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Tolls are the key...
Page 9
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Truck operators have every right to be wary of the government's kbn solution to congestion. It's not the answer and never will be. Adding extra lanes will certainly increase route capacity but within a relatively short period of time (or certainly 'short' in the grand scheme of things) they'll simply fill up again.
We're reminded of the nameless politician who attempted to justify the daily gridlock on the M25 on Radio 4 by claiming it had become a victim of its own popularity. Or in his words, it was too "successful" as a national trunk route! For "success" read "abject failure".
Widening major motorways is only a tactical, short-term fix. And before you can widen the motorways, you've first got to have a massive program of roadworks which will cause even more congestion.
Transport secretary Alistair Darling is right when he says we can't build our way out of trouble. The answer? Better public transport coupled with, inevitably, road pricing of some sort or another. The only real option to solving congestion and driving down usage (and by that, we mean primarily car usage) must be tolling—either at peak times or all times. Perhaps the biggest frustration is that, with HGV road tolling still more than two years away, if we do improve roads now then that's another free benefit we'll be providing for foreign operators. Something the critics of a paperbased vignette system should think about.