London planners just going round in circles?
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jestion in Central Ion will be just as Nhen the M25 is plete, according to /lovement for Ion. Mike erford has been rig to the group and why we lag so far id continental tices
IDEA THE FACTS. 80 per I freight is carried by road, 0 per cent of passenger are travelled by road. In road users paid about m in taxes. Yet just one if that amount is spent on And UK road expenditure roportion of Government ie is one of the lowest in rn Europe — about one f the average of our EEC
he year ended March 31, 31 miles of motorway )pened in Britain, bringing tal to 1,698 miles of which .e in Scotland, 74 in Wales
and the remaining 1,475 in England. Only about 20 miles of motorway were opened over the following 12 month period.
Some comparisons should be made with our European cousins. By 1980 West Germany had over 4,6 0 0 miles of motorway: France over 3,250 miles; and The Netherlands, one sixth the size of Britain, had 1,000 miles.
The French motorway system is growing at the rate of 200 miles per year. By the end of this decade it is expected to total 4,700 miles.
With those figures in mind, can anybody say with conviction that Britain has it right, and that France, West Germany, and others — our economic rivals as well as European partners — have it wrong? Can it be right that the number of vehicles per road mile in Britain is higher than for most European countries?
According to the British Road Federation (which provided most of the statistics and information for this article) the target of an integrated road network for England has been virtually abandoned since the early seventies and the current emphasis is on the importance of smaller schemes which give greater environmental and economic benefits, it is claimed.
The number one priority in the British trunk road programme is the M25 orbital route around London. The 120 mile route was originally planned before the war. If we're lucky it might be completed by 1986.
Movement for London is a regional campaign of the BRF for better mobility for people and their goods in Greater London. It says that London's problems are too immense to be tackled by London alone, and the first re
quirement is a determined national commitment to the provision of an efficient road and transport system in the capital.
BRF Movement for London is not alone in its criticisms. The all-party House of Commons Transport Committee said in July 1982: "London's road system is old, inadequate for the volume of traffic which is now carried, lacking in radial routes to the periphery of the GLC area and in orbital routes around the most congested areas, and controlled by too many highway and traffic authorities with un-coordinated goals."
Jeremy Hawksley, secretary of Movement for London, sees the M25 as being extremely important for the whole nation and not just London.
"It will revolutionise travel patterns, particularly for industry. It will change distribution methods, will cut costs and reduce journey times.
"But it will do little to ease congestion in central London," says Jeremy.
When the M25 is complete, the two-three per cent ease on traffic in central London will be hardly noticeable. Paradoxically, the M25 could be highly beneficial to those travelling from the north to, say, the southern ports, but it will be of little — if any — value to those who are based in and need to move around central London.
Apart from being too far from the heart of London, the M25 orbital route, when complete, could prove to be unable to cope with sheer heavyweight of traf fic. Parts of the dual three-lane route may not be adequate to cope with the predicted flows, claims a Movement for London document, although Jeremy Hawksley isn't too concerned about the alleged inadequacy of certain sections of the route. Overall, he is fairly satisfied with it.
The Ml, we are told, is fraught with problems now because traf fic flows are heavier than predicted. Could the same problems arise with the M25? Could it be that the M25 (a road that was conceived before the war) is outdated before it's even completed.
Jeremy Hawksley thinks not. "The science of traffic projection was pretty primitive in the days when the M1 was being planned. In planning the M25, a far better job has been done."
He does concede, though, that there could be bottle necks at a few isolated spots like the Dartford Tunnel, which forms a vital part of the orbital route al though is not officially part of it.
Without the two tunnels, the M25 would not actually be an orbital route, but still the Government refuses to acknowledge.
The poor state of London's roads can largely be blamed on the Greater London Council — both the current Labour administration and previous ruling parties, regardless of their political persuasions, says Jeremy.
The GLC is, by its very nature, close to the emotions of the people it serves, and when thinking about strategic roads in or around the capital, it concerns itself too much with local con stituents, rather than the whole London region, says Jeremy. The structure is wrong, he feels.
The proposed abolition of the GLC could mean that determined steps will be taken by Government to improve the bottlenecks in London's primary road network, he says. There are definite hints that the Department of Transport will play a more active role in improving London's archaic road network when the GLC is abolished — for instance, a recent white paper (Policy for roads in England: 1983) clearly states that the Government's road plans will shift from inter-urban roads to those in our towns and cities — especially London.
"This is good news for all London motorists, and particularly for industry and commerce, which is being throttled by the capital's continuing traffic congestion. No GLC administration has been able to create a modern road network for London. A more positive involvement by the Government is the only way forward," says Jeremy.
A Movement for London/BPF fear is that London could die as a commercial centre if road improvements are not forthcoming. As the years go by, old manufacturing industries and functions will move out alongside the M25, predicts Jeremy.
A few well-thought-out road schemes within the GLC boundary might prevent that, though. And at the same time those schemes could provide much needed new roads able to accommodate through traffic, he says.
"They'll all be amazingly costly, but there are relatively few."
Improvements to the A205 South Circular ("a string of residential and shopping streets") and A406 North Circular are high on Jeremy's priority list, as is the West London Relief Road and the Hackney to M1 1 link, "We're not talking about sixlane motorways. We're looking at a cocktail of ideas that might be environmentally acceptable."
It is interesting to hear Jeremy mention those "amazingly costly" schemes. The cost of providing new roads in London is phenomenally expensive, al
though an average cost pe le/km figure is hard to finc cently the DTp came up vi figure of am per km. The reckoned the figure was n
£5m, As Jeremy says: "It's mis ing to quote figures. An course £5m probably isn'i buying a stretch of road could be talking aboul derpasses, roundabouts, et, It may indeed be mislead quote figures, but some of are plain enough for every( understand. The plannec mile Sidcup by-pass will £42.3m (E11.1m per mile 1.1 mile Archway Road imp ment will cost £16.9m, an 3,7 mile Al2 Eastway-EE Avenue (Hackney-M11 hr expected to cost £84.2. £22.7m per mile. The prop A406 North Circular junctic provements (a total of !
schemes) is another scheme planned for "198 wards". The scheme er passes 5.5 miles, the £200.6m. That averages c £36.4m per mile.
Nationwide, the picture ferent. Lynda Chalker sai the current average cost c structing a mile of dual tw motorway is E3m. The at cost of a dual three-lane motorway is £11m, she adi It goes without saying th BRF and Jeremy Hawksle that as money well spent.