Diversionary tactic ??
Believe it when you see it !
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Oh and if it's gonna cost £8billion how much more than that in extra tax do you think the motorist will be asked to stump up?
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Conveniently ignoring the fact that several times that amount has already been paid by motorists, but spent on other things! I like my car, but I'm seriously thinking about using a sub-125cc bike (the minimum tax bracket) for all local fair weather travel...
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I didn't hear the announcement but I heard the rumour that they are still thinking of that stupid proposal to make M-ways 4 lanes by hard shoulder running.
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Don't vote it only encourages them.
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The announcement said it was to make up for the massive under-investment in the the last ten years.
Well, they could hardly say the last 7, even if it was true.
Even by Campbell's standards, that would have been a massive own goal.
(sorry, FiF, lost count - isn't that to make the M4 THREE lanes, because of the idiot bus lane.
Or have they quietly scrapped that while I was not looking?)
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very london biased !
we in the biggest snarl up (m6/m1/m42) finally get a pay as you go motorway + h/S in use during peak times
London gets more and more - all that work/widening on the M25 + even more. Why not toll motorways around london ?
Oh! and after years of money being spent on the M25 they've finally realised the A42 should really be a 3 lane motorway
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Don't want to get into a NvS debate and think that actually London and the south east in a net contributor to UK PLC. Anyway none of that really matters because the M25 is Europe's busiest road is it not and most of the the country relies on it in one way or another. Making it a toll road would affect everyone in the UK and our trade abroad since it would add yet another cost to goods, services etc.
In case you're wondering I live about 3 miles from JCN 4 but hardly ever use the M25.
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I didn't hear the announcement but I heard the rumour that they are still thinking of that stupid proposal to make M-ways 4 lanes by hard shoulder running.
They were discussing this on Radio 2 last night, and were mentioning the dutch system. apparantly they have rapid reaction teams at eash motorway entrance who deal with any incidents which occur when there is an incident on the hard shoulder. they will even travel the wrong way up it to get there.
they are apparantly going to extend the trial onto another m-way, as well as the M42.
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Yes I think its as good as we could have expected. There is one thing I always find mystifying, at announcements like this, the anti car lobby and other halfwits twitter on about more roads=more conjestion. Now forgive me if Im wrong, but I dont know anyone who on completion of a new road, goes out and drives up and down it several times for the hell of it!
The other thing I noticed was that even though he`d just announced this large expenditure, Darling was still trying to put roads down, ie we still said no here here and here. I think this gov has spun for so long the evils of roads that it has now become a victim of this.
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>Now forgive me
I forgive you
>if Im wrong
you are wrong
>but I dont know anyone who on completion of a new road, goes out and drives up and down it several times for the hell of it!
You do now. Me and a lot of others drove round the M25 minutes after it was completed (end to end) just for the hell of it. (yes i know - very sad)
Just as well really - it was closed hours later as the concrete between j10-11 cracked up, but not before it had had its first major jam.
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PR - I think the reasoning goes like this. There are already too many cars on the roads we have and many people use alternatives (including walking) to avoid the congestion etc. If you build more and more roads, the equation alters and driving once again becomes the easier option. More people therefore choose that easier option and the new roads which have been built gradually fill up as journeys which previously weren't viable become so and new journeys suddenly become possible. Traffic volumes and congestion increase yet again we find oursleves in exactly the same situation that we're in now. The easy short term answer (not cheap though) is to build more roads. The only solution however is to review the entire transport infrastructure, make public transport viable and take a good hard look at the way we arrange our lives.
Take a look at your PC and wonder about why it has all that memory and processing power when just a few years ago we got to the Moon using computers that today would fit in your pocket.
If you only want to run the same software and do the same things in the same way you'll never need to upgrade will you. Trouble is if they keep building more roads we're all gonna want to do more journeys.
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Building roads generates traffic because it makes journeys that would otherwise be unviable due to time, viable.
e.g. to pick an example local to me, I would not live in Pickering (in the centre of the N.Yorks Moors) if I worked in Middlesbrough, as the journey is a one and a quarter hour journey each way over little B roads with wandering sheep.
However if they built a 2 lane dual carriageway between Pickering and Middlesbrough I could get to work in 20-25 minutes. Suddenly living in Pickering and commuting to Middlesbrough becomes viable. This would generate more traffic on the Pickering to Middlesbrough route.
mike
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FIT - IIRC the 6 month trial will involve using the hard shoulder during peak hours only but it's still a daft idea.
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"However if they built a 2 lane dual carriageway between Pickering and Middlesbrough I could get to work in 20-25 minutes. Suddenly living in Pickering and commuting to Middlesbrough becomes viable. This would generate more traffic
on the Pickering to Middlesbrough route."
True enough. And folk move to Pickering from Middlesborough because the commute is now viable. Which means they no longer do the journeys they did before. Including you, assuming you drive to work at present. I contend that new roads largely relocate congestion, rather than allow its creation.
