Steve Firth wrote:

Hindhead OTOH is something to be ashamed of. The road needs widening
and this could be done quite easily along the current route but would
give some "interesting" curves for a dual carriageway. Or they could
bite the bullet and build the tunnel. In the time that it has taken
the
government to come to no decision over the route and hence to blight
every property adjoining that section of the A3, I've seen the
Italians develop three complete motorways through much more difficult
terrain
with tunnels of similar length every 10-20 km.

I reckon before Hindhead is solved, the Italians will have built the
third and fourth Gran' Sasso tunnels each about 11km in length.

They are going to build the Hindhead tunnel (see the Highways Agency
website) but by the time it is finished many of us will have retired.

--
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk
"If laws are to be respected, they must be worthy of respect."

On Sat, 01 Nov 2003 11:22:19 +0000, Robert Woolley
wrote:

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 21:33:06 +0000, derek
wrote:

Last year was the first since (IIRC) 1957 that there was not one inch
of new motorway. This government have been in power 6 years!

[snip]

My journey times are longer now by about20% than they were in 1974
when I first took a job involving extensive travelling despite
significantly better cars.

So despite all this roadbuilding, your journey times have gone up?


All what roadbuilding? The motorways in Scotland were complete (all
but 15 miles) before 1970. That's to all intents and puposes 35 years
ago. As I said it's like driving round the old East Germany. And now
like any old system maintenance is a big source of downtime. Let's
face it every other system that's tried to run using 35 year old
infrastructure has bitten the dust (The Mills, The Mines, The
Steelworks, USW, USW.)

Standards have improved in 35 years so, nowadays any road works even
on the verges and 1 lane is closed down leaving only one in operation,
and then the queing starts big time.

The main road north through Newcastle goes directly past the biggest
retail shopping centre in Europe, the exit empties right on to it. So
Aunt Agatha who lives in Ponteland a few miles away gets tangled up in
with the Beer Lorries going to Edinburgh every time she goes to buy an
M&S pizza.


Have you considered the possibility that roadbuidling doesn't solve
congestion?


Have you thought of offering that argument (Housebuilding is
pointless) to the homeless? Or greater food production is futile, (the
hungry will just eat it) to the starving. Why do you imagine ethernet
networks have increased in capacity 100 fold?

It's not been tried and found wanting, it's been wanted and found
trying.

DG

"derek" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 19:39:46 -0000, "iantheengineer"
wrote:


Its a case of would it be justified and the answer is no, you cannot have
underground systems everywhere, they are only econmic in cities.

As for the crap roads well thank Mrs Thatcher

?? She was out before the 1st Gulf War, 1990-1991, (13 years ago).

for the years of
underinvestment. The current government is spending loads on improvement

But they spent nowt for Yonks didn't they until it became obvious that
the useless gang of ******* who were running that apology for a
railway we had couldn't run a popcorn stand.

but
it will take toime to sort out all the problems she created when giving
the
yuppies tax breaks in the "good ol 1980s!"


I can't let that go by.

You appear to be confused, M.T. was the author of the privatisation
era, BT, BA, BG ... etc. Yuppiedom started with the deregulation of
the City of London, mid '90s onwards, when a one bedroom flat in the
docklands at £350k came with a "free" Porsche (But no garage!).

Last year was the first since (IIRC) 1957 that there was not one inch
of new motorway. This government have been in power 6 years!

Driving around Scotland this last week reminded me of driving around
the old East Germany. There isn't even uninterupted motorway between
Glasgow,Edinburgh and London (Pick any 2), and the motorway doesn't go
anywhere near Edinburgh city centre, and there isn't even an
uninterupted motorway route to England.

My journey times are longer now by about20% than they were in 1974
when I first took a job involving extensive travelling despite
significantly better cars.

The old A1 has been moved 3 times around Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the
journey still takes longer than when the traffic went over Tyne Bridge
and straight through the middle of the city! It is so bad around the
Metro centre that there is a permanent free breakdown service! It's
obvious what's needed, a proper 3 (at least) lane motorway bypassing
N'castle unencumbered with local traffic and *motorway* onwards to
both Edinburgh and Glasgow.

DG

Okay lets see, so you need to buy something what do you do.

