Road Lengths in Britain 2017

[A303Chris]

This has just been released by the DfT and gives a whole lot of data about the lengths of different roads types within Great Britain.
What I thought amazing was the total road length is only 246,000 miles and how short the road length is in Wales and Scotland.

Total motorway length is 2,300 miles and unfortunately it does not detail how much of the primary road network is HQDC. Has anyone got the details of road lengths in other countries for a comparison.

This page gives a spreadsheet which splits different road types down to each Local Authority in Great Britain, if you want to go into the micro detail

[skiddaw05]

If I hadn't already had a look at the report or some of the details in the post it would have been an interesting exercise to estimate the percentage of the total road length of each category (M/A/B/C & unclassified). Had I done so I would have been well out!

[Viator]

There was 31,400 miles of major road

There was 215,300 miles of minor road

Hmm. So "there was" at least two instances of questionable grammar in this government report.

[someone]

There was 31,400 miles of major road

There was 215,300 miles of minor road

Hmm. So "there was" at least two instances of questionable grammar in this government report.

What is wrong with the grammar? Uncountable nouns are always singular.

In that example the two road types specified are used as categories (roads are either major or minor) rather than instances (A1, B202 etc.). So they represent uncountable abstract concepts rather than literal roads.

Whilst an uncountable noun can be measured (ten pints of lemonade, 480 seconds of applause, 31,400 miles of major road etc.), the verb still has to agree with the noun.

There was a singular noun, so there was also a singular verb.

[nowster]

What is wrong with the grammar? Uncountable nouns are always singular.

Actually it should be something along the lines of, "There were 30,000 miles of major roads."

Compare with the sentence, "There were fifty different shades of grey."

Looking at the OED for countable/uncountable nouns, if the term "road" was uncountable, the following would sound natural: "much road", "few (of) road".

They sound better as "many roads" and "fewer roads".

[Big L]

There was 31,400 miles of major road

There was 215,300 miles of minor road

Hmm. So "there was" at least two instances of questionable grammar in this government report.

What is wrong with the grammar? Uncountable nouns are always singular...

It's hard to call them uncountable when the report being referenced counted them.

[nowster]

It's hard to call them uncountable when the report being referenced counted them.

"Five pints of milk is sufficient" vs "Five pints of milk are sufficient".

Milk is uncountable (road is countable). Grammar experts are divided on which is correct (the first) and which is more natural (the second), and usage trumps prescription.

[someone]

Actually it should be something along the lines of, "There were 30,000 miles of major roads."

Compare with the sentence, "There were fifty different shades of grey."

Looking at the OED for countable/uncountable nouns, if the term "road" was uncountable, the following would sound natural: "much road", "few (of) road".

They sound better as "many roads" and "fewer roads".

The term used was not "road," though, it was the compound noun "major road."

And to Big L, you can have "30,000 major roads" which is a count of them, but "30,000 miles" is a measurement. Which is why distances (and time) use "less" rather than fewer" and take a singular verb, it denotes a quantity or size, not a number.

They could have said something like "there were 30,000 miles of major roads (in total)." With the latter either being expressed explicitly or implied. However what they did use is a grammatically correct alternative.

It is also arguable that the form they used is stronger, as using "major road" implies that their must be an objective definition for it to be a category. "Major roads," though, could just as easily mean a subjective assessment of a road as being major. This would obviously not be the case in an official statement, the objectivity would be implied, but having to regularly think in such a precise way could be why they instinctively used the form they did.

I have no idea what the "shades of grey" example has to do with this because a "shade" is clearly a plural item as they can exit many different ones. Unlike the category of "major road" that was used by the DfT, which is abstract as there cannot exist different forms of one.

But whether or not you like they way they phrased it, the simple fact is that "major road" is not a plural, it does not end with an "s," so the agreeing verb is "was." Just like the "shades (of grey)" does end with an "s" so agrees with "were."

"Five pints of milk is sufficient" vs "Five pints of milk are sufficient".

Milk is uncountable (road is countable). Grammar experts are divided on which is correct (the first) and which is more natural (the second), and usage trumps prescription.

Not wanting to stray too far off topic, but is the latter milk example really more natural to people? I guess that would explain why people wrongly perceive a problem with the DfT sentence.

As for usage trumping prescription, in many situations I would agree. Though not in a formal capacity, such as by a government. And this off-topid diversion is seemingly the result of someone (else) attempting to incorrectly prescribe a usage.

[KeithW]

And to Big L, you can have "30,000 major roads" which is a count of them, but "30,000 miles" is a measurement. Which is why distances (and time) use "less" rather than fewer" and take a singular verb, it denotes a quantity or size, not a number.

To be precise 30,000 major roads is an estimate not a measurement. The number of roads is uncountable as the number is continually changing as new roads come into existence and old roads close.

[bart]

It's hard to call them uncountable when the report being referenced counted them.

"Five pints of milk is sufficient" vs "Five pints of milk are sufficient".

Milk is uncountable (road is countable). Grammar experts are divided on which is correct (the first) and which is more natural (the second), and usage trumps prescription.

But pints of milk are countable. So, if you're ordering bottles of milk from your milkman (having created a time machine to go back to the 1970s, of course), then the second is correct.

But "There was 231,000 miles of road" just sounds terrible.

[wrinkly]

You could argue that if pints of milk were countable, it would be impossible to have 2.4 pints of milk.

Seeing things as countable rather than measurable leads to statements like "this road is fewer than three miles long", which sounds horrible to me.

