Tuesday 11th November 2014

Billions for new roads. Maybe

PM promises cash bonanza for road upgrades. If he wins the general election

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We will, of course, understand if your first reaction to a story about a politician promising something for the future is to give unfavourable odds to it actually happening. We're still awaiting that 80mph motorway speed limit we were assured was about to happen several years ago, for a start.

Make the M25 look appealing with a camera

But here's one that's likely to get the debate flowing, with the Prime Minister promising in a speech at the Confederation of British Industry conference he plans to deliver the "biggest, boldest and most far-reaching road improvement programme" for 40 years. We're told that the 'autumn statement' will include plans to allocate another £15bn to new roads and major upgrade projects.

According to newspaper reports, the biggest spends are likely to be on building the long-debated 'Stonehenge tunnel' on the A303. Trunk roads to be upgraded to dual carriageway include the A47 east of Leicester, stretches of the A27 along the south coast and the A1 north of Newcastle. We're also told there will be upgrades to major trans-Pennine routes, lanes added to over-stretched and - reading between the lines - more areas turned into active 'managed motorways.'

Of course, a cynic might point out that there's the small matter of a general election coming next May, and that very little of this is going to be happening before then...

[Source: Telegraph, pics from Highways Agency Flickr]

[anonymous-user]

You'd have to be a fking idiot to believe a word they say on anything. He's telling the CBI what he knows they want to hear, and tomorrow he'll be in front of another group telling them something totally different and the man won't even have the decency to shuffle his feet as he lies to their faces. Until a politician stands up and promises to do "fk all to change the status quo" if they win the next election then they are all liars.

[anonymous-user]

Why not fix up the roads we already so that they're fit for purpose first? The first thing you notice about driving in mainland Europe is that the condition of the roads over there is far, far better. Even Spain has roads in better condition, and blaming it on harsh winters just doesn't cut it I'm afraid since having just returned from driving in Norway & Sweden and roads there are in fantastic condition.

Utility companies if they dig up the road should be made to repair things properly (i.e. by resurfacing the whole road). Residents in our area had been lobbying the council for ages to get a busy but terribly potholed road resurface properly (rather than the usual shove a bit of bitumen down in the holes, and return again to do the same in 6 months because its now even worse than it was before). Finally last year the road was fully resurfaced, lovely, smooth etc. Wonderful.

6 weeks later (yes 6 weeks!), the water company came and dug a sodding great trench down the new road to supply a new development. Poorly patched repair and now less than 12 months after it was fully resurfaced the road is uneven, lumpy and starting to break up again. We've all paid for that. Absolutely boils my p**s! Cretins!

[anonymous-user]

TimLambert7 said:

If it happens, fantastic but it won't.

They're all full of sh*t.

What party can an innocent PHer vote for nowadays?

Green Party. As mental as that sounds for a PHer, it might be the best option.

[anonymous-user]

Al 450 said:

If I was in power I'd be seriously looking at cancelling HS2 and channelling the money into a modern road and cycle lane network plus decent 3G/4G phone reception over the whole country instead. If you talk to real business people then this is what they want to facilitate commuting and reliable logistics.

For sure, mobile companies are rolling out 4G before they even have 3G sorted properly. Plus there's tons of remote places with no signal whatsoever.

HS2 will be an expensive white elephant, expensive for the tax payer, and prohibitively expensive for the end user. You only have to look at the cost of a peak time return from Manchester to London using the existing system. If I wanted to travel to London tomorrow for a mid morning meeting, returning after 3pm then the total cost for a return would be £321.00. And you wonder why people like to drive. What's that same journey going to cost on HS2?

A good use of the railways would be to get the freight off the roads. Regional hubs used to whisk long distance trucks to another regional hub near their end destination. Something like this:



Also imagine the improvements in the existing rail network 50 billion could make. Re-guaging to European train sizes, double deck trains to increase capacity, electrification etc. With HS2 we'll have a two tier system, not an integrated approach. A fast, expensive rail system, going to not many places, that most can't afford to use. The rest of us will be left with a crumbling, cramped, old fashioned system that's light years behind the rest of Europe.

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 11th November 18:38

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 11th November 18:40

[anonymous-user]

Something to get the lorries off the road would improve things vastly. But lots of our roads are adequate IMO, it's the poor lane discipline that causes the massive congestion. The M5 and M4 often look like single carriageways by the way they are used, i.e. everyone piling in to lane 3 as soon as traffic gets a bit heavy. Lots of people are just too lazy/ignorant to keep left unless over taking.