Where would you have a new road built? - opportunity beckons

[forddeliveryboy]

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/485342/dft-organisation-chart.pdf

 

 

So where would you advise investment in our road network? England has a massive population in a smallish land mass and the UK has one of the world's top ten largest economies, but we're not planning for the future.

 

Since nobody's going to return our transport network to rail-based freight delivery, I'd want to turn our half-finished motorway and dual-carriageway network into something which allowed free movement of traffic around the country. As it is, it's piecemeal and any development is restricted by our Westminster cabal, who have little or no idea about the real world. For a start, develop a second North-South artery running from the M11 via Hull and then the East coast to Middlesbrough/A19/A1.

 

Improve links into East Anglia. There's a very good case for another Trans-Pennine motorway, too - connect Barnsley/Sheffield/Chesterfield with Manchester. England has a massive population in a smallish land mass, and a huge economy - not all our business is the London financial markets.

[Stanky]

I say build a road round the ouside of the country, like they have in Iceland. Then link it up to all the roads which basically go to the seaside.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_1_%28Iceland%29

 

Thats how I always do it in SimCity and it seems to work really well on there.

[gordonbennet]

Interesting about the top ten best economies, we've probably got one of the ten ten biggest national debts and growing by the day, the rest, if we're in the top ten, must be right up shit creek.

 

Anyway, A14 needs full replacement from Felixstowe right the way through to the M1/M6, possibly a more Northerly route passing close to Peterboro and Leicester ending close to a to be 4 lane M69, A12 same right through to M25, A34 too all the way from Southampton to the M4....that then caters for our main source of employment and industry ie the import and distribution of Chinese made shit via container lorry from felix and so'ton docks to the fast breeding ginat warehouses now blighting what was once a beautiful land....see Dave kissing the Chinese gaffers arse whilst the heavy mob in blue take down a lone meek protester for proof of who owns our country.

 

M6 needs parallel road but as said, much of the M6 traffic would use a new motorway cutting across from Chesterfield area passing to the west of Sheffield and ending up on a 5 lane highway right around Manc and then going onto a widened M61, this could also take some of the traffic that jams up M62 constantly.

M6 toll should be nationalised and free which would relieve Birmingham a lot.

 

Thats the foreign aid budget for next year spent, a fuckin sight more wisely than bribing effing dictators with i might add.

 

Course we'll end up with a fully built on and concreted over country which seeing as the water will have no natural soak aways will be flooded for much of the year, but thats coming anyway before they've finished.

[2MB]

Easier said than done but a manageable way of getting more than one person per car would negate the need for building more motorways. It's ridiculous to the point where seeing more than two people in a car probably makes most members of the public think something untoward is going on. 

[STUNO]

Yer biggest problem in UK is 50,000,000 NIMBYS who all complain that the road system is not good enough.

[HH-R]

The councils don't want you driving round their towns or city centres because people are too impatient to use the green cross code and drivers generally drive too fast for the conditions* so they put shit like bus lanes everywhere, speed humps, chicanes, annoying traffic light timings etc so that you get so sick of your life that you actually drive far more miles to avoid that stuff. The A roads you're forced on to are at bursting point because they're designed for 1960s levels of traffic and you get situations where it regularly takes well over an hour to get 10 to 15 miles at peak time.

 

The only investment they put in is to pedestrianisation, cycle lanes, and bus lanes in the hope that it gets us scumbag car drivers off the road, but all it does is make the already struggling roads even worse, then they wonder why greenhouse gases are going through the roof.

 

*anecdotal evidence of the amount of people who just walk out in front of me per week, and number of people purple with rage tailgating because you're not doing 45 in a 30.

 

Can only really talk about the grim north but the A1 north still being mostly single carriageway really needs duelling at least. The A1 from Lobley Hill to about Middlesborugh is always in turmoil too, either by being dug up, mimicking a car park or being crashed on! It really can't cope with the volume of traffic - maybe they need a bypass bypass!

[Tayne]

Well if we're going to ignore the OP's interchangeability of "England" and "Britain"...

 

Lets sort out the A9 north of Perth, the A90 north of Aberdeen and the A96 from Aberdeen to Inverness.

At least two lanes and proper motorway-style junctions to avoid accidents, not just the sticking plaster over a broken leg that is the average speed camera.

 

If we genuinely want to sort out congestion then lets create a modern, integrated, value-for-money public transport system that doesn't drive people into car use.

Except we can't because we privatised all of it. 

[AlabamaShrimp]

Yes we need new, bigger or upgraded roads to help with the millions of extra vehicles but I don't think it's the only answer.