1. Pay for it with money

2. Borrow the money

When labour came to power the country had no money. It was in a huge
deficit.It has taken time to gather the money for spending.

Since labour came to power councils bid for work using local transport
plans.

Large road building schemes are NOT the answer. it has been proven that
traffic grows according to network capacity. So we build another M25 result
more traffic

Local transport plans are developed by local authorities to best solve the
problems they have / prepare for the future.

Each plan is judged with others and funding allocatr=ted by central
government.

As for the inital state of the roads ask any local government highway
engineer for the truth ( i was one) and they will tell you.

Yuppies were synonimus with the 80's its a known FACT. FACT She sold off all
of the national utilities, which now make huge profits for private
shareholders instead of such funding going back into th coffers. All that MT
ever did was to lower taxes at the expense of everything else. If you were
working all well and good but if you were not ( highest levels of
unemployment for years) then tough.

"Grant Crozier" wrote in message
...

not to mention all the four
star accommodation that they are building for all the foreign guest's
that Blair and the blind beggar are welcoming into this country with
open arms .

I thought you wanted cheap labour from abroad?

I quote:

"Royal mail should sack every one of the strikers NOW THIS MINUTE and
replace them with imported staff from Pakistan and India ."

clive

"Robert Woolley" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 21:33:06 +0000, derek
wrote:

Last year was the first since (IIRC) 1957 that there was not one inch
of new motorway. This government have been in power 6 years!

[snip]

My journey times are longer now by about20% than they were in 1974
when I first took a job involving extensive travelling despite
significantly better cars.

So despite all this roadbuilding, your journey times have gone up?


Have you considered the possibility that roadbuidling doesn't solve
congestion?



Rob.
--
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

Well said Rob

jasonr (Jason Rumney) @ f2s.com wrote in message
...
"JNugent" writes:

(b) due to increases in traffic (especially during the prosperous
1980s),
the congestion would have been even worse had it not been for the
(relatively small) expansion of the high-quality road network (meaning
that
not enough expansion has taken place).

Have you ever considered that building new roads might influence more
people to get into their cars? Many towns are now made up of large
segregated areas of industrial "parks", shopping "parks" and vast
residential suburbs without even a corner store within walking
distance. The only practical way to get between these places is to
drive. If the road network had not been expanded to accomodate such
"urban planning", a more sensible mix would have been found that did
not involve everyone driving everywhere.


Quite right Jason and this is what transport planners are trying to achieve
now, although we are further doen te line than we would have liked. we need
to concentrate developments and provide mixes of development types so that
the need to travel is reduced

"Chris Jones" wrote in message
...
Have you ever considered that building new roads might influence
more people to get into their cars? Many towns are now made up
of large segregated areas of industrial "parks", shopping "parks"
and vast residential suburbs without even a corner store within
walking distance.

That's not new roads causing extra traffic, that's out-of-town shopping
centres and retail parks causing extra traffic.

Unfortunately, councils are all too keen to grant permission for these
things, but they don't bother improving the road network in the area to
cope
with the inevitable increase in congestion. Just look at the roads around
any Ikea store, for instance.


Absolute rubbish. all large developments require transport impact
assessments. The DEVELOPER pays for these to be carrioed out and the are
examined by the councils or the prevailinbg highway authority. all
junctioons and link roads are examined for capacity and the impact that
traffic will have. The examinations are robust with factors of safety built
into them. If the junctions start to cause a proble or reach 85% of the
capacity within the (normally) 10 years following development. the DEVELOPER
pays for the improvement works.

I should know I write TIAs on regular basis

On Sat, 1 Nov 2003 19:26:39 -0000, "iantheengineer"
wrote:
Yuppies were synonimus with the 80's its a known FACT. FACT She sold off all
of the national utilities,
Why did she sell them off because they where making a big loss the
only reason the private companies are now making a profits is because
they cut out all the loss making side of the businesses . Had any
government tried to do this it would have been "down tools we are out
on strike lads".
Had BA still been a nationalised company there would have been no BA
flights to anywhere out of Heathrow or any other UK airport due to
them cutting out the big loss making Concorde but because BA is now in
private hands employees are watching their steps .
All that MT
ever did was to lower taxes at the expense of everything else. If you were
working all well and good but if you were not ( highest levels of
unemployment for years) then tough.
No you can place the blame at the feet of the trade unions for all the
unemployment not MT had MT not come down hard on the unions and their
leaders like that ******* Scargill there would have been double the
amount of unemployment. I would willingly go with out mail if the
Royal mail management where to sack all the useless striking employees
tonight .
Grant .

