UK adds just 65 miles of motorway in 10 years
https://www.ft.com/content/47203d21-db4a-4791-8f81-c2db6a80f200
Posted by insomnimax_99
UK adds just 65 miles of motorway in 10 years
https://www.ft.com/content/47203d21-db4a-4791-8f81-c2db6a80f200
Posted by insomnimax_99
19 Comments
Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Are we at peak motorway coverage?
What this does ignore is that we’ve built a fair amount of dual carriageways that most people would consider a motorway, it’s just not up to motorway specification.
Highways England have spent most of their time introducing smart motorways only to have to build back in safety areas shortly afterwards.
If this had happened over a period of mass infrastructure projects in new national railways, new cycle lanes everywhere, trams, metros, mass public transport investment outside of London – then it would be more forgiveable
But that’s not what happened, we haven’t been constructing new motorways **nor** new railways, metros or public transport (well we did put bus fares up from £2 to £3, that’s a change of sorts) – state infrastructure spending in the UK is permanently hamstrung by penny pinching Scrooge’s in the Treasury who think the way to growth is by not investing in anything
China on the other hand built ~27,000 miles of high speed rail in the last 20 years, pretty much from scratch – luckily for them they don’t have HMT “policy experts” advising. In contrast the UK has 67 miles (HS1), and HS2 is “on track” to being probably the most expensive railway in history, when it is eventually completed.
we’re pretty well covered to be honest. other than a motorway crossing the pennines to connect manchester and sheffield i can;’t think of any routes that aren’t already there
Fuck motorways, we need a restoration of lost rail
Even as someone who hates cars, that’s almost impressively low.
Because they’ve been busy building and rebuilding the m621 outside Leeds for shits and giggles since 2016
Our government doesn’t have money for new motorways but have enough money to pay landlords to subsidize rent of underpaid workers (aka Housing benefit) or to provide free housing for illegal migrants coming by boats without identity documents 🤔
They should dig out the plans they had for the M31 that was going to connect the M4 with the M25 at J10 with the A3 and cutting across the M3 at Bagshot/Lightwater (J3 of the M3). They did make a start of it when they built the motorway which now the A329(M), but that stopped at Bracknell and was then abandoned. I wonder if if was because the motorway would have had to cross Crown Estate south of Ascot / Windsor.
so?
The more worrying thing is the lack of public transport investment.
we need better busses, better and more local trains, metro lines and cycle lanes.
Does that include additional dual carriageway or widening of existing motorway?
Don’t see the issue, I love nothing more than sitting on an A road for hours on end because of a lane closure (British sarcasm, sorry)
I know potholes that are far way older than that. They did build a bike path though, that’s something I guess
Apparently the USA has added 1274 miles in the past decade
Can we just improve what we have? Near me in Cheltenham, its north junction is only one way which causes a lot of traffic having to drive through bits of town to get to the southern 2 way junction. To be fair there is a plan to sort this out, but it’s been going near 5 years and is still in planning g and approval stages. Sorting this type of thing would be of more benefit than more tarmac (in many places not all obvs)
Need to put some more effort in public transportation and active travel quite honestly. More roads isn’t going to magically solve our problems.
We don’t necessarily need more. We need to apply our understanding of traffic flow to the roads (which we have not done, and which the smart motorway scheme actively goes against)
Curious how much we have done post Brexit considering a lot of EU money is given on transport – especially roads.