principles and include only very partial and local transport plans. The city can only function if it modifies them constantly, that is when it diverts them from their mission, which is to provide a stable framework to local action. Action becomes pragmatic and short term, which cannot fit in with the long-term requirements of transport planning. Thus, today, uncontrolled flows challenge the whole urban system, as in the case of commuting. The flows continually grow over a widening area, while planning often does not take them into account. In Lyon, since 1980, commuters have exceeded people working in the town in which they live, in spite of the official policy since the end of the 1950s aimed at reducing their numbers. The huge council housing estates (grands ensembles) are not linked to mttro, major roads or employment, and the planned ‘development axes’ and ‘secondary centres’ never materialized. The new town of L’Isle d’Abeau, meant to reorganize the pattern of employment and housing, failed to attract enough people and jobs, like Telford near Birmingham. In Britain also, the growth of services will reinforce commuting, because people in central cities are essentially service-sector workers. This stresses the failure of both urban and transport policies; conurbations still function with very important flows between a historical centre with most employment, decision making and activity, whose structure is inherited, and a poorly structured periphery, where only pockets of employment exist, but where most of the population lives. For that reason the worsening traffic congestion in conurbations is not caused by the inadequacy of the road network, but reflects the general dysfunctioning of the urban system. Conclusion Urban policies have reached the same point in both countries. Official policies express the wish to link urban and transport policies. But differences remain in the political and financial powers of the cities, which are greater in France, and in the nature of their public organizations. The place of the city, the state and the private sector is more obvious in Britain, whereas in France the conurbation and the public and para-public sectors still dominate. Today, transport is dealt with on at least

C Mont&

two different scales: the first goes beyond the conurbations’ limits and is linked to their ‘international role’; in Lyon, the COURLY wants the transport network to support the planned communication hub and spoke of a TGV network, or an international airport; in Newcastle upon Tyne, as in Birmingham, great hopes rest on airport development. However, these decisions are not made locally as the TGV network is planned in Paris or Brussels and airports evolve on an international scale. The other scale is intra-conurbation; transport is considered to be a system, which has to coordinate transport and land use, especially in the periphery. But expertise and action remain separate. In Birmingham, while Centro advocates such ideas, the Department of Transport and local authorities have separately defined a Strategic Road Network. The weakness of the links between private and public transport is a major drawback. Differences in network structure are partly caused by local choices, but also occur because local authorities have been able to take advantage of the moment when a policy passes from project level to implementation. ‘Radically opposed’ options often are the result of two very close schemes, only one of which could reach implementation. In the case of urban motorways, some plans of the 1960s would have resulted in French conurbations with a structure close to that of Birmingham today, which took advantage of the 1944 Town and Country Planning Act set up to rebuild bombed cities, while France saw its great plans swept out by the 1973 economic crisis. Birmingham does not have an underground network, because unlike Newcastle upon Tyne it did not seize the brief opportunity in the early 1970s to obtain 75% government capital grants. These cases follow a short-range strategy, because policies can be altered with any political change in one of the forces present. ‘Seizing the opportunity’ supposes the existence of a strong will, of persons acting as catalysts - such as Tony Ridley in Newcastle upon Tyne and Rent! Waldmann in Lyon, the ‘fathers’ of the underground networks. But if an ideology lasts long enough, consensus spreads, as perhaps the ideas of light rail in Britain or traffic calming in Europe are spreading today (Lefevre and Offner, 1990). Such a critical paper could not end without an attempt to suggest some remedies. Between French would-be state direction and control and British pragmatic laissez-faire, it is hard to find a middle ground. The risk is either to build a beautiful theoretical framework one is unable to put into practice, or to let real estate shape the future of conurbations. A plan is not to be built as it were on a tubufu rusa, but has to integrate the fact that urban planing is always the reconstruction of an already constituted territory. Furthermore, in our societies which take part in the Sysdme Monde (world system), urban planning cannot really control the 139

