“Mr Sensible is right. When they slightly widen this 150 year old road, I will run out and buy another car, of course I am yet to work out how to drive two at the same time.”

“"When we we ever learn, why build more roads to fill up with more cars".

The reason that they fill up is because only congested roads are considered for repalcement.

And the new road is only designed to carry the expected increase over 20 years to the old road.

Which, as it is congested, is zero.

But as there is massive pent up demand to use the old road, ranging from people who travel the direct route on minor routes rather than going out of their way to the main road, through to people who are on the old road but divert around it due to congestion, as soon as the new road is opened it is automatically flooded with more traffic that it was designed for.

They don't just eventually get congested:

They are carrying more than their design capacity from day one (but much better than the old road) and it slowly gets worse until it grinds to a halt with population growth.”

“"What we need to do is spend that money on public transport to provide people with a genuine alternative to the car."

If you were more than about 12, "Mr" Sensible, you would realise that people no longer live clustered round public transport terminii, or strung out along the route to their place of work.

Currently very few people do on routes that can sustain double deckers.

Some on routes that can only sustain single deckers.

Some that can't support more than a small bus or even a large minibus.

To "spend that money on public transport to provide people with a genuine alternative to the car" for all the other commuters would be so costly you would not only have to make the minibuses much smaller, but do away with the bus driver and make them passenger driven.

In other words, what you are proposing is council cars.

Mr "Sensible".”

“I've never understood the argument: "When we we ever learn, why build more roads to fill up with more cars".

Why does building a new road, increase the number of cars on the road? The truth is traffic will increase even if we don't build new roads, simply beacuse the population is ever expanding-- more people and goods moving around. 60million at present, 70million in a few decades time!

I think we can either upgrade our roads accordingly, or watching them grind to a halt.

As it happens we have (one of) the lowest mileage of motorway per acre in Europe, and we wonder why our roads are congested (I'm not saying we make the ring-road an motorway by the way!). From a road safety point of view, it's also worth pointing out that motorways are our safetest roads too.

Obviously we need to improve public transport simultaneously, which will also ease congestion-- but we *can* invest in both public transport and our road network.

The Netherlands has the highest mileage of motorway per acre in Europe, but it has an excellent public transport system too. France has the TGV and a comprehensive "autoroute" network.

It just needs a can-do attitude and careful (but not dilatory) planning process.”

“Andyman i think his comments were aimed at my mate BJ, i think you have you had the same trouble as me with it not displaying all the posts.

Not very sensible i will copy an extract just for you from a government report into road safety.
Maintaining road safety is an important condiseration for the government, whose primary concern is to balance the objectives against the financial considerations.

Considerations to providing safe alternatives for foot traffic must conform to the guidelines governing the cost of alternative schemes for passing over highways. In conclusion alternative crossing methods which totally segregate foot traffic from motor vehicles should not be considered unless there is a critical safety issue arising from the documented accident statistics along a specific section of highway.

These two sentences sum it up really, government dont give a damn about installing foot bridges or underpasses for pedestrian safety because they cost to much.”

“FW:

I am presuming your comment was aimed at me, so please explain what Social services managers have to do with transport policy? and why you have chosen the time honoured deflection technique to try to manipulate a debate from its intended subject.

You claim to chat with these public service managers, so therefore are promoting secondhand, biased opinion rather than fact.

The facts are simple, the country has reached crisis point with regards to the transport infrastructure, this is mainly due to the fact that road investment has failed to keep up with traffic demands. This has come about by under investment, more reliance upon roads by other forms of transport becoming uneconomically viable, thus forcing more traffic, particularly freight traffic onto the roads, and the propensity of Government to urge Labour councils to introduce as many unnecessary traffic hindering schemes as possible. This is exaserbated by under investment in public transport systems, both nationally and locally to provide people with economically viable alternatives.

The UK is around 50 years behind on its public transport systems than the leading countries, this is why the Government are rushing through as many schemes through as quickly as possible, these are incoherent, expensive to run and maintain, and are certainly not integrated.

As for living in a fantasy world, have you comitted many hours of your own time to researching and developing practical, cost effective transport concepts which are integrated, and will not leave the country with a long term financial legacy?

Thought not! and i am the one who lives in a fantasy world, LOL.”

“Mr Sensible - most deaths on the A453 / A46 are caused by impatien drivers over taking at places where they shouldn't. On the rare occasions when people do other daft things, like fall asleep, then there's at least a little more room for error.

Believer me, I am all for getting people to drive properly, but the fact is that these two roads, and the ring road, were designed for a lot of traffic as opposed to forcing it along more unsuitable minor roads. They are key distributors and the money is rightly being spent on them.

Ian - watch the car in front. It's probably doing 40 anyway. Stay a safe distance behind it and the nasty mean cameras won't bite. ;)”

“Mr Sensible,
Your comment to car owners was "How can you have the nerve to say you are not having enough money spent on you?"
I've redone the calculations and only 1,000th (yes one thousandth) of the money raised in car taxes is being spent on roads in Nottinghamshire. So the statement that car drivers are not getting the money spent on them is very valid. I would agree that not enough money is being spent on alternative forms of transport as well - but one thousandth of the money surely is not enough in anyone's view ? Even if we extrapolate these figures across the UK, this still gives a massive differential between the money taken in car related taxes & that spent on upgrading the road infrastructure.”

“Is it me, or do you spend more time looking at your spedo than you do looking at the road in front!
Get rid of the specs speed cameras, and sort out the traffic lights at Valley road, they don't let enough people through!”

“Ian, let me quote to you from the other article on this subject: "Of the £450m of transport spending Government has approved "in principle" for the next 10 years, £385m is earmarked for road schemes and £65m for rail, bus and tram projects." ('should ring road money be spent elsewhere? Post, July 25 July 2009).”