 

I'd nationalise the railways and sod this making a profit thing. Reopen the hundreds of miles of closed track and marshalling yards, even the stuff that's been built on, and make it that freight, especially containers, go by rail to hubs and only then onto trucks.

 

There would also be autorail type trains and very cheap fairs making it the first choice for moving about the country. No HS2 thought as it's costs far outweigh the gains.

 

This would be part of a giant plan to decentralise only then would more motorways be built.

 

Thing is though, no matter the plan, or intentions most of it would be blocked or just rejected along the way by someone wanting to make a giant profit or one of the many nimbys

[Junkman]

A motorway to Calais and to Dublin.

[Cavcraft]

A complex series of private roads over farm lands, with a car in each area so I can drive to work pissed and uninsured like the good old days. 

[sloth]

drew this

 

 

new roads in green.

 

then found this

http://metro.co.uk/2015/03/21/map-shows-15-billion-plan-to-turn-britain-into-giant-motorway-5114161/

[beko1987]

From Thame to Marlow, then forget to open it/private road it...

[sloth]

id also install some nice autobahn spec bits with no limit.

[Taff]

This is so simple.

 

Start building at Southampton, head north until you get to the Scottish coast at Durness, 8 lanes all the way and as close to perfectly straight as possible. Fuck whatever is in the way, this is progress and YOU can't stop it. Every 25 miles, have a junction with a 3 lane motorway going off at right angles and heading for the coast.

 

Sorted, next.

[Richard]

The roads we have would be fine if everybody else would stay off them.

[inconsistant]

Absolutely NO more new roads. This country doesn't need more roads. Instead lots of new or expanded airports so everyone can fly short haul to anywhere in the country for £17.99

[gordonbennet]

Absolutely NO more new roads. This country doesn't need more roads. Instead lots of new or expanded airports so everyone can fly short haul to anywhere in the country for £17.99

God NO.

 

Imagine all the little hitlers in their increasingly paramilitary uniforms herding and pushing those terrorists, sorry, passengers, that they have ultimate control over.

I can just see 'em now, little bastards with big chips on their shoulders just itching to confiscate bottles of water, make up tweezers/scissors and the like and lecture the poor bloody passenger who dared to carry such, they'd need to issue incontinence pads to 'em to stop the stains that would appear in their knickers they'd get so carried away with their own importance.

 

I'll stick to the country roads ta.

 

Agree completely with an integrated transport system as outlined above, returning once again to being public transport, it'll never happen cos they sold the country over the last 30 years to their mates and backers.

[forddeliveryboy]

I agree with investing heavily and nationalising the railways and then sticking loads of freight on them. One way of making more space, for those who don't want more roads, would be to make cars tandem seaters, then make just the nearside lane full-width for goods traffic. Three lanes free for cars alone - whippee!

 

You've got to go well into Eastern Europe to find a capital not linked with two lane roads towards the centre of Europe, yet Edinburgh hasn't. I don't think it's the Scots not wanting to be - they've done their bit and built a superb road up to the border, only for it to turn into typical single carriageway beset with cameras and roundabout, with the odd short bit of twin lane for you to gallop up to 90 to get past the line of HGVs.

 

 

Well if we're going to ignore the OP's interchangeability of "England" and "Britain"...

 

Lets sort out the A9 north of Perth, the A90 ...

 

I haven't lived in Scotland recently enough or driven enough day-to-day to feel able to comment on your road probs - but I thought you'd pick up on this, having thought me to be some English nationalist or similar in a previous thread! Perhaps I should have commented on the British road situation there too, then I could have enjoyed being called an Englishman telling the Scots what they need...   I was talking about England's roads, so thought it best to call them English.

 

Ironic that I refer to meself as British, always - never English. But that's another story.

[dugong]

I'd build a racetrack in a crap bit of the Fens and keep it to myself, because I hate all of you.

[UltraWomble]

 

If we genuinely want to sort out congestion then lets create a modern, integrated, value-for-money public transport system that doesn't drive people into car use.

Except we can't because we privatised all of it. 

THIS.

I would rather take public transport to work, but I cant because there isnt any.

I would rather use public transport to get me to Uni the one day a week I go. But I cant because it means traveling for an hour and then not being anywhere near the campus buildings when I arrive in town.

I would rather pop into town on the bus, go for a few shandies and then get the bus home after last orders, but I cant because they stop running at 9pm.

I would rather not be sat behind a stream of HGV's on the M6 northbound especially when they play that game of "Im going 0.005mph faster than you so I can overtake" with other HGV's thus clogging two lanes.

 

Making it so that people think twice before taking a car anywhere is what the country needs, not more roads, just better use of the infrastructure we have - so that roads and motorways are used by freight, public transport and people who really have no choice but to use the car for whatever reason.

