The study of British and Irish roads - their construction, numbering, history, mapping, past and future official roads proposals and general roads musings.
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Glenn A wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2023 15:45
This stop/start approach to road building does no one any favours and also creates worry among people who live in an area where their home may be compulsorily purchased and then it's postponed, only for another government to change its mind. It means for places that are crying out for a by pass that they have to put up with years more of congestion and pollution.
Roads For Prosperity might have been hated by the critics and attacked by the anti car lobby, but at least it recognised hundreds of miles of roads needed to be replaced and more motorways and D2s needed to built in areas that had serious congestion issues. Had it been canned in 1990 when Major replaced Thatcher, we might not have seen the A74 replaced by a D3M until the noughties when Scotland's roads were devolved or places like Egremont, Cumbria, being by passed.
Roads for Prosperity was largely canned because of the economic depression of 1990-1992 and rising inflation, as in the 1970's increasing oil prices were a major factor, a secondary and somewhat unexpected factor was the collapse of the USSR and the major cuts in defence spending that followed. There was also the savings and loans crisis which saw 32% of US equivalent of Building Societies collapse and a rapid rise in interest rates. The cost of borrowing increased considerably.
The basic premise of the white paper was that road traffic would rise by between 80% and 120% as it replaced what was seen as the failing rail system. This view was refuted by the opposition spokesman John Prescott who expected a modest rise in rail traffic. Both were of course wrong as there was a resurgence of rail transport as passenger numbers between 1993 and 2019 almost doubled.
The simple fact was that as a result of the Twyford Down saga by the end of the Thatcher era road building was seen as a politically toxic policy so many large schemes drawn up in the early 1990's such as the extension of the A1(M) from Baldock to Brampton Hut were cancelled. Another factor was that the new M25 was simply overwhelmed by traffic. It was designed on the basis of a traffic level of 88,000 vehicles per day, by the 1990's the actual level was over 200,000 vehicles per day and a major widening programme was required. That led to the cancellation of projects such as the A1(M) extension. When work upgrading the A1(M) finally resumed attention switched to the section through Yorkshire.
Scratchwood wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 19:19
Labour in 1997 inherited healthy government finances so their road decisions were mainly a political choice, rather than something forced on them.
The coalition in 2010 inherited a struggling economy and large government debts after the financial crisis. You can argue whether they made the right choices, but whoever was in power would have found it tough.
Whoever wins in 2024 will inherit a struggling economy, with inflation, low growth and massive government debt. I can see many road programmes being a convenient way of saving money. Indeed a side of me is surprised the Tories took the flak for cutting back HS2, rather than leaving the tough decisions for the next government...
Yet to his credit, Cameron did press on with some important road schemes. The last section of the A1(M) in North Yorkshire was started, meaning it's now possible to drive from Tyneside to London on a motorway if you choose the M1, and there were improvements to the A11.
Scratchwood wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 19:19
Labour in 1997 inherited healthy government finances so their road decisions were mainly a political choice, rather than something forced on them.
The coalition in 2010 inherited a struggling economy and large government debts after the financial crisis. You can argue whether they made the right choices, but whoever was in power would have found it tough.
Whoever wins in 2024 will inherit a struggling economy, with inflation, low growth and massive government debt. I can see many road programmes being a convenient way of saving money. Indeed a side of me is surprised the Tories took the flak for cutting back HS2, rather than leaving the tough decisions for the next government...
Yet to his credit, Cameron did press on with some important road schemes. The last section of the A1(M) in North Yorkshire was started, meaning it's now possible to drive from Tyneside to London on a motorway if you choose the M1, and there were improvements to the A11.
The Tories have since 2010 also commissioned and built or are well into building, these other major schemes:
A14 upgrade
A556 M6-M56
A30 Carland-Chiverton
Cathorpe
A23 Handcross-Warninglid
I really can't see a new Labour government committing to any road schemes at all. Will have to wait and see.
Firstly, whilst it's not 1997 and we don't have Swampy et al, that doesn't matter. We do have Extinction Rebellion / Insulate Britain / Just Stop Oil who would be more than delighted to open up another venture if the opportunity arose. In any event the generation of Swampy (of which I was actually one - back as a 16 year old in 1994 I went out to the M65 camp) have now grown up, become middle-class professionals, and no doubt more than a few are active within the Labour Party behind the scenes.
Secondly, NIMBYism - which was always a thing - is on steroids at the moment. It costs multiple millions of pounds to pay consultants to do a feasibility study just on the process of appointing another set of consultants to apply for planning permission / development consent. And again, the huge byzantine bureaucratic Gordian knot tends to be run by people who are very much core Labour Party supporters. As we speak, multi-millionaire Chris Packham is begging supporters to pay him to judicially review the government based on a statement by Rishi Sunak that he intends to delay implementation of some net zero measures. The legal action will almost certainly fail for reasons I won't get into here. But it gives a tenor of the thinking of people on different sides of the political spectrum. You can expect many, many, many, more measures, statutory obligations, net-zero impact statements, worm mitigation requirements, soil preservation orders, etc., under a Labour government, and all it will take for someone to stop something is to say "the habitat impact assessment counted the wrong number of slugs" and everyone has to down tools. £267 million spent on planning permission for the Lower Thames Crossing - and that's under the environment-hating, climate-denying Tories! Add a zero to that under a Labour government.
Finally, the voters will be in the wrong place. Because of the appalling mess-up the Tory party have made with respect to their 2019 voters, the so-called "red wall" seats are all but lost. Labour don't need to campaign for them. The key battlegrounds will probably be Scotland (where national transport policy is irrelevant), Wales (ditto), Home Counties suburban seats and outer London.
