[GB][Article] The price of a crap rail infrastructure

Floater

Emergency units to aid gridlocked motorists

Congestion growth fuels fears of major motorway crisis

Juliette Jowit, transport editor
Sunday October 19, 2003
The Observer

Special units of emergency staff with life-saving equipment are to be created to deal with potential gridlock on Britain's roads. Amid rising concern about growing congestion throughout the country, transport officials fear that a whole city or trunk route could seize up - leaving drivers stranded in their cars.

The Government's Highways Agency is looking at how it would cope with a major incident on its network of motorways and A-roads, including emergency medical help, water supplies and portable lavatories in case motorists are stuck for many hours.

Gridlock in African cities such as Lagos in Nigeria is common, and drivers often abandon their cars. British experts fear the phenomenon could strike here as congestion is set to worsen by 20 per cent in the next decade.

Professor Phil Goodwin of University College, London, a leading transport adviser, warned last night it was 'absolutely' plausible that a town or city could grind to a halt after an accident or unexpectedly bad weather. 'The localism can be quite big when you have got the network of a whole city operating close to its maximum capacity,' Goodwin said.

The Highways Agency is drawing up plans for major incidents as part of a review ordered by the Government that will see the agency take charge of the management of the network. Operations director Nick Carter said its first priority was to get traffic moving again, and the plan would include drilling for the potentially dangerous practice of turning vehicles around on motorways if necessary. The agency's action plan follows a national outcry about the Government's failure to curb rising traffic, despite a £180 billion 10-year transport strategy published in 2000.

The Government has since announced £7bn of road expansion projects and launched a debate about national road pricing - but these measures are not expected to take effect before the end of this decade. As a result, Ministers have warned that by 2010 motorway congestion could rise by 15 per cent and urban congestion by 20 per cent. The Freight Transport Association (FTA) said the extra cost to business of longer travel times would be up to £3.6bn - on top of the estimated £20bn cost of existing congestion.

Last winter drivers were stuck all night on the M11 after a series of crashes in sudden freezing conditions. Experts predict longer 'rush hours', spreading traffic problems and the increased risk of gridlock. Motorist and freight groups claim local cases of gridlock are already happening at least once a week. 'If you are stationary for three hours then it's gridlock,' said Paul Watters, the AA's transport and roads policy director. 'We're talking about half a dozen major incidents a month in terms of traffic held for more than three hours.' Richard Diment, chief executive of the Ambulance Service Association, said crews had mostly adapted to traffic problems but were worried about plans to open hard shoulders to make more room for traffic, which would block their emergency access route.

Many experts agree long-term national road pricing is necessary, but first they want more road improvements, better public transport and quicker clearing up of accidents and other incidents. The AA says 1,000 road incidents are logged each day, a 40 per cent rise since 1996. And the average time taken to get traffic moving again has also been increasing, by 10 minutes every year. Other initiatives to tackle congestion on Britain's highways include a crackdown on the number of utility companies digging up the roads.

Victor

Originally posted by Floater
Many experts agree long-term national road pricing is necessary, but first they want more road improvements, better public transport

Haven't I heard this before? Somewhere closer to home?