[Viator]

There was 31,400 miles of major road

There was 215,300 miles of minor road

Hmm. So "there was" at least two instances of questionable grammar in this government report.

What is wrong with the grammar? Uncountable nouns are always singular.

In that example the two road types specified are used as categories (roads are either major or minor) rather than instances (A1, B202 etc.). So they represent uncountable abstract concepts rather than literal roads.

Whilst an uncountable noun can be measured (ten pints of lemonade, 480 seconds of applause, 31,400 miles of major road etc.), the verb still has to agree with the noun.

There was a singular noun, so there was also a singular verb.

But the miles are countable, just like the pints and seconds in your other examples, so, for me, the governed verb needs to be plural. I don't think you would say "Hundreds of miles of motorway was built" (well, I wouldn't, anyway). I don't see any constructional difference between "There were 31,400 miles of major road" and, say, "There are thousands of hectares of public land", "Two pints of lemonade (and twenty-two of beer) were consumed at the last SABRE meeting".

Note, too, that I said the grammar was questionable. I didn't use the word "wrong". For just one, longish discussion of this topic, see here.

[Chris5156]

What is wrong with the grammar? Uncountable nouns are always singular.

In that example the two road types specified are used as categories (roads are either major or minor) rather than instances (A1, B202 etc.). So they represent uncountable abstract concepts rather than literal roads.

Whilst an uncountable noun can be measured (ten pints of lemonade, 480 seconds of applause, 31,400 miles of major road etc.), the verb still has to agree with the noun.

There was a singular noun, so there was also a singular verb.

But the miles are countable, just like the pints and seconds in your other examples, so, for me, the governed verb needs to be plural. I don't think you would say "Hundreds of miles of motorway was built" (well, I wouldn't, anyway). I don't see any constructional difference between "There were 31,400 miles of major road" and, say, "There are thousands of hectares of public land", "Two pints of lemonade (and twenty-two of beer) were consumed at the last SABRE meeting".

Agreed. "Minor road" and "major road" are not the nouns being counted by the verb in that sentence; "miles" is, and a mile can be counted. The focus of the sentence is the number of miles, because that is the statistic, and indeed the whole point of it is that the number of miles have been counted. There is more than one mile of minor road in the UK and more than one mile of major road in the UK. Therefore the verb is plural.

If the sentence was telling us that there is some minor road and some major road in the UK, then a singular verb would indeed be correct, because the noun is uncountable. But that's not what is happening in this sentence.

[Helvellyn]

"Major road" as a category is uncountable, "major roads" as all the roads described as major is not, so either

There were 31,400 miles of major roads

or

There was 31,400 miles of major road

look OK to me. The second reads a little oddly because we don't often view roads like that, but it's no different than "There was 10' of string." "There were 10' of strings" would suggest lots of individual pieces of string that added up to that length whereas the former is just the length of all the stuff called string. Both can work for roads.

For a better road-related example replace "major roads" with "motorway,"* which for some reason feels more natural to use either way.

* for the sake of example of the grammar only, I'm not suggesting that "major roads" just means "motorways."

[skiddaw05]

The confusion could be because 'distance' (in miles or whatever) is a singular noun. You would say 'The distance to London is 50 miles', where '50 miles' is the adjective describing the distance. But turn 'miles' into a noun then it has to be plural - 'There are 50 miles to go until we get to London'.

Couldn't they just say 'The total length of A roads is 31,400 miles'...?

[ANiceEnglishman]

As we're well into Unleashed territory may I suggest that the correct answer to "What is the total length of roads in the country?" is "Whatever you want it to be"?

Fractal dimensions and all that.

[crb11]

As we're well into Unleashed territory may I suggest that the correct answer to "What is the total length of roads in the country?" is "Whatever you want it to be"?

Fractal dimensions and all that.

No. A road is one-dimensional and not fractal, because when you zoom in, the line of the road becomes straight and no further detail appears. So as you measure it on smaller and smaller scales, the measurements converge to a well-defined number which is "the length of the road".

The only issue is which line you measure, and there's been plenty of debate about that here in the past - for a motorway you could take a line running down the middle of the central reservation, or one running down the centre of the carriageway in one direction, or both directions averaged, and various other options. They'll come out with slightly different numbers, but it's a definitional problem, not a mathematical one.

[nirs]

The only issue is which line you measure, and there's been plenty of debate about that here in the past - for a motorway you could take a line running down the middle of the central reservation, or one running down the centre of the carriageway in one direction, or both directions averaged, and various other options. They'll come out with slightly different numbers, but it's a definitional problem, not a mathematical one.

Funny, just the past couple of weeks I've investigated this question of how you count road lengths. DFI (NI's roads authority) often quote 25000 km as the length of road in NI, but I started to suspect that that figure was an exaggeration and I looked into how they calculated it. Firstly, it turns out that they measure the centre line of single-carriageways. Where two roads meet the measurement is to where the two centre-lines join, so at a cross-roads there's a square of road that's effectively counted twice. Secondly, they count sliproads and the circumference of all roundabouts as separate roads. Thirdly, they count each carriageway of a motorway and dual-carriageway, so 1km of motorway is measured as 2km of "road". Fourthly, they count all "roads" under their jurisdiction which in Belfast seems to include a lot of alleyways which you'd struggle to fit a car down but are counted because DFI are responsible for their maintenance. I did some work that suggested that if you count road length the way a layperson would think of it, the true figure for NI is probably somewhere between 23000 and 24000 km.

[AndyB]

Sounds like they are counting the length of carriageway rather than of road!