Justine Greening, shurely?

Has anyone ever actually tried to investigate whether the rollout of VMS actually delivers value for money?

It certainly didn't the other week, when there was a failing to warn at any point south of Catterick that the A66 toward Appleby was best avoided (and thus lost were any points in which to have gone a different route)...

Isn't that how the A46 got dualled - wasn't supposed to start to 2015, then the previous government decided it would be an economic stimulator, and it officially opened yesterday

I noticed that the other day - is it part of the upgrade works or just coincidence?

It's interesting to see options such as free-flowing the roundabouts and using the A428 west of Girton. I think it should be possible to solve the main problems with something a lot less ambitious than the previous £1+ billion scheme.

In particular, routing east-west traffic via the A428 west of Girton combined with some sort of new build to the west of the current modern dual carriageway section looks very attractive as the route is half-built to a high standard anyway. With more traffic just flowing straight through east-west between the A14 and current A428, that should take the pressure off any need for an expensive upgrade of Girton as well, I suspect.

The big problem is that the A1 in this area is totally, well, inadequate for modern traffic flows; so even if the A428 was improved to the A1, I don't think it will solve the problems we're looking at with the A14; other than if the A1198 was dualled, with a Huntingdon southern bypass to link at Brampton Hut. But by doing that, you're creating a new major transport corridor, when realistically the existing A14 line should be used for the widening, with A1 improvements also.

Effectively, the through traffic needs separating from the local traffic, and none of the ideas about improving bus services or park and ride facilites are going to make any difference. I'd be in favour of on line widening the lot, with free flow junctions at each end. And for people to argue that it would increase pollution in Huntingdon, it's no different surely to the M6 traffic levels through Birmingham. And it goes past a bloody great landfill site anyway, so it's not exactly a rural idyll....

As I mentioned previously the A428 route would solve almost everything. In particular it would separate N-S and E-W traffic flows, avoid doing anything to Girton and half the A428 is already dualled. All that needs doing is dualling west of the A1198 and upgrading the A1 between St Neots and the A14 to a GSJ'd D3. That would be far less costly than the £1bn scheme and provide the same benefits.

^^^ What he said.

When I lived just west of Peterborough, I'd often use the A428 / B660 to go home rather than the A14. Separating out EW and NS traffic is the way to go, surely.

I believe in the separation of long distance motor traffic from local traffic; and while any sort of construction would be an improvement, neither NS or EW traffic should be mixing with the local road network here, let alone with non-motorised traffic or property accesses!

Theresa Villiers is Roads minister. Justine Greening is SoS for Transport. Both are "top dog", sort of, depending on definition.

Regarding the VMS, will it have enough characters to display "YOUR ROAD TAXES WERE SQUANDERED ON THIS SIGN" ?

Sometimes, I wish this board had a "Like" button!

As long as they spend a few quid more and, next to the signs, have a map of what was going to be the re-built Girton Interchange and underneath "This is what you could've won!"

"I live in Birmingham. Where am I going to be able to use a speed boat?"

That particular city has more canals than Venice, you know...

A speed boat will be uesless on the local canals - you'd hit a submerged shopping trolley before too long

We're getting them out as quickly as we can.

Last year we got 16 'pound in slot' ones from a lock near Spaghetti Junction. They were all chained together as the wall fastening for the coin release key had been broken. Took 15 bods and 8 grapnels to do it.

Should make it clear I don't work for British Waterways / Canal and River Trust but instead voluteer for a weekend clean-up each year.

( Oh and the other year we found a cable running under the M6 bridge near J10 that had dropped in the canal. Could have been fun if a boat had caught it! )