Transport and land-use planning: C Mont&

evolution of conurbations. Here it is only intended to point out what means could guide the development rather than miraculously solve the dysfunctioning of the urban system (Hambleton, 1993). Urban planning does not function in terms of strong state or decentralized structures, but more in terms of coordination of the different actions, that is it requires a vision based on a ‘common interest’, at three levels: national, local and conurbation. More than the creation of formal think-tanks, one needs to set up a really interdisciplinary course of studies for would-be planners. In fact, the essential point is the creation of real expertise. Regular symposia and meetings of conurbations’ planners also allow the building of a common culture, and the confronting of ideas and experiences without wanting to melt everyone in the same ideological pot: the time of monolithic ideologies is, one hopes, behind us. This prospective vision supported by a pluridisciplinary expertise should always be linked to the practical side of planning: control, monitoring and followup of regulations with constant feedback to the plans. The conurbation is indeed the ideal scale for urban planning, if there is no overlap of responsibilities. The administrative map must therefore be simplified in France, with the abolition of the Dkpartement and the amalgamation of communes, and Metropolitan Counties need to be revived in Britain. Task forces could then be set up and play the part of ‘interservices consultants’ on comprehensive planning, and they should be able to coordinate ideas, making timings coincide and overcome the centre/periphery and the road/public transport dichotomies which have undermined every plan to date. The same organization should apply to central government, to provide a national framework of ideas (and not orders) for planning. Technicians must form such task forces, to survive political changes (Himanen, 1993). Therefore, the main orientations of planning can only be left to the political world, but they must be based on the technical know-how of the task forces, which would act first as teachers in planning matters, and second as the memory of the conurbation’s planning history. However, politicians should abandon the idea of building the ‘plan of the century’. We belong to a liberal economy where the ownership of land mostly rests in private hands and where economic decisions are largely outside local authorities’ control so that too strict or too ambitious a plan can only fail. One has to set a certain number of planning principles (which are precise, unlike British government Planning and Policy Guidelines) that should not be infringed (for instance, never building a commercial development without a public transport link, as the British government decided in 1994) or attained (for instance multimodalism, equal treatment of periphery). They should be medium-term plans (about 15 years); short-term plans are merely day-to-day 140

management, and long-term ones (20-30 years) are too close to prophecy. Transport firms, the private sector (which has the main decision-making capacity) and the public must be associated with that process, so that the demand for transport can be better known than today. The current ‘partnership’ is not the solution, because the decision on pure planning matters and financial control must rest in the hands of local - or in some cases national - authorities; regular and comprehensive inquiries, before and after changes, would be better, so as not to encourage too much lobbying. So control must rest on, first, real financial independence for conurbations (retrospective control would be enough to let planning incentives live), second, a strict land acquisition policy; third, the legal power to enforce the chosen principles; and fourth, a quasi-immediate knowledge of all changes in the conurbation, for which geographical information systems (GTS) could be very helpful. Such a reform of current urban planning, trying to avoid any dogmatism but also the fragmentation of official planning, evidently supposes a strong political commitment, which is necessary to reorganize the financial, educative and legal framework in which planning is set up. Urban planning is indeed far from being a merely technical problem: one should never forget that it is quite a sensitive contemporary political and social issue.

Acknowledgement The author wishes to thank Mr Charles A J Grillou, of Limoges University, and Dr Richard D Knowles, of Salford University, for their kind corrections to the English version of his text.

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Lewis, N (1992) Inner City Regeneration. The Demise of Regional and Local Government Open University Press, Buckinghaml Philadelphia Marche, R and Reynaud, C (1991) Politique et processus de decision en mat&e d’infrastructures de transport: Royaume-Uni INRETS-DEST, Arcueil

le cas du

May, AD (1991) ‘Integrated transport strategies: a new approach to urban transport policy formulation in the UK’ Transport Reviews ll(3) 223-247 Merlin, P (1984) La pfanification des transports urbains Masson, Paris

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C Mantes

Mont&, C (1992) ‘Systeme de transport et systeme Cconomique en milieu urbain: reflexions sur I’amtnagement de I’agglomtration lyonnaise de 1960 a 1992’ European PhD, Universite Lumiere-Lyon 2 SEPAL (1992) Schema Directeur de I’Agglomeration Lyonnaise Lyon Annales de la Recherche Urbaine, special issues: Nos 4445 on urban expertise Starkie, DNM (1982) The Motorway Age; Road and Traffic Policies in Postwar Britain Pergamon, London WMRF (West Midlands Regional Forum) (1991) The West Midlands: Your Region, Your Future Stafford, WMRF

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