From the RPS Re-Appraisal Report and from the subsequent responses of the Green Key Partnership it looked as if the original Park and Ride concept was dead.  On the other hand some recommendations in the Report suggest that various spectres might yet lift their heads.  Further, the Chairman of the Partnership is said to have made the blunt declaration, "We have not given up on the Park and Ride."

Whilst awaiting the release of a modified plan it seems worth noting some possible outcomes not considered in the Draft Strategy and a weakness in the arguments its opponents have put forward.

COUNTING HEADS FOR A SEAMLESS TRAFFIC SYSTEM

One of the main objections to Park and Ride was the apparent difficulty of forecasting demand.  The effects of weather variability on seasonal, weekly and daily tides of movement seemed to suggest that in order to guarantee the service promised the Sherpas would have to operate at uneconomic frequencies.

This objection may have to be reconsidered.  For some time now the Park Authority has had electronic counting devices installed at the starts of the most popular ascents in Snowdonia.  (They're very well concealed and you may have to peer into gaps in gate or stile walls at knee level before you see a little red eye wink back.)  This means that very accurate counts of the numbers of people going onto the hills are now becoming available for every day of the year.

(It seems surprising that these figures don't seem to have been made available to the RPS team.  In their Report, for instance, they use statistics from a 1994 survey claiming that 3.5 million people a year reach Snowdon summit.  The railway component stays steady at about 100,000.  The total given is wildly out of line with the trend suggested by surveys or estimates by Caernarvonshire CC and by the Park Authority in the late 60's, for the Manasseh Report about 1973, and for the Snowdon Management Plan about 1980.  The true figure may be less than a million.)

This monitoring information is interesting and valuable since it sets an upper limit on demand and gives some idea of the size of the vehicle fleet required.  At present the system is apparently a crude one, a simple daily count.  Obviously it could be upgraded to record half-hour counts showing not only the daily surges but even. for example, how many people overnight on Snowdon summit on Midsummer's Eve and New Year's Eve.  Retrospectively this detail could be related to weather forecasts and also to the actual readings for sunshine, precipitation, temperature and wind speed.  It would be unwise to assume that all this couldn't be built into a computer programme predicting likely demand for at least a day ahead quite accurately.  The other problem, of course, remains. What happens to the spare vehicles and drivers for most of the year?

Ignoring that difficulty, we have to concede that, at a price, it might be possible to operate what the Consortium would consider a seamless service.  But that's a planner's view, tested simply by reports of queues or empty buses.  It has to be measured against the traveller's experience.  This is easily done: take a random sample of a hundred visitors and check what their days involved.  In fact a group of ten would start to throw up problems.

For instance:  to start a random sample I might justifiably offer my final day of rock-climbing in the GK area before I'd heard of the GK Strategy.  We drove out, pinning our faith on the weather forecast; on arrival this faith was crushed so we turned about immediately and went back to climb on a dry low-level crag.  Comparing our day with travel by Sherpa we made two car journeys against two (shorter) car journeys and five bus journeys.  We loaded and unloaded our gear twice, rather than seven times.  We saved at least an hour in time and a pound or two in costs.  Above all we did not have to sit facing a large VDU which would welcome us aboard, tell us the time to the minute, and inform us of the number of the bus route we had deliberately selected.  It would have gone on to repeat this information 70 times in 70 minutes.

UNDERMINING

The Northern Snowdonia Study, one of the stepping stones to the Green Key proposals, considered the possibility that landowners at key access points might offer reduced price parking and undercut the scheme.  It suggested the use of available legal powers against any such developments, though it admitted that the Planning Authority might be faced with compensation claims.

The closure of loopholes like this might be more difficult than the planners supposed.  For some years farmers have been advised to diversify and in particular to take advantage of the tourist market.  A farmer might choose to offer farm visits rather than the casual parking with honesty box widely available in some parts of the Park.  (These boxes, close to the farmhouses, are unlikely to suffer Interference.  And it's noticeable that drivers who will cruise roads for a half hour in search of free parking will contribute cheerfully to an honesty box.)  The farm visit allows collusion between the farmer who has work to get on with and the visitor who wishes only to inspect the upper sheepwalks.  It would be unwise to underestimate the resourcefulness of local hill farmers. (Many years ago a County Planning Officer for Caernarvonshire used to confide that one landowner at Capel Curig ought to be offering seminars on how to defeat County Planning.)

DISPLACEMENT

Opponents of Park and Ride often saw traffic displacement in a very broad sense, a refusal to accept Inconvenience and conspicuous management working to favour the Lakes, the Peak, and Wales outside Snowdonia.  The promoters of the scheme considered displacement in a very narrow sense, thinking of the back streets of the Gateway villages: typically the Northern Snowdonia Study recommended, for example, the imposition of Traffic Regulation Orders on the minor road off the A5 at Font Cyfyng and on the lakeshore road at Llanberis.

The Rural Clearway was envisaged as covering maybe sixty miles of highway.  A chaotic problem would have arisen instantly on the twenty or so minor roads penetrating the Green Key area and perhaps adding up to a similar length. These lead mainly into the Carneddau but also offer odd points of entry for the Moel Hebog, Nantlle, Glyder and Siabod blocks, even for Snowdon itself.  Many of them enter the Green Key area without even passing through the Gateway settlements. They are mainly dead-end single-track lanes with few passing bays and limited casual parking.  They serve isolated farms and houses and any large increase in traffic would prejudice farm operations and residents' movements generally.

These roads are Inaccessible to buses and (with the exception of the Crafnant--Geirionydd-Nant BH area) it would seem quite impossible to devise workable minibus shuttles.  It would be necessary to impose blanket Traffic Regulation Orders over the entire area.  In practice this would block almost all visitor use of large swathes of Snowdonia at the very time that the CRoW legislation is ratifying their availabity and allowing provision for entry wherever needed.

With or without a Park and Ride scheme or minibus shuttles, any future problems in these areas could easily be pre-empted. The provision of more well-sited passing bays and some casual roadhead parking could be carried at comparatively small expense.  This would be greatly appreciated by residents and visitors alike.  And these less-well-known flanks of the mountains are extensive enough to accommodate a large increase in use Invisibly.

Llanrwst, 13/8/02