4.7.06: NEW REPORT SHOWS ROADS CREATE MASSIVE TRAFFIC GROWTH
Heysham M6 Link Northern route must be scrapped.
Roadbuilding often leads to much faster traffic growth than forecast, according to a new study commissioned by CPRE and the Countryside Agency. The report specifically highlights how the infamous Newbury Bypass failed, by generating massive traffic growth in the area. TSLM welcomes the CPRE report, and believes it further undermines the case for the Northern route scheme, being proposed by Lancashire County Council. The TSLM campaign group say that lessons must be learnt from failed road schemes, and the Northern route should be scrapped.
Researchers studied three controversial major schemes of recent years - the A34 Newbury Bypass in Berkshire, the A27 Polegate Bypass near Eastbourne, East Sussex, and the M65 Blackburn Southern Bypass .
They found traffic on these roads had already reached or exceeded the levels forecast for the year 2010. And extra traffic - over and above the gradual increase happening everywhere - had flowed onto local roads as a result of the schemes, undermining the claim that the bypasses would reduce congestion. Campaigners against the Northern route fear that the scheme will also only bring short term relief, and will create more traffic in the area.
The CPRE study is one of the first to look at what actually happens once roads have been built. For all three schemes, there was above average traffic growth, increased development pressures on undeveloped land nearby and significant damage to landscapes (see case studies at the end of this email).
Yet these important issues are not being picked up by the Highways Agency's own post-construction analysis for new road schemes. The study concludes that the Government is failing to learn the lessons which could lead to better transport policies and decisions.
The researchers looked at what was claimed for the road schemes at the planning and justification stage and what actually happened once they were built - in terms of traffic flows, landscape and noise impacts and new development nearby.
At Newbury and Polegate the new bypasses did reduce town centre traffic. But the reductions were not as much as originally forecast, whilst traffic has increased on the bypassed roads and on the new bypasses.
Town centre shops in Polegate suffering from losses in trade have been campaigning for signs to be installed on the bypass directing traffic back into town!
Yet the study concludes, from Highways Agency traffic data, that the effect of the new Polegate bypass has been to generate 27 per cent additional traffic in the area one year after it opened.
Newbury has also seen rapid traffic growth, with most of the freed-up space on the old, by-passed road being taken by new traffic attracted by new development. This echoes the conclusions of a WS Atkins report in 2005 for West Berkshire Council that traffic had increased on the roads around Newbury by 48% in just four years whilst over the same period nationally traffic had grown by only about 5%.
The researchers found the three schemes caused serious and permanent damage to rural landscapes, including an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The money spent on evaluating road schemes is only 0.1 per cent of the money spent on building them, and many of the evaluations carried out have yet to be published.
TSLM believes that if built the Heysham M6 Link road could generate more traffic than is currently predicted, will devastate the district and will be a waste of taxpayers money. TSLM believes the road should be scrapped and alternative sustainable transport measures to reduce traffic growth and give greater travel choice should be implemented instead.
David Gate chair of TSLM said: 'We welcome this important CPRE and Countryside Agency report, and believe it undermines the case for the Northern route scheme. New roads create more traffic and greenhouse gases, and damage the wider environment. We must learn from past mistakes, starting with scrapping the unnecessary and damaging road scheme'.
Among the reports recommendations are:
- post-construction evaluation schemes for roads to have a stronger influence on transport policy and road investment decisions, by being published promptly, widely disseminated and discussed and clearly responded to;
- more weight given to landscape and environmental impacts in the decision-making process for road schemes;
- a major, strategic Government study of the extra traffic resulting from all road schemes completed in the past decade and the resulting environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions;
- alternative approaches to be seriously investigated before new roads are built, such as improvements to public transport and facilities for walking and cycling;
- stricter rules governing bypasses to prevent infill development (between the bypass and the urban edge), new car-dependent development on greenfields and increased car use.