Alliance against road building

 

PRESS RELEASE – 14th February 2006

GOVERNMENT TWO FACED ON ROAD BUILDING

Commenting on Alistair Darling's statement today on congestion (1), Road Block, the national alliance against road building, said that the government is 'deeply confused' on road building, whether it is genuinely committed to cutting traffic, and to road user pricing.

Whilst Darling said "Make no mistake, simply building more roads cannot be the answer", he then goes onto boast about how much road building the government have done, and propose to do. Whilst stating that road user pricing is essential for reducing travel, the government continues with its huge traffic inducing road building plans. This double standard was also reflected in the Future of Transport White Paper, 2004 (2). Road Block said the government should clear this confusion up by cancelling the roads programme, and investing in sustainable transport.

Road Block coordinator Rebecca Lush said:

"Darling boasts of his traffic-inducing, budget-blowing roads programme, whilst at the same time admitting it is futile. Darling's position looks more untenable by the day, but he needs to make his mind up. Whilst we hear lots of talk about road user charging plans at some vague point in the future, all the money now is going into road building which the government admits is pointless. At the same time, the government talk tough on climate change, and yet is proposing a roads programme of about 200 schemes which will encourage car dependency, and fuel CO2 emissions rises. Whoever wrote this press release for Darling gets full marks for inconsistency!"

NOTES TO EDITORS

(1) Department for Transport press release "Journey time reliability on motorway and trunk roads", 14 February 2006, is available here
http://www.gnn.gov.uk/environment/fullDetail.asp?ReleaseID=187497&NewsAreaID=2&NavigatedFromDepartment=False

(2) The Future of Transport White Paper of July 2004, was littered with contradictions, stating that “we can’t build our way out of congestion”, yet continuing a few lines down with “we need to … identify, fund and deliver promptly additional road capacity.”
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_about/documents/divisionhomepage/031259.hcsp

(3) The Assumptions that underpin the Future of Transport White Paper were revealed in a Freedom of Information request and are on the DfT website at http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_foi/documents/divisionhomepage/036818.hcsp . They show that the govenment is preparing transport policy on a 'predict and provide' model of 40% traffic growth by 2025.