"derek" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 01 Nov 2003 11:22:19 +0000, Robert Woolley
wrote:

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 21:33:06 +0000, derek
wrote:

Last year was the first since (IIRC) 1957 that there was not one inch
of new motorway. This government have been in power 6 years!

[snip]

My journey times are longer now by about20% than they were in 1974
when I first took a job involving extensive travelling despite
significantly better cars.

So despite all this roadbuilding, your journey times have gone up?


All what roadbuilding? The motorways in Scotland were complete (all
but 15 miles) before 1970. That's to all intents and puposes 35 years
ago. As I said it's like driving round the old East Germany. And now
like any old system maintenance is a big source of downtime. Let's
face it every other system that's tried to run using 35 year old
infrastructure has bitten the dust (The Mills, The Mines, The
Steelworks, USW, USW.)

Standards have improved in 35 years so, nowadays any road works even
on the verges and 1 lane is closed down leaving only one in operation,
and then the queing starts big time.

The main road north through Newcastle goes directly past the biggest
retail shopping centre in Europe, the exit empties right on to it. So
Aunt Agatha who lives in Ponteland a few miles away gets tangled up in
with the Beer Lorries going to Edinburgh every time she goes to buy an
M&S pizza.


Have you considered the possibility that roadbuidling doesn't solve
congestion?


Have you thought of offering that argument (Housebuilding is
pointless) to the homeless? Or greater food production is futile, (the
hungry will just eat it) to the starving. Why do you imagine ethernet
networks have increased in capacity 100 fold?

It's not been tried and found wanting, it's been wanted and found
trying.

DG

Im afraid countless studies have found that roadbuilding is not the answer
to the problem. People have chosen to travel through the freedomn of choice
that roads and increased wealth have given them, thus perpetuating the
problem.

To continue to build roads will continue the problem. The answer is puvblic
transport, but public transport cannot cater for all journeys and therefore
over time journeys will need to become more corridored. For example go into
any city during the am peak and the tidality of the flow is there to be
seen. IF we were to get all of the people from their cars onto public
transport, or even better living nearer to the workplace, the congestion
would be far less. No doubt you have a big swanky car that has one person in
it most of the time taking up all of that roadspace, when really all most
people need arte a seat.

If roads are expected to last we need to reduce the wear and tear on them
whic in itself has been brought about by the greater use of road transport
(the main damage to roads actually aoccurs from HGVs and PSVs, however PSVs
transport peoiple more effectively). This again needs more of us out of our
cars. Without cars on the urban road network public transport would be
faster and more reliable.

As for the maintenence of roads well normally it involves patching
(completed very quickly around 2 hours) or overlaying (approx 2 days). oNly
on rare occassions is a complete reconstruction carried out, and as I have
said this wear and tear is due to use not age.

I think your justification using ethernet capacity is a bit irrelevant. We
know that building more roads is

a) environmentally damaging
b) increases usage so essentially provides no longterm greater net capacity.

So where do you stop, when the whole country is one great network of
asphalt???

Why not use the technologies to reduce travel more???

wrote:

[ ... ]

All what roadbuilding? The motorways in Scotland were complete (all
but 15 miles) before 1970. That's to all intents and puposes 35 years
ago. As I said it's like driving round the old East Germany. And now
like any old system maintenance is a big source of downtime. Let's
face it every other system that's tried to run using 35 year old
infrastructure has bitten the dust (The Mills, The Mines, The
Steelworks, USW, USW.)

Hasn't the A74 been in the process of being upgraded to motorway for the
last seven or eight years?

And I'm sure there was some extension of the M8 or M9 being built in the
mid-1990s (the last time I was in the Edinburgfh area).

And what about the Edinburgh Ring?

And the M77?

And the M90?

These were all built in the 70s, 80, and 90s.

Not enough, true - but "all built by 1970 all but 15 miles" cannot be
accurate.