"There are already too many cars on the roads we have and many people use alternatives (including walking) to avoid the congestion etc."
I thought the problem was that a very small percentage of the population use public transport (10%?). If they ALL dropped that method and drove instead, we'd only increase road usage by that figure, and in reality it would be less.
There is also the point that the population figures for the country is pretty static. There is therefore an upper limit on how many cars can be on the road at once; one per willing driver. I would imagine we're not THAT far away from that now. Where are all the drivers going to come from that will allegedly oversaturate the total capacity of ANY new roads?
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Abroad?
(hiding quietly under computer table so that incensed mods don't realise I'm still here).
"I'm very intelligent really, just got good at hiding it."
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I see your point re journeys more viable, however this doesnt hold true with say, widening an existing mway. I cant see anyone now saying they`re going to commute to x because there is an extra lane!
My girlfriend commutes from Stokesley (8miles south of Middlesbrough) to Newcastle everyday. There is no viable alternative. Its a journey of 49miles each way and usually takes her 50-60mins.
On public transport it would take at least 3, and cost far more. But even with better public transport I dont think people want to give up their persoanl space and convenience.
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There is also the point that the population figures for the country is pretty static. There is therefore an upper limit on how many cars can be on the road at once; one per willing driver. I would imagine we're not THAT far away from that now. Where are all the drivers going to come from that will allegedly oversaturate the total capacity of ANY new roads?
I tried to make this point in an earlier thread, but no-one seemed to get it. You cannot drive two cars at once, so at some point car usage will reach a ceiling.
Does anyone know what the A34 Newbury bypass is like? Does it get congested? I've never been on it but I have driven through Newbury before they built it and I'd be interested to learn if the new road has improved things around there.
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The bypass is fine, and its made quite a difference in Newbury itself.
However, the A34 junction with the M4 is an absolute nightmare, in either direction.
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I tried to make this point in an earlier thread, but no-one seemed to get it. You cannot drive two cars at once, so at some point car usage will reach a ceiling.
That's true but you can drive the same car for longer distances. For example, my car is kept on the driveway. If my normal commute is ten miles it will occupy road space for say, 15 minutes. But say they build a bypass that makes a twenty mile commute possible. Now I occupy road space for half an hour, plus I will not only be contributing to congestion over my previous ten mile journey but also in the new ten miles. Others commuting the other way will also be added to the congestion over my original commute. This effect is well known: the last time the M25 was widened they said it would reduce congestion for severl years (I forget how many). But in fact the "relief" only lasted one year.
If we make roads easier to use (ie wider) people will commute further, go further for schools etc. etc. Once people adjust to doing that local public transport as an alternative goes completely out of the picture, because suddenly "local" isn't local any more.
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"...you can drive the same car for longer distances..."
True enough, ChrisR; a good point well made. But I wonder if sufficient people ACTUALLY make life decisions based on road networks to have an impact? I suspect the answer is that if you wanted to travel to a good school, or to a good job, you'd be doing it anyway and grumbling about the roads. A new road simply expedites your existing journey (allowing you to drive in smoother fashion and reduce pollution over the same distance. Incidentally, I'd be very interested to know how much fossil fuel is burnt by transport other than cars. I'm sure one jumbo jet is the equivalent of a gadzillion cars. At least.).
My suspicions are of course entirely subjective, but I wonder if the fact that it is so hard to quantify people's life chioces means this will always be a hotly debated subject. There is no "correct" answer, only one that is a close fit, depending upon the politically fashionable hue of the moment.
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Common sense would say that if a new road is built then the person using it as an alternative to their previous route has now reduced the congestion on the previous route, even if adding to congestion on the new route. After all, they can't be in two places at the same time. QED. The problems occur when people who previously weren't driving start to use the roads.
From my A-level Geography studies I do know that people will relocate further away from work, if there is a new route makes that possible.
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Common sense would say that if a new road is built then the person using it as an alternative to their previous route has now reduced the congestion on the previous route
But only if it is a complete alternative, for everyone, to the previous route--impossible. It is unlikely for example that a new road will take me from my gate, leaving the old road in place but unused. The local congestion I cause remains the same, even with the new (additional) route. If a new route is particularly fast I (and others) might also drive further (go less directly) just so I can use it to save a few minutes--this is exactly what is going on when people use motorways for local, one junction trips: they drive further but their journey takes less (overall) time because the motorway is moving faster.
Anyway, cars don't just cause congestion in their immediate vicinity. If you're sitting at the back of a twenty mile crawling tailback, the car at the front, twenty miles away, is just as responsible for you being where you are when you are as the one right in front of you. In the case of the M25, you might be stuck on the A4 Kew flyover because somebody broke down on the A3 near Hindhead--an extreme example, but you get my point.
