Roads to the good life
December 2nd 2009 The UK roads network lags way behind the needs of its users says Geoff Dossetter, with congestion a senseless waste of time and money. UKplc should spend more on roads, he argues, not less
Two thousand years ago the Romans showed up in Britain. And the first thing they did was build some roads. They recognised they needed an efficient roads network in order to move people and goods around. A good roads system made a major contribution to the success of the Roman Empire.
When the Romans left 400 years later the dumb Brits allowed the roads to go into disrepair and it wasn’t really until the industrial revolution that we began to get our act together again. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Preston Bypass – the first UK motorway. And who could deny the beneficial impact of the motorway network over those 50 years? Well, sadly, too many people. And the economic recession, with the massive degree of public debt which it has resulted in, means that future roads growth is in danger.
Of course, it is not only money that is part of this problem.We are constantly told that roads are bad for the environment and that we must reduce the use of cars and lorries in order to fight the onset of global warming.We must use less fuel and make every journey count. In fact we must make fewer journeys.
Well, of course we must. But these arguments have always struck me as so negative. An adequate roads system, allowing the efficient movement of people and goods, is surely a positive force for good, facilitating healthy social interaction and the operation of a diverse economy.
The sad fact is that, despite the recent recession linked reduction in traffic, we have not yet constructed a roads network fit for the purpose of moving around over 30 million vehicles without regular congestion which wastes money and man-hours.
It has been estimated that the annual cost of congestion in the UK is around £20 billion. No kidding - £20 billion wasted every year by the fact that people and goods are stuck in traffic resulting in late or lost deliveries, lost productivity, lost leisure time, reduced quality of life etc. And engines idling in stop start traffic are hardly good for air quality and our carbon footprint. An adequate roads network would go a long way to solving some of these problems.
Of course the history of our road building programme has had its share of ups and downs in recent years. The Tories ‘Roads for Prosperity’ white paper of 1989 was good news laying out a practical plan for the future. Sadly the recession of the early 1990s chipped away at these ambitious targets.
And then Labour came to power in 1997 and what did John Prescott do as Transport Secretary? Well, a moratorium on any new road starts for two years! What a good idea!
In the last 10 years we’ve had limited new starts to the national network and a bypass programme which still leaves around 500 towns and villages looking for relief – the construction of bypasses which would remove traffic from locations where it is not wanted and where it does not want to be.
And now we have next year’s election to look forward to and a suggestion from the Tories that to deal with congestion we must make the best of the road space we already have. Encouragingly, they also suggest that 'in some cases... it will mean building new roads'.
Making the most of what we have got is worth pursuing. I got stuck on the M25 in Essex the other day – but in a good cause. They are widening it as they have done on many other sections of the road. Difficult to complain when the outcome will be so worthwhile.
And the ATM scheme of hard shoulder running on the M42 near Birmingham is clearly a big success – it packs in more traffic with high safety standards. OK, we mustn’t forsake the value of the hard shoulder. But this scheme works and may be used elsewhere.
Less happy is the situation at the Dartford Crossing.Why is it only the Government and the Highways Agency that cannot see that collecting tolls on the M25 is a bad idea that causes congestion, air pollution and driver madness? To reduce the congestion they are thinking about scrapping the south bound tolls (and presumably doubling the northbound!). The sensible thing to do would be to scrap the lot.
After the recession, and when the economy demands greater movement of people and goods, the current reduction in traffic levels will be reversed. It is forecast that traffic will be up by about 30 per cent by 2025.
Yet the very real political prospect is for overall road building to reduce in order to save money. Ironic this, when you consider that around one pound in every nine raised in taxation comes from road users!
Am I alone in thinking that this would be a false economy that wouldn’t work? Spending money on roads will, ultimately, save money, reduce emissions, improve the economy, improve the environment, and improve our 21st century lifestyle. The Romans were on to something. End of rant. More articles from Handling & Storage Solutions: | 
