Positive response?
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• As drivers brace themselves for huge traffic jams and load restrictions at roadworks on the MI and M25 this week, the road transport associations are pressing for a positive response to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee's report Roads for the Future (see map).
The report, which makes more than 40 recommendations to the Government, outlines the need for increased use of combined road/rail transport before 1992, to relieve congestion which is costing Britain £10 billion every year. (see figures 2A and 28).
The all-party committee criticises Government forecasting and urges it to improve evaluations by using police traffic-flow data. More research needs to be done into the origin and destination of traffic, says the committee. "I have no confidence in the Government's forecasting, and suggest a private company would do better," says committee member Terry Dicks.
The committee is advising the Government to upgrade all Channel Tunnel connecting roads. Although UK traffic is predicted to rise by 43% by 2008 — an extra 6,000 vehicles a day — there are no independent Chunnel forecasts. "When we asked what additional spending was earmarked for tunnel-related roads, we were told almost zero," it says.
Public opposition to such road building could be reduced if there was more co-operation between transport and environment ministers, says the report. "It was hard enough getting planning permission for the M25 the size it is now, let alone for the size it should have been," says committee member Peter Fry.
The Freight Transport Association welcomes the report's suggestion that increased spending on local roads could be more effective than the proposed major work on motorways. "It is no good having a superb inter-city road network if the traffic becomes clogged the moment it reaches urban areas," says FTA director-general Garry Turvey.
The committee is also concerned about the Government's proposals to expand the national road network by attracting private capital, and says the introduction of toll roads would be fraught with danger.
Private finance might make a welcome contribution, but will not provide a solution to the fundamental problems, says the report. New roadworks on the MI and M25 will create fresh jams. The committee also recommends that more importance should be put on the economic growth of an area, so that prosperous regions have adequate road networks. The FTA says this recommendation alone has "done the industry a great service".
Local authorities should designate appropriate laybys, equipped with toilets, for mobile canteens, and the Government should stop "dragging its feet", says the report.
Labour transport spokesman John Prescott says the select committee report "makes a powerful case for the strategic approach to transport planning that is sadly lacking from Government policy".
D Copies of Roads for the Future are available from the House of Commons Transport Select Committee (Stationery Office), priced at £7.40.