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Yes, but there will still be some point of the road network you will now not use...
There are numerous examples, but if you have to get through a town/city, would you plow through the centre of it or nip round it on a fast road/mway, whatever?
I would pick the faster road, as it's quicker, but also safer, I wonder how many accidents are caused in towns by people just driving through them...
Secondly, I drive to get somewhere. I don't just decide to go to Necastle because the road's quiet, and people who do this would probably do it on a busy road anyway.
I still can't see why we can't put the main up and down country lorries on trains, and use lorries to transport cargo from station to more local place.
This then frees up the mototways...
Hands up who has been stuck on the M18 [or equivilant] at 56mph for 10 miles while 1 lorry does 0.001mph more than its overtakee. Ban them completely or banish them to single lane only.
Kev
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That's true but you can drive the same car for longer distances. For example, my car is kept on the driveway. If my normal commute is ten miles it will occupy road space for say, 15 minutes. But say they build a bypass that makes a twenty mile commute possible. Now I occupy road space for half an hour
Erm, but why would you want to do this? Why would you relocate further away from your workplace so that your commute actually takes longer? I don't believe the majority of people would want to do that.
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WWhywould you relocate further away from your workplace so that your commute actually takes longer? I don't believe the majority of people would want to do that.
Oh come on, people do it all the time for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is cheaper housing. Commutes are far longer now than they were twenty years ago. Plus I deliberately picked half an hour as I reckon that's a perfectly acceptable commute time. I agree that beyond a certain point fewer people will be tempted, but at a guess there are quite a lot of people who post on here with commutes way longer than 30 mins. I used to commute an hour and a half--a better job meant I thought it was worth it as it was certainly cheaper than moving. No longer, thankfully, but I wonder what the limit is.
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Volvoman's argument seems to be "Increase roads, and before long traffic increases to use the new roads, cancelling out the benefits". I have heard this argument a lot, esp. from the government. However, I do think the government seem to have an ideological bent against cars and in favour of public transport. So I question the argument.
A few points. In most of Europe they have more miles of road per person than in the UK and they have less congestion. Where I work, most people travel for between 45 minutes and 90 minutes each way. How would making the journey more rapid increase the traffic? These people travel so far because they have no choice. They needed a job, and most cannot move house because the other half works near to the house, or some distance away, but in the opposite direction. Also, if someone starts using the new road because it is improved, they are now no longer using another road, so the traffic is aleviated somewhere else.
Of course you could argue that lorry use would increase, but surely that would be due to increased trade, and hence the economy benefits releasing more money to improve roads.
Also, reduce congestion, and you reduce pollution by very significant amounts because car engines will be running more efficiently.
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Most of the other countries of which you speak are either far bigger than ours or have far fewer people or both.
If you concreted over the whole of England I'm not suggesting that cars would cover every square inch. What I'm saying is that by providing more roads you simply encourage more people to drive more of the time because that's easier than the alternatives and we all tend to take the easiest option don't we. Clearly that isn't good for the environment - either in terms of spoiling more of our precious countryside or the pollution generated.
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Volvoman: The nature of work has changed masssively in the last 20 years, with the workforce becoming more mobile, and hence traffic increasing significantly. I am not saying you are wrong, but neither am I convinced that traffic would expand as fast as you say if at all.
spoiling more of our precious countryside
What precious countryside would that be? Sadly most of our countryside is an ecological desert. Those lovely green fields dotted with sheep are almost completely devoid of life (beyond sheep and grass) due to the massive overgrazing. Those cute yellow fields of rape shelter few insects and birds due to chemical spraying and harvesting. Beautiful Wax Cap fungi, some of which are bright red and slimy, are confined to rare patches of unsprayed grassland. Cardiff Bay was flooded despite widespread opposition and the mud flats at Cliffe that feed huge numbers of birds might be destroyed to build an airport. Roads, unless they go through a nature reserve, are not the evil portrayed. Maybe the coach, bus and train company owners and directors would like us to believe otherwise though.
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If the argument is that building major new roads solves problems consider the M25. When it was built it not only gave drivers an alternative route but allowed new journeys to be undertaken that wouldn't have been viable before. Some routes initially saw reduced congestion as a result but after just a few years the M25 is bursting at the seams and
all the major routes around it are more congested than they were before. IMO building an extra lane in places will make no appreciable difference.
It's an age old principle rather like that which applies when you move to a swish new house with double garage and find that after a few months all that extra space has been filled up with stuff you'd never have kept if you hadn't had the extra space to put it in!
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And I am sure that had the M25 not been built, that the congestion on the surrounding road, which you say is worse that it was before, would be even more worse than it now is.
On the other hand, if it was worse than it now is, then maybe people would have taken to the trains, or car sharing, years ago, and therefore congestion would now be reduced.
That second paragraph was an afterthought. Maybe one day things will get so bad that people will switch. I'll go away and think about that more.
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