Rail 919: Welsh report shows that building roads is not the only or best option Christian Woolmar* Ever since the creation of a ministry of transport, just over a century ago, there has been a presumption of favouring motor transport over other modes. As I set out in my short book Are Trams Socialist? The default position of virtually every transport minister has been to respond to increased demand for travel by arguing the case for more roadbuilding. The current government is no exception. While much publicity is given to fatuous ‘reversing Beeching’ ideas, the reality is that the real investment is focussed on expanding the road network, mainly through improving existing routes as totally new roads have become politically too controversial. Yes of course there is HS2 which will absorb a lot of money but the thrust of the government’s policy is its focus on roads with its £27bn programme. As I stressed in my little book, the underlying problem with transport policy is that there is no coherent strategy. Ministers have tended to encourage greater use of motor vehicles through both transport and, particularly, planning policies, while simultaneously warning of the terrible consequences of unfettered growth of road use. One of the consistent failings of transport policy has been the compartmentalisation of both thinking around the issue and policy implementation. Very rarely has any policy been based on a clear examination of the alternatives to, say, building a road. Now I have seen what should be the future method of developing transport policy. I have been given exclusive advance sight of a radical report, ‘Final Report of the South East Wales *This Blog by Christian Woolmar is republished with his permission. Readers are referred to our Bookshelf section where there is a review of Christian’s latest book - Cathedrals of Steam 28
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Transport Commission’ produced for the Welsh government that points the way to a more rational future. Let’s recap. The M4 around Newport in south Wales is a notorious bottleneck with long distance traffic using the Severn Tunnel mixing in with large numbers of commuters between Newport, which houses several major office developments, and the Welsh capital and largest conurbation, Cardiff. A widening of the M4 had long been mooted and the Welsh government had even earmarked most of the required £1.6bn funding for a new 14 mile long six lane section around Newport. Then, in the face of opposition from environmentalists and a realisation that similar road schemes across the world tend merely to encourage greater car use and therefore soon prove ineffective in solving the original problem – there are countless example in the US of new lanes on highways filling up within a few years to resurrect the same traffic jams that had existed prior to the widening. Therefore in June 2019, Mark Drakeford, the first minister – who was then largely unknown but thanks to Covid has now become a familiar figure on our TV screens, took the radical step of scrapping the plan. It was a brave decision given that the scheme had been promised by the ruling Welsh Labour party in its manifesto and had been approved by a planning inspector who had said that ‘there was a compelling case for the scheme to be implemented’. While questioning whether the scheme was affordable, Drakeford, however stressed it was not money that led him to scrap the plan but the environmental damage to the local Gwent Levels, a unique coastal plain, it would have caused. Even more radically, Drakeford did not leave it there but instead set up a commission to examine alternatives to widening the road headed by Lord (Terry) Burns, a former permanent secretary at the Treasury and now a Conservative member of the House of Lords. This demonstrated serious intent and the result is a report that should be a blueprint for subsequent assessments when road schemes are being put forward. The Commission has come up with a complete programme of how to improve transport in a congested vital corridor. At the core of the plan is to improve the existing railway between the mouth of the Severn Tunnel and Cardiff, and various places beyond on branch lines. This is already four
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