1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186 
M6: Motorway or carpark?
Page 68
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
There's only one way to beat
congestion — build more roads.
Austin Caulfield wishes the
government would take a leaf from the Continentals' book..
There are many things that you could achieve in six hours.Flying to America, for instance, or watching three and a bit football matches— or even running a marathon or two. However, last Sunday one of my drivers spent six hours in a markedly less profitable fashion, attempting to return to the yard after tipping in Milton Keynes.
What should have been an easy three-hour trip took double that time, and no prizes for guessing why —congestion on the M6.
Guaranteed gridlock
And this wasn't a one off; the M6 is closed on virtually a daily basis due to accidents. Of course it's not confined to the M6.At almost any point during the day, save for about two in the morning, you can guarantee that there will be gridlock on at least one of the country's motorways thanks to a crash.
So is it any wonder that the Highways Agency was blasted by the National Audit Office for being too slow in tackling the problem? Its recent report said that the agency was "too concerned with risks to try new ideas", had "run trials poorly" and "could spend its money more wisely".
It did praise the agency for getting better information to drivers — but who needs a board telling them there's a queue ahead when they haven't moved in 20 minutes?
Road congestion is apparently costing British industry and commerce £3bn a year; and while traffic speed did improve between 1998 and 2003 it's still slower than the 1995 level, and don't we know it.
Meanwhile Chancellor Gordon Brown is rubbing his hands together as he sees the amount of fuel being wasted stuck in traffic — £1 an hour for ears, and £30 an hour for trucks— that's boosting his coffers. Is it any wonder that we are going to fail to meet OUT emissions targets when there's more carbon dioxide released by a truck waiting in a queue of traffic than there is with it travelling at full throttle along the road?
Clever Continentals
So how are we going to get out of this mess? Well in my opinion there seems to be only one way round the problem and that's to build more roads.The government needs to look towards the Continent for inspiration our transport system is 25 years behind the rest of Europe.
And when the French or Spanish say they're going to build a new road they don't mean 15 years of planning and five years of stopstart building. After 18 months it's up and running.
It would go some way to helping my company it rather than looking at building a toll road parallel to the M6, the government simply adopted the current six lanes for northbound traffic and built another six lanes travelling southbound. •