You are of course correct; problem is building new roads quickly
enough to cope with traffic growth.

The hideously expensive M6 widening, despite the years of chaos to be
endured during construction, will actually only provide about two
years of relief before you're back to square one.

But the real problem is that the roads are needed most were all the
people are and inevitably most of those people don't want them.

Maggie was forced to back down on her great car economy and massive
new road building because of objections from mostly her own (very much
car owning) supporters.

In London there's no room for new roads plus in between building new
Heathrow terminals, Olympic stadiums and Crossrail there's no one left
to build them.

allan tracy wrote:

Do they?

Compare Paris to London, Paris already has Crossrail x4 we haven't
even built one Crossrail yet.

It takes as long by public transport to get from Maidenhead to the
City (poor) as it takes to get from Birmingham to the City (good
thanks to Virgin).

It's when you get away from London that you realise how poor UK public
transport is and for most that means bus.

In Dusseldorf they have over twenty light rail (tram) routes mostly
confined to central reservations. It means when you drive in
Dusseldorf you hardly see a bus.

allan tracy wrote:

.Ahh.. yes well New Labour are definitely the exception not only do
they not build roads they don't build anything else either.

Their uselessness knows no bounds when it comes to transport. They
believe that transport is not a priority for them, which has to be the
most unbelievable and stupid aspect to their policies of all.

Their record on transport is the worst in living memory and
particularly poor when compared to all the stuff that was kicked of by
the previous Tory Government.

There's a huge list of things the Tories did yet Labour's list is
empty - precisely nothing.

allan tracy wrote:

Oh, let's compare Paris to London.

That would be the Paris that has a proper ring-road through the
built-up area (the peripherique) and proper expressways in and out of
the city, penetrating through the peripherique and right into the
heart of the city, wouldn't it? The Paris that has a virtually
complete orbital motorway route at about the same radius as the M25
*and* plenty of its sections duplicated? And that would be the Paris
that has mutiple ways of bypassing the whole region so that the
capital's road system, unlike the M25, does not have to be used by
traffic that actually has no business in the city or its immediate
hinterland?

allan tracy wrote:

They can't afford to now they're wasting so much money on illegal and
unnecessary wars, Northern Rock and ID cards.

On 20 Jan, 08:54, Conor hotmail.com> wrote:

Indeed. None of our governments have yet learned that you can't build
your way out of congestion.

IMO it is better to allow congestion to be self limiting, so that
motorists will become so pissed off they will finally decide to leave
their cars at home and/or drive less. As long as they are continually
pandered to by government's perpetual road building, and more and more
parking facilities, car use will just carry on growing.

As for essential road transport, such as food, this can be done at
night when most motorists are asleep anyway.

"Doug" riseup.net> wrote in message
news:ac8fa71b-38a2-488d-a2a8-aca4f86de08b@q77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

Doug wrote: