All Wales Road Projects Scrapped?

[ManomayLR]

I saw this just now:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64640215

This is so drastic!

Is this going to go down well politically?

[SteveA30]

Nothing to be surprised about. The pendulum is swinging increasingly in this direction. England and Scotland will follow, sooner or later. Some towns or counties are already going this way. Oxford, Bristol.
Very fortunate that the A465 dualling got through in time, a good alternative to the M4, from the M5 and M50.

[Herned]

Some "interesting" suggestions in the report, such as implementing a shared cycling/pedestrian path on the A487 between Aberarth and Llanon. Climbing lanes were proposed for that section, as it's a 200m climb up and back down, along the edge of the cliffs. I'm absolutely in favour of better provision for NMUs, but that's not the most obvious location to spend what little money there is

[roadtester]

It's certainly a complete contrast with the Tories who last year wanted to link North and South Wales by motorway.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/buil ... h-24562863

I suspect the right policy for Wales lies between those two extremes.

As has already been said, this would look a heck of a lot worse if it was going to affect the Heads of the Valleys which is the real centrepiece of the Welsh programme but I still think this looks quite bad. Wales is not overly lavishly provided for with roads and a lot of these look like worthwhile or even essential local bottleneck busters or upgrades to sub-standard stretches.

I suspect the UK government won't look kindly on the M4 and A55 aspects and one or two other cancellations, as these affect corridors of significance for the wider UK economy, so I suspect that as in the case previously of the M4 near Newport and the A75/A77/A1 in Scotland they'll start sticking their oar in, but whether that will ever actually come to anything, who knows.

[Vierwielen]

Canelling all major road projects is somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction as it does not differentiate between local and long-distance traffic, nor does it differentiate between passenger and freight traffic. Thinking of the M4 corridor in Wales, the traffic jams around Cardiff are caused by local traffic, so a toll to use the tunnels mighty well move traffic away from the M4 - local traffic coudl use public transport while long-distance traffic might well be diverted to the HEads of the Valleys Road. WHat has not helped this particular section has been the cancelllation of the electrification of the Cardiff-Swansea railway line. If the Welsh Government is serious about the carbon footprint related to transport, railway electrification is a must.

[roadtester]

It was the U.K. government that cancelled Cardiff to Swansea electrification, not the Welsh government.

[WHBM]

Some "interesting" suggestions in the report, such as implementing a shared cycling/pedestrian path on the A487 between Aberarth and Llanon. Climbing lanes were proposed for that section, as it's a 200m climb up and back down, along the edge of the cliffs. I'm absolutely in favour of better provision for NMUs, but that's not the most obvious location to spend what little money there is

I think we have to get away from gentle euphemisms like "that's not the most obvious location". When it is completely stupid and a total squandering of public funds to appease a group of zealots we should say so. I guess we should lobby Westminster to modify the Barnett Formula so money is no longer given out for silly wastes of money like this. That's not transport infrastructure.

It was the U.K. government that cancelled Cardiff to Swansea electrification, not the Welsh government.

In truth it was one electric train an hour, which is not appropriate, especially given the gross cost overruns on the project (more squandering). The rest are diesel trains which run most of their journey onwards where there are no wires. Incidentally, at least Cardiff got electric trains; Bristol, a much more significant destination for London trains, didn't.

[DB617]

I was somewhat baffled by the headline as the article literally states that 15 schemes survived.

My biggest concern unfortunately remains. This is a wide raft of cancellations without any substance to the government's assertion that 'people will basically get around without cars'. The only thing in there to replace it seems to be some infernal shared path nonsense. Build some stepped cycleways, something from the 21st century, for the love of Pete.

[orudge]

So it sounds like the A494 widening and bridge replacement will go ahead (though I haven’t checked the gov.wales site) but the new offline link from the A548 to the A55 has been binned. Not a surprise I guess, but still somewhat disappointing. Hopefully the A494 improvements, while considerably watered down from the plans of the 2000s, will at least help the congestion there.

[avtur]

I saw this just now:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64640215

This is so drastic!

Is this going to go down well politically?

Surely the Welsh Government are completely missing the point, their argument appears to be focused around environmental concerns. Has no one told them that the UK is on a legislated path to changing to EV's. With adoption of EV's and the banning of new ICE's in the not too distant future there is already a path to reduced emissions in place. Travel in Wales is highly reliant on cars and restricting road development will without doubt hinder the growth opportunities for the Welsh Economy. My interpretation of this move is that it will cause significant self inflicted harm to the Welsh economy. We plan to downsize and move to Wales (Cardiff) in 5+ years time, this is not looking good for our ability to travel easily under our own steam.

[roadtester]

One of the things that really dismays me about this - and it applies to most of our politicians across the board, not specifically to the Welsh government - is that there is no real sense of urgency or any sort of appreciation of how dire our national position is in terms of economic growth and the very limited prospects for improvement as we fight with one hand tied behind our backs as a national economy thanks to Brexit, and start falling behind.

We don’t really have a choice whether to upgrade the M4 and A55 corridors, or the A77 or not. Not doing Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2 properly should be right off the table. These represent the absolute minimum we should be doing in order to be able to compete with even the weakest areas of the EU on infrastructure.

[jackal]

One of the things that really dismays me about this - and it applies to most of our politicians across the board, not specifically to the Welsh government - is that there is no real sense of urgency or any sort of appreciation of how dire our national position is in terms of economic growth and the very limited prospects for improvement as we fight with one hand tied behind our backs as a national economy thanks to Brexit, and start falling behind.

