Cycling UK has praised the Welsh government’s decision to halt or amend almost all major road building projects – which forms part of a new transport plan that aims to reduce carbon emissions, improve road safety, and prioritise cycling, walking, and public transport use – as “the most significant change in UK roads building policy over the last 20 years”.

The charity’s head of campaigns, Duncan Dollimore, says the move to delay, change, or even scrap over 50 schemes across Wales, as well as “raising the bar for where new roads are the right response to transport problems”, represents a “marked shift from other UK administrations’ simplistic and outdated views of building more roads as the answer to all transport woes from congestion to poor air quality”.

59 road-building projects have been on hold in Wales since June 2021, when the then-newly re-elected Labour government announced the creation of an independent expert review panel, which reassessed the schemes against a series of tests concerning their environmental impact.

The findings of the year-long review, headed by transport expert Dr Lynn Sloman and published yesterday alongside the Welsh government’s decision (link is external), recommended that only 15 of the 59 assessed projects will go ahead as planned, with others set to be revised, postponed, or shelved entirely.

The controversial ‘red route’ scheme in Flintshire, a planned major new road which threatened ancient woodland, is one of the projects that will not go ahead, with improvements instead set to be made to the A494 at Aston Hill. Meanwhile, plans for a third Menai crossing between Anglesey and the mainland have been halted in favour of a review exploring congestion, the resilience of current bridges, and alternative modes of transport.

Most notably, as recommended by the independent review, the Welsh government has introduced a strict criteria for all future road-building projects.

According to this criteria, investment will only be considered for road schemes if they:

Reduce carbon emissions and support a shift to public transport, walking, and cycling
improve safety through small-scale change
help the Welsh Government adapt to the impacts of climate change
provide connections to jobs and areas of economic activity in a way that maximises the use of public transport, walking, and cycling

“We will still invest in roads,” Wales’ deputy climate change minister Lee Waters told the Senedd (link is external) yesterday..

“In fact, we are building new roads as I speak – but we are raising the bar for where new roads are the right response to transport problems. We are also investing in real alternatives, including investment in rail, bus, walking, and cycling projects.

“Our approach for the last 70 years is not working. As the review points out, the by-pass that was demanded to relieve congestion often ends up leading to extra traffic, which in time brings further demands for extra lanes, wider junctions, and more roads.

“Round and round we go, emitting more and more carbon as we do it, and we will not get to Net Zero unless we stop doing the same thing over and over.”

Responding to the Welsh government’s National Transport Plan, Cycling UK’s Duncan Dollimore praised the proposals as “bold in principle and forward looking as they realise the economic benefit of placing people and the environment at the heart of transport policy.

“This is a marked shift from other UK administrations’ simplistic and outdated views of building more roads as the answer to all transport woes from congestion to poor air quality.”

However, the National Transport Plan has been criticised by one of Labour’s former transport ministers, Ken Skates, who accused his party and the independent review of “ignoring citizens”.

Pointing to the decision to scrap planned improvements to the A483 around Wrexham, Skates told BBC Wales (link is external) that the project was “planned to remove the traffic from those local roads that were polluting the air, [and] that are damaging the environment because of sky-high carbon emissions.

“I’m concerned that the panel didn’t actually engage with any communities, as far as I’m aware. It didn’t engage with locally elected members. The engagement with council highways officers was very poor.

“What we had is a diktat which says basically a decision has been made 140 miles away, that vitally important infrastructure works will not go ahead, and by the way there are no alternatives that we can tell you about today.”

Waters, meanwhile, accepted that the new “ground-breaking” policy would attract some criticism, but insisted that “it’s always difficult to make decisions with short-term pain for long-term gain”.

“None of this is easy but neither is the alternative,” he said.

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-uk-praises-welsh-governments-roads-review-299329

swldx...@gmail.com <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:
> Cycling UK has praised the Welsh government’s decision to halt or amend
> almost all major road building projects – which forms part of a new
> transport plan that aims to reduce carbon emissions, improve road safety,
> and prioritise cycling, walking, and public transport use – as “the most
> significant change in UK roads building policy over the last 20 years”.

> https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-uk-praises-welsh-governments-roads-review-299329

Well, it is a significant development. Some businesses in North Wales were
saying on the radio yesterday that the scrapping of a dual carriageway to
Liverpool would affect their ability to expand their exports, and were now
considering moving out of Wales to sites better served by transport.

Cycling UK and road.cc seem less concerned about wealth generation but are
quite willing to support the spending of taxpayers money on vanity
projects.

--
Spike

swldx...@gmail.com <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:
> eburtthebike | 4068 posts | 2 hours ago
> 9 likes

> “Our approach for the last 70 years is not working."

> At last, a politician who not only acknowledges the futility of trying to
> build your way out of congestion, but is prepared to take action.
> Congratulations to the Welsh Labour party and may the other parties
> finally wake up to what the Greens have been telling them for decades.

Let’s see Wales slowly slide back to the 18th Century, a bucolic backwater,
a Green paradise, propped up with taxpayers money from where the wealth
will migrate to.

