Government reports show roads building is poor value for money!
on January 18th, 2010 at 10:48 pmThe claimed benefits of new roads don’t work out in practice and some roads actually create new problems, according to research for the Highways Agency unearthed by Campaign for Better Transport. The findings cast major doubts on the value for money of road building and coincide with warnings from the Department for Transport that regional authorities should expect substantial cuts in their transport budgets. The Government reports looked at what actually happened after road schemes had been built. The reports found:
•Overall traffic levels rose significantly as a direct result of each new road
•Economic forecasts did not reflect the actual impact on local businesses and any benefits were generally lower than predicted
•CO2 emissions were higher than predicted, as were noise levels. Air quality was worse than forecast
•Walking, cycling and public transport did not improve, even where traffic has decreased on local roads
•Two-thirds of the bypasses studied simply moved congestion elsewhere
