Electioneering? Cameron commits to £15bn for road building

[hidetheelephants]

Surprised no-one's posted about this. Is this the start of the election stump?

Cameron; £15bn for roads.

[FiF]

Yes it is, blatant electioneering.

However judge him by his past record not this too little - too late, blatant bribe.

Not to mention the end of the war on the motorist. That went well.

Cameron the game is up. You can FRO.

[BoRED S2upid]

How about fixing the holes in the roads we have first?

[Mermaid]

BoRED S2upid said:

How about fixing the holes in the roads we have first?

Traffic calming measure

[Morningside]

Bullst. Watch the VED and fuel tax jump up in price to pay for it all. Motorists are not going to fall for this crap again.

[king arthur]

This all needs doing and more. The tunnel under Stonehenge would be very welcome, but so would an improvement to the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester, it's desperately inadequate for the traffic it carries. Plus the A1 could do with upgrading to motorway standard all the way down to at least Newark. I've noticed an increase in roadworks projects since the Tories came to power, the first thing Labour did when they got in was to bring all road building to a complete halt. So we have about 15 years of work to catch up on.

[FredClogs]

Eric Pickles needs a new express route to greggs the bakers.

[Welshbeef]

It is only £3billion a year for the length of the next parliment.

Anyway given the increase in UK population and immigration and the baby boom we are in this is just trying to keep up

[FredClogs]

Morningside said:

Bullst. Watch the VED and fuel tax jump up in price to pay for it all. Motorists are not going to fall for this crap again.

Motorists paying for the road!?!

It's a feckin liberty I tell you!

[greygoose]

FredClogs said:

Eric Pickles needs a new express route to greggs the bakers.

Interesting to see where the money comes from as we are skint and have a huge deficit.

[hidetheelephants]

greygoose said:

FredClogs said:

Eric Pickles needs a new express route to greggs the bakers.

Interesting to see where the money comes from as we are skint and have a huge deficit.

We're printing more, just like for HS2.

[Puggit]

I haven't seen a single new road mentioned though - just more lanes and more use of the hard-shoulder (M4 in Berkshire next to get that treatment...)

[davepoth]

Probably electioneering, but let's face it, we really do need improvements to some of the mentioned roads. I know the A303 best, and the section around Stonehenge is ridiculous.

Plus, I want to do an awesome tunnel run.

Infrastructure is generally a good thing, and actually worth the investment because of how much extra investment it brings with it. Most of the points mentioned are really obvious bottlenecks, and opening them up will help a lot of people and businesses.

[Welshbeef]

Puggit said:

I haven't seen a single new road mentioned though - just more lanes and more use of the hard-shoulder (M4 in Berkshire next to get that treatment...)

In that respect maybe there is a need for a new M25 much further out from London?

But adding in extra lanes increases capacity by 33% instantly for a fraction of the cost of any totally new road - do we need any new Motorways over what we have? If so where? All roads lead to London


Possibly M25 equivalents around the big cities

[king arthur]

Welshbeef said:

In that respect maybe there is a need for a new M25 much further out from London?

But adding in extra lanes increases capacity by 33% instantly for a fraction of the cost of any totally new road - do we need any new Motorways over what we have? If so where? All roads lead to London

Actually I read somewhere that adding new lanes to a motorway costs almost as much as building a new one (actual new lanes rather than the conversion of the hard shoulder). Hard shoulder running isn't the wonderful solution it is made out to be, because as soon as anything breaks down in lane one, it creates chaos where there wouldn't have been had there been a dedicated hard shoulder.

As far as the M25 is concerned, it's worse now than it was before it was widened several years ago. More lanes isn't the answer, I think we need new alternative routes such as the suggested M31 between the M4 and M3.

[Welshbeef]

How about a motorway from High Wycombe through the M4 J8/9 then onto the M3 - this would pull traffic away/avoid using the M25 - but push more congestion back towards J12 M4.

[FiF]

Nobody disagrees that these are needed.

But why now.

Too little too late.

Judge them on their record, not just when they are in a panic that they are about to be kicked at the ballot box


Are you this easily bought?

[Gargamel]

king arthur said:

This all needs doing and more. The tunnel under Stonehenge would be very welcome, but so would an improvement to the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester, it's desperately inadequate for the traffic it carries. Plus the A1 could do with upgrading to motorway standard all the way down to at least Newark. I've noticed an increase in roadworks projects since the Tories came to power, the first thing Labour did when they got in was to bring all road building to a complete halt. So we have about 15 years of work to catch up on.

Ah, who did the Hindhead tunnel then On the A3 ?

Another project that was 20 years in cocking around. Pretty sure that was Labour.

I am or choosing who to vote for based on a small slice of infrastructure spending. However, there was a lot of moaning on here that we could have and should have invested more in infrastructure during a time of cheap money and easy labour supply. So it seems odd to carp about it now.

Good news in my opinion.

[hidetheelephants]

Having ferreted about a bit, it appears this is bks anyway; this spending(or an amount spookily similar to it) was announced by the treasury last summer. How unusual, announcing some spending that already been announced; no-one's ever done that before.

[rich888]

hidetheelephants said:

greygoose said:

FredClogs said:

Eric Pickles needs a new express route to greggs the bakers.

Interesting to see where the money comes from as we are skint and have a huge deficit.

We're printing more, just like for HS2.

Just wait for the post-election U turn when Camaclown realises there is no more money and the UK is broke!

Can I say at this point that Cameron is the lesser idiot than the other two clowns provided by the Lib and Lab candidates, so he wins by default - no wonder this country is deep in debt when this is the best the UK political system can offer us!

What we should fear is a return of Labour or Liberal economics which will surely bankrupt this country... If I could emigrate ahead of the next election I would!