--
Spike

On 15/02/2023 01:21 pm, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:

> Fairy-Cycling UK has praised the Welsh government’s decision to halt or amend almost all major road building projects – which forms part of a new transport plan that aims to reduce carbon emissions, improve road safety, and prioritise fairy-cycling, walking, and public transport use – as “the most significant change in UK roads building policy over the last 20 years”.
>
> The charity’s head of campaigns, Duncan Dollimore, says the move to delay, change, or even scrap over 50 schemes across Wales, as well as “raising the bar for where new roads are the right response to transport problems”, represents a “marked shift from other UK administrations’ simplistic and outdated views of building more roads as the answer to all transport woes from congestion to poor air quality”.
>
> 59 road-building projects have been on hold in Wales since June 2021, when the then-newly re-elected Labour government announced the creation of an independent expert review panel, which reassessed the schemes against a series of tests concerning their environmental impact.
>
> The findings of the year-long review, headed by transport expert Dr Lynn Sloman and published yesterday alongside the Welsh government’s decision (link is external), recommended that only 15 of the 59 assessed projects will go ahead as planned, with others set to be revised, postponed, or shelved entirely.
>
> The controversial ‘red route’ scheme in Flintshire, a planned major new road which threatened ancient woodland, is one of the projects that will not go ahead, with improvements instead set to be made to the A494 at Aston Hill. Meanwhile, plans for a third Menai crossing between Anglesey and the mainland have been halted in favour of a review exploring congestion, the resilience of current bridges, and alternative modes of transport.
>
> Most notably, as recommended by the independent review, the Welsh government has introduced a strict criteria for all future road-building projects.
>
> According to this criteria, investment will only be considered for road schemes if they:
>
> Reduce carbon emissions and support a shift to public transport, walking, and cycling
> improve safety through small-scale change
> help the Welsh Government adapt to the impacts of climate change
> provide connections to jobs and areas of economic activity in a way that maximises the use of public transport, walking, and fairy-cycling
>
> “We will still invest in roads,” Wales’ deputy climate change minister Lee Waters told the Senedd (link is external) yesterday.
>
> “In fact, we are building new roads as I speak – but we are raising the bar for where new roads are the right response to transport problems. We are also investing in real alternatives, including investment in rail, bus, walking, and fairy-cycling projects.
>
> “Our approach for the last 70 years is not working. As the review points out, the by-pass that was demanded to relieve congestion often ends up leading to extra traffic, which in time brings further demands for extra lanes, wider junctions, and more roads.

The answer to that is to build the road to adequate standards in the
first place.

Who can forget how the M25 originally had only two lanes each way
through the M11 junction, or how the M1 between Garston and Hemel was
built with just two lanes each way?

Both of those short-sighted schemes led to more expense later in the
form of much-needed widening and re-jigging of sub-standard 1930s
autobahn-style junction layouts with simple priority "give way" lines.
>
> “Round and round we go, emitting more and more carbon as we do it, and we will not get to Net Zero unless we stop doing the same thing over and over.”>
> Responding to the Welsh government’s National Transport Plan, Fairy-Cycling UK’s Duncan Dollimore praised the proposals as “bold in principle and forward looking as they realise the economic benefit of placing people and the environment at the heart of transport policy.
> “This is a marked shift from other UK administrations’ simplistic and outdated views of building more roads as the answer to all transport woes from congestion to poor air quality.”
> However, the National Transport Plan has been criticised by one of Labour’s former transport ministers, Ken Skates, who accused his party and the independent review of “ignoring citizens”.

Particularly the vast majority of citizens, who depend upon the road
system for all transport needs other than the short distances over which
walking could ever be a solution.

>> Pointing to the decision to scrap planned improvements to the A483 around Wrexham, Skates told BBC Wales (link is external) that the project was “planned to remove the traffic from those local roads that were polluting the air, [and] that are damaging the environment because of sky-high carbon emissions.>
> “I’m concerned that the panel didn’t actually engage with any communities, as far as I’m aware. It didn’t engage with locally elected members. The engagement with council highways officers was very poor.
> “What we had is a diktat which says basically a decision has been made 140 miles away, that vitally important infrastructure works will not go ahead, and by the way there are no alternatives that we can tell you about today."

Well, he might be Labour, but he is on the side of the people on this
topic. That's obviously something that one cannot say, in general, of
the Welsh Labour Party.

> Waters, meanwhile, accepted that the new “ground-breaking” policy would attract some criticism, but insisted that “it’s always difficult to make decisions with short-term pain for long-term gain”.
> “None of this is easy but neither is the alternative,” he said.
>
> https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-uk-praises-welsh-governments-roads-review-299329

The journal for illiterates praises the decisions of innumerate and
undemocratic illiterates.

Who saw that coming?

The National Transport Plan has been criticised by one of Labour’s former transport ministers, Ken Skates, who accused his party and the independent review of “ignoring citizens” . . . . . apart from the citizens who walk, cycle or take the bus, obviously.