All Wales Road Projects Scrapped?

[Helvellyn]

Yes, and bypassing is desperately needed in some cases and has been for many years. I keep banging the drum of the A4055 through Dinas Powys and Eastbrook. The villages have become miserable, pollution-choked places to live or go to school because Barry - the majority of residents within which work in Cardiff - has grown threefold or more. The government were optioneering when they pulled the plug because of the ridiculous insistence on NO new roads. Doubling the capacity of the railway line that runs along the bottom of the town may help alleviate congestion slightly, but ultimately, the road will always ruin the villages it passes through unless replaced with an appropriate standard bypass. I'm sure there are more cases like this across the country.

I'd argue that it's the growth of Barry that's the problem there, not the lack of bypasses. No new roads isn't ridiculous. Lots of development is.

[Bessie]

Mr Skates, transport secretary:

We haven't stopped building roads, but we do need to deal with the criteria for new road building schemes which states that you can't build them if it leads to extra capacity.

That's caused difficulty in terms of considering schemes, and interpretation

Maybe he's saying that the no extra capacity criterion needs to be dealt with, i.e., changed? Though it's a bit weirdly phrased, as though the de facto road building ban is an unexpected interpretation of the criterion rather than its plain meaning and intention .

[DB617]

Yes, and bypassing is desperately needed in some cases and has been for many years. I keep banging the drum of the A4055 through Dinas Powys and Eastbrook. The villages have become miserable, pollution-choked places to live or go to school because Barry - the majority of residents within which work in Cardiff - has grown threefold or more. The government were optioneering when they pulled the plug because of the ridiculous insistence on NO new roads. Doubling the capacity of the railway line that runs along the bottom of the town may help alleviate congestion slightly, but ultimately, the road will always ruin the villages it passes through unless replaced with an appropriate standard bypass. I'm sure there are more cases like this across the country.

I'd argue that it's the growth of Barry that's the problem there, not the lack of bypasses. No new roads isn't ridiculous. Lots of development is.

People need places to live. Every town, city, village has plenty of reasons why not to build there, but ultimately, it has to be. It's the role of the civil engineering and planning world to provide appropriate infrastructure for that. Unless we are proposing controlling population growth.

[Phil]

Will the third Menai crossing encourage more car journeys or will it remove a bottleneck meaning the existing traffic can travel unimpeded and therefore pump out less fumes.

With things like the Menai crossing there is a 3rd factor to consider - and one which doesn’t usually feature in most schemes, that of redundancy.

While a new bridge would both encourage motoring * and reduce congestion, it also provides a critical backup in maintaining connectivity to Anglesey should anything happen to the existing bridges.

More broadly, It is also possible to artificially constrain new road infrastructure road through the use of bus or HGV only lanes (as will be the case with the Silvertown tunnel in London which only has a single lane for general traffic although being built as two D2 tunnels.

Tolling can also be used as a constraining tool for something like the Menai crossing as well.

[rhyds]

Mr Skates, transport secretary:

We haven't stopped building roads, but we do need to deal with the criteria for new road building schemes which states that you can't build them if it leads to extra capacity.<br element-id="765"><br element-id="764">That's caused difficulty in terms of considering schemes, and interpretation

<br element-id="763">Maybe he's saying that the no extra capacity criterion needs to be dealt with, i.e., changed? Though it's a bit weirdly phrased, as though the de facto road building ban is an unexpected interpretation of the criterion rather than its plain meaning and intention .

Lets be honest, any "ban" is a policy choice by the Welsh government, and can be ignored by said Government if they want to. Remember there's nothing legally stopping the Westminster government from building more Smart Motorways, its just they've announced a policy of not doing so.

[WHBM]

Mr Skates, transport secretary:

We haven't stopped building roads, but we do need to deal with the criteria for new road building schemes which states that you can't build them if it leads to extra capacity.

Um ... I've been designing roads since before Mr Skates was born (I've just checked), and I honestly cannot see how you can build roads without it leading to extra capacity. It's just a non sequitur.

[Bessie]

Mr Skates, transport secretary:

We haven't stopped building roads, but we do need to deal with the criteria for new road building schemes which states that you can't build them if it leads to extra capacity.

Um ... I've been designing roads since before Mr Skates was born (I've just checked), and I honestly cannot see how you can build roads without it leading to extra capacity. It's just a non sequitur.

I think the criteria were designed by the previous incumbent to effectively stop road building without doing so explicitly. What the new post holder is saying is that the criteria need to be changed.

[orudge]

I think one of the other criteria was that new roads shouldn't lead to an increase in traffic speeds. So I guess there's a possibility a small town could technically get a bypass, but it might need to be limited to 30mph and the old road restricted so it was no longer a through route (for motor vehicles at least).

[Gareth Thomas]

I think one of the other criteria was that new roads shouldn't lead to an increase in traffic speeds. So I guess there's a possibility a small town could technically get a bypass, but it might need to be limited to 30mph and the old road restricted so it was no longer a through route (for motor vehicles at least).

The Llanharan bypass might be subject to that. Originally scrapped last year due to the "no new roads" ban, RCT council resubmitted it with a narrower road, 30mph limit, and bus usage.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wale ... d-28560652