We don’t really have a choice whether to upgrade the M4 and A55 corridors, or the A77 or not. Not doing Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2 properly should be right off the table. These represent the absolute minimum we should be doing in order to be able to compete with even the weakest areas of the EU on infrastructure.

Indeed, the assumption seems to be that the economy is sorted out so we can focus on other stuff, which couldn't be further from the truth.

This isn't really a new policy - the New Labour government scrapped the vast majority of road schemes, claiming that they were going to do wonderful things with public transport instead. Of course car modal share stayed well above 80% regardless so we had a lost decade of infrastructure investment (and the implied long term hit to productivity) for nothing.

Such a policy is even less promising in Wales, as there is simply not the population density to support a high frequency public transport network, especially in Mid and North Wales. No wonder they want transport powers devolved in the North.

[ManomayLR]

We don’t really have a choice whether to upgrade the M4 and A55 corridors, or the A77 or not. Not doing Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2 properly should be right off the table. These represent the absolute minimum we should be doing in order to be able to compete with even the weakest areas of the EU on infrastructure.

In the famous words of a Handforth councillor..
READ THE STANDING ORDERS THIS POST! READ THEM AND UNDERSTAND THEM!

[roadtester]

This isn't really a new policy - the New Labour government scrapped the vast majority of road schemes, claiming that they were going to do wonderful things with public transport instead. Of course car modal share stayed well above 80% regardless so we had a lost decade of infrastructure investment (and the implied long term hit to productivity) for nothing.

I agree that in retrospect that this was mistaken, although it was also part of a longer run thing of e.g. building ever fewer miles of new motorway.

I think the only mitigation is that at least back in the noughties we could look at our actually pretty healthy economy and half convince ourselves along the lines of “well we seem to be doing quite well without spending lots of money on roads, so perhaps we don’t need to bother” but now after fifteen years of stagnation with living standards being well and truly hammered, the problem is staring us much more directly in the face.

[ManomayLR]

This isn't really a new policy - the New Labour government scrapped the vast majority of road schemes, claiming that they were going to do wonderful things with public transport instead. Of course car modal share stayed well above 80% regardless so we had a lost decade of infrastructure investment (and the implied long term hit to productivity) for nothing.

I agree that in retrospect that this was mistaken, although it was also part of a longer run thing of e.g. building ever fewer miles of new motorway.

I think the only mitigation is that at least back in the noughties we could look at our actually pretty healthy economy and half convince ourselves along the lines of “well we seem to be doing quite well without spending lots of money on roads, so perhaps we don’t need to bother” but now after fifteen years of stagnation with living standards being well and truly hammered, the problem is staring us much more directly in the face.

But so far it seems like we've gone from "we don't need to do anything" to "we can't do anything".

[ChrisH]

What interests me about these decisions is to understand what the aim is.

Do they think that scrapping new road projects in Wales will...

Make a noticeable difference to climate change?
Encourage other countries to do the same?
Signal Wales' virtue to other countries?

Wales has some of the worst transport infrastructure of any country in the developed world. The idea that it doesn't need any more is - shall we say - optimistic.

[jnty]

What interests me about these decisions is to understand what the aim is.

Do they think that scrapping new road projects in Wales will...

Make a noticeable difference to climate change?
Encourage other countries to do the same?
Signal Wales' virtue to other countries?

Wales has some of the worst transport infrastructure of any country in the developed world. The idea that it doesn't need any more is - shall we say - optimistic.

You missed the obvious one, which is that it will free up investment for green transport infrastructure which doesn't rely on a utopian rapid mass migration to EVs.

[rhyds]

As can be imagined, this is going down like a cup of cold sick on Welsh media/social media this morning.

The main complaints are

1) The Welsh Government believes that Public Transport is the answer, not more road building. However the WG is currently cutting back on bus subsidies, which for the vast land area of Wales between the A465/A40 and A55 is the only PT option, so that makes zero sense

2) The Valleys and Cardiff are going to benefit hugely from the current South Wales Metro projects that will be going ahead, but North Wales wont' be. There are calls to devolve trunk road planning to North Wales, however without WG funding that's a non starter

3) The "Induced Demand" argument may work in urban areas, however in rural projects like the Llanbedr bypass (a mile of road and new bridge) isn't going to lead to increased car use as there's not much in the way of local supressed demand to induce.

[Kinitawowi]

What interests me about these decisions is to understand what the aim is.

Do they think that scrapping new road projects in Wales will...

Make a noticeable difference to climate change?
Encourage other countries to do the same?
Signal Wales' virtue to other countries?

Wales has some of the worst transport infrastructure of any country in the developed world. The idea that it doesn't need any more is - shall we say - optimistic.

You missed the obvious one, which is that it will free up investment for green transport infrastructure which doesn't rely on a utopian rapid mass migration to EVs.

If you think they'll actually take the money they would have spent on road projects and put it into green transport infrastructure instead then I have a bridge you might be interested in.

[Ruperts Trooper]

What interests me about these decisions is to understand what the aim is.

Do they think that scrapping new road projects in Wales will...

Make a noticeable difference to climate change?
Encourage other countries to do the same?
Signal Wales' virtue to other countries?

Wales has some of the worst transport infrastructure of any country in the developed world. The idea that it doesn't need any more is - shall we say - optimistic.

You missed the obvious one, which is that it will free up investment for green transport infrastructure which doesn't rely on a utopian rapid mass migration to EVs.

Like the Highlands, Wales is particularly unsuited to public transport due to terrain and low population density - looking forward the only choices will be IC car, EV car or pony for people outside of the South Wales conurbation.