Zombie roads back on the agenda

[horizon]

This report makes very sad reading:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/1 ... suscitated

While I accept that no-one on this forum votes Conservative, we may have friends (?) or relatives that do and it is worth reminding them that they are condemning to mindless destruction something that we hold dear.

[Mark1978]

Excellent. They just need to get A1(M) Leeming to Barton back on.

[Mike Sales]

Every highway department that is old enough has mothballed plans for roads the engineers would like to build, but for which the right political moment has not yet arrived. They have been promising that building more roads will solve our transport problems for perhaps a hundred years. Transport problems have got worse, not better, but we still get conned.

[hexhome]

Excellent. They just need to get A1(M) Leeming to Barton back on.

But there is hardly a reason for it. The new section to Leeming has destroyed the local area and businesses for only a very minor gain in journey time. I have not been held up, north of Leeming since completion, though the traffic is marginally slower. The overall gain is still considerably less than the hold ups caused by construction. I'm not very impressed by the cycle route alternatives in place now either though admit that it is at least feasible to cycle between Topcliffe and Leeming now.

Of course if the aim is Keynesian economics, then a brand new cycling infrastructure would be ideal!

[cjchambers]

It does seem that certain people are busy deciding what's best for us, especially with 'strategies' etc . . .

In July 2009 local campaigners succeeded in stopping a proposed £33m Westbury Bypass of the A350 in Wiltshire. It was refused planning permission by the Government due to the huge environmental cost of the proposals. The road, cutting through the countryside below the famous Westbury White Horse would have destroyed this precious landscape and done nothing to solve the town's traffic problems.

In July 2012, the road's route was suddenly inserted into an 'inset map' supporting Wiltshire's Core Strategy, despite no mention of the road being made during public consultation on the strategy. Campaign for Better Transport's Jenny Raggett has written to Wiltshire to warn the council about their failure to consult, saying "The Westbury community area map provided for consultation with the core strategy did not include a bypass of any sort. The public will have gone away believing hat a bypass was not in the draft of the core strategy and that certainly no route had been chosen, let alone safeguarded."

Hmm

[Si]

To be fair to them, the one at Stonehenge (which is pictured in the article) goes hand in hand with the closing of another road to make Stonehenge more accessible by foot or bike.

But others, like the relaxation in planning laws, seem to be some sort of attempt just to get people to do stuff and look like they are busy.

[Mark1978]

Excellent. They just need to get A1(M) Leeming to Barton back on.

But there is hardly a reason for it. The new section to Leeming has destroyed the local area and businesses for only a very minor gain in journey time. I have not been held up, north of Leeming since completion, though the traffic is marginally slower.

Leeming to Barton is a national embarrasment now, a section of low standard D2 with at grade crossings and farm traffic after a long way on high quality D3M, the crash rate on this stretch of road is dreadful.

I'm not very impressed by the cycle route alternatives in place now either though admit that it is at least feasible to cycle between Topcliffe and Leeming now.
Of course if the aim is Keynesian economics, then a brand new cycling infrastructure would be ideal!

True, but as you say, most of it now has a LAR so cycling is no possible, as opposed to impossible, so that's a Good Thing(tm)

I know a lot of people on here will be anti-roads, and that's cool, but I don't see why being pro-cycling means you must automatically be anti-motorist, there's a role for all forms of transport, especially for cars to be put onto high capacity routes first and foremost, means cycling is more pleasant elsewhere.

[horizon]

mark1978: it's almost impossible to write a coherent reply to what you have written. If one steps back from the road in question and looks at the fact that we have a landscape to protect, we have a road industry hungry for work and we have a nationally held concept that increasing road capacity is effective then you can see that we have a clash of ideas that dwarfs any consideration of a new cycle path. People almost died on Twyford so there must have been something to argue about.

[Mark1978]

I'm not saying there is no argument to be had. You have your views, and I'm not seeking to change them. I'm just saying that being a cyclist doesn't *automatically* mean you are anti-road building. That's all

[horizon]

You have your views, and I'm not seeking to change them.

mark: you have your views and I am seeking to change them - desperately seeking to do so and the views of millions of others too. I want us all to share a perception of our landscape and countryside that makes us understand that we pay a high price for a new road. I also want us all to understand that road building as we do it now is a dead end: it is driven by the need for profit (on the part of road builders) and the total misconception (on the part of ordinary people) that they benefit from a new road in terms of reducing congestion.

