Chris Curtis gets on board with £350 million roads reform.
The MP for Milton Keynes North says he has his sights set on a massive public transport review for the city, which will include a tram system to move people across the growing metropolis without using their cars.
Chris Curtis, the member for Milton Keynes North, says that even though the city is growing, with increasing numbers of businesses and households moving in, it is still ‘too easy’ to drive around, which encourages residents and visitors to use their cars too often.
He is firmly behind a scheme that will introduce a fast and efficient public transport system using tram-like vehicles to move people around the growing region.
Called the ‘Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system, its tram vehicles use existing public roads to provide high frequency transport, collecting and dropping passengers off at a network of special boarding platforms across the conurbation.
The plan is to bring Milton Keynes up to date in terms of transport choices while reducing the number of cars on the city’s roads.
“Milton Keynes was a brilliant, well designed town, and now city, but there is too much car dependency,” says the MP.
“There is a lot of space so it’s too easy to drive around, and people do that; you can’t blame them. Most people are able to get from one side of the city to the other very quickly.”
Around 40% of MK is still lakes and green spaces and, says Chris, houses are often far apart with their own gardens. More space between houses means that it becomes more difficult, in terms of the economics of running a public transport system.
“And that is the challenge we have to address,” he says. “The plan that the city council has come up with is the MRT system which was recommended recently by the Government as part of their ‘new towns proposal’.
“It costs about £350 million over 40 years. That’s roughly the same cost as the local hospital. We got the hospital across the line, so this is the next big one that we are focussing on trying to deliver. It’s a tram-like system that gets people out of cars and onto public transport.”
Around 25% of households in MK don’t have access to a car. And while that is a lower number than in some areas of the country, it’s still a consideration for the authorities. Chris says that for people who don’t drive – due to a disability for example – there must be options available to them.
He says another problem is the rate that Miton Keynes is growing. The city has been expanding steadily since the 1960s and is ‘probably not going to stop any time soon’. And driving across it will eventually become more challenging, he adds.
“One of the things that makes it so great – it’s easy to drive across – is going to become more challenging unless you get some of that shift out of the car and into public transport,” the MP adds.
“At the same time, the MRT is much better for the environment, it’s better for air pollution, and all of those other challenges that we have been looking into.
“The current bus route model won’t work. Almost no bus routes in MK are profitable and you could say that we need to continue to subsidise them, take more money from council tax and use it to subsidise bus routes.
“But I don’t think that’s particularly sustainable. What you have to do is go back to the first principles and work out how you create a transport network that people will use and can be if not profitable, then close to it. And that’s what we are trying to do with the MRT model.”
He says his party has not, though, turned its back on motorists and stuck cars into reverse. He says extra money has been put into fixing the growing number of potholes across MK and says the city council can now be held accountable with an on-line ‘red, amber, green’ system that shows where it is being successful.
“Potholes are always going to be seasonal and that’s why it always comes up at this time of the year,” says Chris. “Roads get worse in the winter and better in the summer, but we are now starting to see some improvements with that extra money.”
The council has invested in buying extra machines to repair the roads including the Elastomac, which recycles car tyres to use, instead of traditional tar surfacing.
“It’s really exciting because it fixes potholes significantly quicker than the old machines so you can get more done,” says Chris. “It’s much quieter and less disturbing to residents allowing you to run the machine further into the evening.”
That machinery is part of the forward-thinking attitude 31-year-old Chris is happy to see around him in Milton Keynes. As the first local MP who was born and raised in MK, he feels strongly about the city’s welfare.
“I’ve been here since 1994 and it has changed so much in my life,” he says. “I am so passionate about the place generally and the incredible quality of life you can have growing up here.
“There are beautiful spaces, decent jobs and we continue to try to provide as much affordable housing as we can. All of those things are the principles that the city was built on.
“The Government nationally is clearly facing challenges, but what I think is how fortunate I am to be a constituency MP for Milton Keynes because it’s so fantastic and we’re able to get some exciting stuff done here.
“We have an economy which is so much better than almost anywhere else in the country, wages are significantly higher and growing, and even in an area where there is not loads of money kicking about, we’re able to deliver stuff.
“Sure, we are known for roundabouts and concrete towers but historically we should be known as having one of the fastest Formula One teams on the planet based here, we have robots on our streets, and we are now investing in drone technology.
“We are right at the heart of the Oxford-Cambridge Arc (the economic region), and one in three people in Milton Keynes works in technology. We have £84 million investment going into a new events arena in the centre of MK, and we’ve applied to be a city of culture.
“So there are lots of things going on here and that’s great. It’s one the most exciting places in the country to be representing.”