 

So - how do we manage this - probably nationalisation of the public transport network both trains and buses - the support of non profit making services, smaller but more frequent buses and trains, investment in the rail infrastructure and separate high speed links for passenger services between main locations and the greater use of the network during low traffic hours for freight movement, competetive prices for freight and passenger transport so that it is a viable alternative.

 

A rethink of legislation regarding the classification of small electric vehicles ( like the Twizzy) so that they can be driven at 16 on a moped licence, might encourage  teens to drive small chariots like this rather than thinking they need a Nova or Clio, (TBH, for a daily commute if things like this were cheaper than they are I'd have one.)

 

A rethink of the current road taxation system whereby tax is levied on fuel or by a "pay as you drive" scheme on the number of miles you travel ( its not as if the technology for this doesn't already exist) increasing the levy if you are on your own or decreasing it by a proportional amount if you have more than one person in the car at peak times, again would possibly encourage drivers out of their cars but ONLY if there was a reliable viable clean alternative to get to where they want to go.

 

Increasing the taxation on more than one vehicle in a household (OK, maybe an Orwellian step too far) unless the second / third etc vehicle is historic or an alternative fuel vehicle or a PTW.

 

We are a small island, with limited land and an expanding population - as most of us want to live in detached three bedroom houses with 1.5 dogs and a garage full of crap, more of the and gets built on with the existing road network groaning under the strain of an additional two plus cars per household. Rather than build more roads we really need to encourage people to use an alternative to the car almost without thinking, and treat the car as a luxury rather than an item which most people now think is essential to their lives - go back even 40 years and multi car families were in the minority, people walked, cycled, got the bus or train and we need to try and promote this way of thinking again rather than just jumping into a car.

 

Personally I would rather more people got onto PTW, if even half the people who routinely drove a car did that we would cure parking and congestion issues almost straight away.

Anyway, Im off to feed my dragon

 

[Mr A Lawrence]

Roads?

 

Where we're going we don't need roads.

[Taff]

Absolutely NO more new roads. This country doesn't need more roads. Instead lots of new or expanded airports so everyone can fly short haul to anywhere in the country for £17.99

 

you will need my new roads to get to your airports, #buysharesinTaffsTarmac

[dave21478]

87.4% of all motorway congestion can be solved not by adding more lanes but teaching people how to use the ones that are already there.

 

And when I say "teach people lane discipline" I mean slit offenders throats and leave their bodies hanging from overhead gantries and bridges as a warning to others.

[Tayne]

UK . ENGLAND

 

 

 

If you intended this to be a purely English road based discussion then you posted the wrong Job Vacancy.

 

 

Whoever ends up filling that post at the UK government department will be spending UK tax receipts (from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) on road projects in all of those areas, not just "England's roads".

[beko1987]

Absolutely NO more new roads. This country doesn't need more roads. Instead lots of new or expanded airports so everyone can fly short haul to anywhere in the country for £17.99

This would make chod collection much easier! I'd buy 320tourings octavia if it would only cost me £17.99 to fly up to his local plane station

[John F]

Six-lane motorway from Llanberis to the top of Snowdon, because Vauxhall Frontera.

[pilninggas]

87.4% of all motorway congestion can be solved not by adding more lanes but teaching people how to use the ones that are already there.

 

And when I say "teach people lane discipline" I mean slit offenders throats and leave their bodies hanging from overhead gantries and bridges as a warning to others.

 

Most of the rest of Europe get this - as soon as you are past the slower vehicle get back over to the right (or here the left). We really do not anymore widening programs, we need people to move back over straight away; us Brits are absolute morons about this - some sort of national mental issue going on.

[Lacquer Peel]

In Scotland north of the central belt where motorways and dual carriageways are rare, lane discipline is fine.

 

It'd be interesting to know if continental European learners are tutored on motorways, it's ridiculous that they aren't here.

[Taff]

87.4% of all motorway congestion can be solved not by adding more lanes but teaching people how to use the ones that are already there.

 

And when I say "teach people lane discipline" I mean slit offenders throats and leave their bodies hanging from overhead gantries and bridges as a warning to others.

 

quicker and easier to turn every road into an 8 lane super highway #welshpavingisforwinnerz

[Asimo]

A tunnel please, at the Birdlip end of the A 417, to connect the very good dual carriageway from the M4 at Swindon with the M5 at Gloucester. At most 2 miles long and through soft limestone it would delete a serious bottleneck and accident spot as well as improve life in two Villages. Win, Win, Win.

 

Tunnels are widely used for roads everywhere else I have been, but they are rarely used here.