I'm just saying that being a cyclist doesn't *automatically* mean you are anti-road building.

It's got little to do with either. Non-cyclists see the damage wrought by road building; many cyclists are entranced by the prospect of a new road. I raised this thread not as a cyclist per se but because it is about transport and the environment. I'm grateful that you engage in the debate but, as I said, my aim is to change your view. But views are formed on the back of perception: what do you see in the world around you? What interpretation do you make? What value do you place on it? Not to be able to see the world as something that exists beyond one's functional and material needs is the great disability of the British people.

[cjchambers]

To be fair to them, the one at Stonehenge (which is pictured in the article) goes hand in hand with the closing of another road to make Stonehenge more accessible by foot or bike.

Stonehenge is surely a national embarassment - to think that every day, hundreds of people who have travelled half way around the world find themseves standing just a few hundred metres from the A303, unable to hear themselves think, never mind absorb the significance of what they're looking at. For the sake of our national pride, I propose we construct a full scale replica of the 'Stonhenge Landscape' in the tranquility of Salisbury Plain proper . . . and throw a tarpaulin over the real one. (I'm only half joking, btw!)

[Mark1978]

There was a well advanced plan to put the A303 in a tunnel past the site, but it was cancelled due to cost.

[Si]

To be fair to them, the one at Stonehenge (which is pictured in the article) goes hand in hand with the closing of another road to make Stonehenge more accessible by foot or bike.

Stonehenge is surely a national embarassment - to think that every day, hundreds of people who have travelled half way around the world find themseves standing just a few hundred metres from the A303, unable to hear themselves think, never mind absorb the significance of what they're looking at. For the sake of our national pride, I propose we construct a full scale replica of the 'Stonhenge Landscape' in the tranquility of Salisbury Plain proper . . . and throw a tarpaulin over the real one. (I'm only half joking, btw!)

You are too late - it's been done when they made "Foamhenge" out of, you guessed it, foam.

The saga regarding the vis centre has been rumbling on for a few decades now....if all the money that had been spent on investigating and dumping previous plans was spent on actually doing something we would have the best heritage centre in the world as it is many millions by now.

The current plan (well, last time I looked - it's probably all changed again now) involves removing the road right next to the henge (that separates it from the avenue) and also removing the current visitor hole so that the henge once more becomes part of the landscape. Of course there are bound to still be fences everywhere as EH will want you to pay to get anywhere near the stones.

[honesty]

road building decisions in this country have always seemed a bit odd to me. I always remember seeing the protests for the Newbury bypass as a kid. It always struck me as odd that they made a massive cut through the hill. I've seen new roads in Germany/France/Italy where they've tunnelled instead, which seems to me to have much less impact on the surroundings. It just shows the short sightedness of whomever agreed it basing decisions purely on cost per mile rather than overall impact, and who ever routed the A303 next to Stonehenge needs a good slap...

[horizon]

who ever routed the A303 next to Stonehenge needs a good slap...

The A303 is a fairly old, if not ancient, route in its own right. It got upgraded at some point as an alternative to the A30. Much was dualled leaving the tricky Blackdown Hills and Stonehenge to last. I presume that, as with Hindhead on the A3, the road planners thought that the weight of logic would then allow them to blast their way through these precious landscapes. In both instances they were proven wrong and sanity prevailed. The A3 went through a tunnel, as would the A303 have done. The volume of traffic now deafening the visitors to Stonehenge is a direct result of the dualling elsewhere on the route: the solution to one problem (ha, ha) now needs its own solution. English Heritage wrings its hands while the real culprits sleep easily in their beds. You could see the problems at Stonehenge coming 40 - 50 years ago - the British public has been hoodwinked and deceived: by all means celebrate your quick journey down the M3 through Surrey but your pact with the devil will cost you Stonehenge. Now they all stand around looking lost and wonder what to do about it.