So our new chum Darling's announced £2billion for much needed road improvements.
If it is going to happen, where should it be spent and is it anywhere near enough to even scratch the surface ?
Or is it just another heap of c*$p from a government better at spinning than Shane Warne !
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Wonder what the 2 billion is going to be actually. With this goverments method of counting everything twice its no wonder our first lady bought 2 flats by accident.
Also i wonder how much is going to be spent on speed enforcement measures if they do manage to unclog some sections?
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Obviously it won't be enough for the majority on here.
My concern, given what I saw on the recently widened M40 is whether anyone will actually drive in the new lanes, especially as they will be new inside lanes. Perhaps the government should set aside a few quid to spend on educating the middle lane hoggers that they're in the wrong.
What's the point of four lanes in each direction if the vast majority of traffic is squeezed into two of them ?
Matthew Kelly
No, not that one.
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The power is already with the rozzers to deal with it. They choose not to.
Most of the spend is, I understand, aimed at the M1/M6 which is right in terms of priority from what I've seen.
There was mention of spending already agreed for dealing with some "pinch points" on the M25.
By this I hope they mean the instances where one of Europe's busiest motorways is still two lanes!
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Agree with Matt Kelly that nobody uses the inside lanes on the widened M40. Reducing a 4 lane road to 2.
I *really* think the 303 need widening for the one journey a year I do down to that part of the world.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
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Yes but they are talking about making the A303 dual carriageway except for one section over the blackdown hills. If you are going to bother making it a fast high volume road why leave one bit as a bottleneck. Seems daft to bother in that case.
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Yes but they are talking about making the A303 dual carriageway except for one section over the blackdown hills. If you are going to bother making it a fast high volume road why leave one bit as a bottleneck. Seems daft to bother in that case.
Twice as much space to queue in!
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
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The M1 between Chesterfield and Leicester is another widening scheme planned by the government. I have been travelling up and down this road daily for the last few years to get to work and back and think it is absoloutely pointless to widen it all the way down.
Traffic is generally free flowing in both directions until you reach the Nottingham turnoffs on junction 24, 25 & 26. As soon as you reach junction 24 (East Midlands airport, South Nottingham villages and the A42/M42) you are stuck. Extra lanes will not cure this problem, and as Toad states, it will mean more space to queue in. It is the same in both directions.
It is an extremely bad designed junction and a little bit of common sense would do more good than widening the road.
Why don't they ask opinions from the people who actually use these roads? In my job, if I decided to engineer something on my own without asking the customer first, I would be sacked. So should they!!
Ranting over. ;)
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A bit like what they've done on the north west section of the m25, chorlywood to Watford, increased it to four lanes for about 1 mile on a uphill stretch, only to merge it together just before junction for watford. I would have kept the fourth lane until the junction, as now you just have the 2 'slower' lanes merging and traffic from the other 2 lanes trying to filter into the stopped traffic
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The worst "pinch point" on the eastern side of the M25 is the Dartford tolls, but they are being kept!
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Yep Brian - if they staggered the toll booths they'd be able to fit more in and hence reduce the pressure. Hardly rocket science eh !
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True. Closely followed by the clockwise lane drops into 2 lanes for Jt 25 (A10) & Jt 5 (A21). Is it any wonder that there is congestion?
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Or, perish the thought, get rid of the tolls?
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One thing i've noticed, Transport 1800 have got there nickers in a twist over it already.
Probably because there paymasters want people to be forced to use their sub standard services.
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No mention in the latest initiative about the A3, and the Hindhead 'pinch point'. Everything has gone very quiet about the proposed tunnel. I heard that it's possible to drive from London to the south of Spain using dual carriageway, all except for the two miles of single carriageway through Hindhead, which used to take me 20-25 minutes on an average day.
P.
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I thought I was about to get a tug the other week by a motorcycle cop for speeding on the M4. I'd spotted the bike and was suspicious so slowed. He passed me without signs or anything, and then went alongside a middle lane hog and waved him into the inside lane (didn't actually STOP the guy, but made it plain what he meant...)
First time I'd seen that!
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Good to see the govt are at last waking up to the fact that the roads do need to be improved, but spending the money on road widening is largely going the wrong way about it. Jams are caused by inadequate and outdated junctions creating bottlenecks, and if the money and the effort went into improving those it would have far better effect. For instance, the A12 in Essex would flow much more freely if the single lane flyover at Gallows corner from the A12 to the A127 was rebuilt as two lanes each way, and an underpass took A12 through traffic away from the awful roundabout, leaving it for local traffic.
Similar changes at major junctions nationwide which kept through traffic out of the local scramble would be the biggest step to keeping the roads flowing that could be made.
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£2 billion over the next few years out of the £40billion they collect from motorists EVERY year? How generous can you get? It's mere window dressing and will not even keep pace with traffic growth let alone cure congestion
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How's about this for a possible scenario ?
Our glorious leaders are seen to yield and make some money available for much needed road improvements - albeit a small amount. The figures are of course never made totally clear and there is much speculation about when, where and how the money will be spent. This all takes time then around the time of the next election they announce even more finance for road projects. Overjoyed that they have finally seen the light, motorists vote for them in droves and the Blair Dynasty is given another stay of execution.
The fact that the figures announced have been very dubiously cobbled together (in the same way that virtually everything else this lot does) is lost in the frenzy of excitement and surprise, surprise, after another election win they suddenly start backtracking and it turns out the figures promised are the result of much spinning and a large pinch of double accounting.....
Cynical I know, but....
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if you want cynical I suspect that whilst they were going to do it anyway, the "cobbled together" appearance comes from the fact that they rushed it out faster than they intended to distract people from talking about any misguided Recorders that might be in the news at the moment.
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and I thought I was a cynic Mark !!
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I wonder if they will "forget" to tell local Councils that official policy is now to relieve congestion rather than deliberately inducing it. ;-((
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According to the Telegraph today it will be 10 years before these improvements are implemented, given planning delays, enquiries etc. So what chance they will make any improvement? Absolutely zero. Plus the fact that it will be £2 billion spent out of the £400 billion (at todays prices) they will take from motorists in that time. Robbery.
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Correction.
Darling is also spending £1.6 billion on traffic calming measures.
I wonder which measures will be implimented fastest?
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