The typical core Labour supporter in 2024 will either be a died in the wool "my grandad voted Labour and my dad voted Labour" or the affluent professional from zone 3. They aren't going to risk upsetting the latter group (who one can readily see on Twitter in large numbers). These are the people who genuinely believe that because they cycle 5 minutes to Waitrose to stock up on quinoa and occasionally get the Tube if needed that Gary the plasterer in Wakefield should just get a cargo bike to go to work on. Building new roads between some frightful towns in the provinces that don't even have an organic worker's co-op would not go down well.
Those with long memories may recall the typical voter that the parties wanted to attract in 1992 was the Essex Man from Basildon. In 1997 it was the Mondeo Man. In 2024 it will be Jeremy Vine.
(Ironically enough, if the parties were closer in the polls, things may be different, but as of today they aren't!)
We're likely going to get a continuity Sunak under a Starmer Lab govt.
Where Lab will have to justify themselves is on the basis of them claiming to act "obsessively" about economic growth. Whatever trust and credibility they may temporarily acquire from the GE honeymoon period, any vestiges of sincerity about wanting to improve economic growth, productivity and wages will be shredded overnight if they start cancelling projects.
BF2142 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 09:29
We're likely going to get a continuity Sunak under a Starmer Lab govt.
Where Lab will have to justify themselves is on the basis of them claiming to act "obsessively" about economic growth. Whatever trust and credibility they may temporarily acquire from the GE honeymoon period, any vestiges of sincerity about wanting to improve economic growth, productivity and wages will be shredded overnight if they start cancelling projects.
Given that he's recently cancelled tens of billions of infrastructure investment, wouldn't 'continuity Sunak' involve further cancellations?
BF2142 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 09:29
We're likely going to get a continuity Sunak under a Starmer Lab govt.
Where Lab will have to justify themselves is on the basis of them claiming to act "obsessively" about economic growth. Whatever trust and credibility they may temporarily acquire from the GE honeymoon period, any vestiges of sincerity about wanting to improve economic growth, productivity and wages will be shredded overnight if they start cancelling projects.
Given that he's recently cancelled tens of billions of infrastructure investment, wouldn't 'continuity Sunak' involve further cancellations?
It'll certainly involve plenty of flip flopping to appease backbench nobodies for sure...
Bryn Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already. She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
I tend to agree with domcoop's general line of reasoning. This is not 1997 because :
i) Transport patterns have changed, both present and future expected growth. In 1997, future expected traffic growth was huge : I think some forecasts had >80% growth on strategic routes over the next 30 years. The internet barely existed for most people. Here we are in 2023 and traffic growth has been relatively modest, is not expected to rise massively, and the pandemic and home working has shown that much traffic demand is much more elastic than was once thought.
ii) Public finances have greatly worsened. In 1997, public sector debt was about 30% of GDP, it's now about 100%. In 1997 inflation was low and stable, and the economy was growing quickly. In 2023 inflation is back and the economy is stagnant. Road building is relatively and absolutely much more expensive, much less affordable, and the economic case for it is much diminished.
iii) Attitudes to the environment and climate have changed. Yes, the 1990s saw NIMBYism and road protests on grounds mostly of local environmental damage, but the idea that adding road capacity thus releasing suppressed traffic demand would create more climate damaging greenhouse gas emissions had barely entered the political or public consciousness. "Net zero" didn't exist as a concept in 1997, at least not in that now practically universally understood term.
Reasons that justified major new road building / additional capacity in 1997 are by and large no longer convincing. It makes me feel old, but 1997 really was a very long time ago in transport infrastructure planning terms.
owen b wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 19:39
I tend to agree with domcoop's general line of reasoning. This is not 1997 because :
i) Transport patterns have changed, both present and future expected growth. In 1997, future expected traffic growth was huge : I think some forecasts had >80% growth on strategic routes over the next 30 years. The internet barely existed for most people. Here we are in 2023 and traffic growth has been relatively modest, is not expected to rise massively, and the pandemic and home working has shown that much traffic demand is much more elastic than was once thought.
ii) Public finances have greatly worsened. In 1997, public sector debt was about 30% of GDP, it's now about 100%. In 1997 inflation was low and stable, and the economy was growing quickly. In 2023 inflation is back and the economy is stagnant. Road building is relatively and absolutely much more expensive, much less affordable, and the economic case for it is much diminished.
iii) Attitudes to the environment and climate have changed. Yes, the 1990s saw NIMBYism and road protests on grounds mostly of local environmental damage, but the idea that adding road capacity thus releasing suppressed traffic demand would create more climate damaging greenhouse gas emissions had barely entered the political or public consciousness. "Net zero" didn't exist as a concept in 1997, at least not in that now practically universally understood term.
Reasons that justified major new road building / additional capacity in 1997 are by and large no longer convincing. It makes me feel old, but 1997 really was a very long time ago in transport infrastructure planning terms.
I disagree with (i) and (iii), but agree £s are a challenge. Traffic growth has in fact been steady, albeit slower than from 50s to 70s and with blips from the financial crisis and the pandemic. Claims of “peak traffic” have proven wrong. Concern about economic weakness have increased across the political spectrum and new roads could help here. Arguments that induced traffic necessarily negate benefits are demonstrably false. Remote working is likely to favour private transport at the expense of rail and buses as people choose to live further out with more space. EVs and other technological improvements (eg to tyre materials) greatly reduce the environmental downsides of cars, and tech also has the potential to virtually eliminate accidents. EVs have very low marginal cost of use. Road user charging could offset these effects, and is a good idea for addressing congestion, but probably won’t prove acceptable enough for widespread adoption. Even if it did, some new roads would still be needed. But, as I said, the £s are the problem.
