M4 relief road £1.4bn could be better spent
A DECISION on the £1.4bn M4 Relief Road around Newport is now imminent, following the public inquiry which ended recently.
We should not underestimate the significance of this landmark transport decision for the whole of Wales and the Welsh Government.
That a new relief road will cost a prodigious £1.4bn from the public purse to by-pass the city, is serious enough. More importantly, it is a test of whether or not the Welsh Government is capable of identifying value-for-money strategic solutions to connectivity problems.
The Welsh Government’s QC, rightly acknowledging that traffic congestion around the Brynglas tunnel was a “pressing problem demanding a solution”, makes the fundamentally flawed assumption that the only practical solution is one which involves an increase in road capacity.
Not only is this just an assumption which ignores other solutions, it sanctifies those other flawed methodologies – such as “predict and provide” - that have surrounded transport planning in the UK for decades. The consequences of this are everywhere, for everyone to see and experience. Longer commuting distances, time sacrificed, gridlock in our towns and cities. Road building has not eased congestion, it has simply moved it along!
It is calculated that halving the Severn Bridge tolls will alone generate a 17% increase in traffic by 2028, so the relief derived from any additional route will be temporary and disruptive in the extreme around Newport. The economic benefits of removing the tolls and constructing the relief road are also, unfortunately, a fallacy. Studies show that road building produces marginal, if any, economic gains, and in the case of Newport and south east Wales jobs may well be displaced to more prosperous locations.
Setting aside for one moment producer interests in the construction industry and the narrow economic dogma behind Conservative party support for such projects, the Welsh Government needs to seriously consider whether it has to cling to outdated conventional wisdom in these matters or break the mould with more radical solutions.
In several respects the M4 relief road project may already be misguided and obsolete as a solution to congestion. Several developments in transport planning will very soon impact to undermine any justification for expensive road construction. Speed limits (50mph) are about to be extended on the M4 at Port Talbot and introduced at Newport to meet targets on air pollution and carbon emissions.
The wider use of road pricing is long overdue on UK roads. It is fairer to road users and would encourage alternatives to driving. Congestion charging or pricing is being seriously considered as a way of alleviating traffic problems in Cardiff. These initiatives are essential to the well-being of neighbourhoods and communities and will be extended over time.
The Welsh Assembly needs to affirm whether or not it has the vision to think geographically beyond the needs of south east Wales, to think innovatively about integrated transport solutions and creatively about the kind of Wales we want economically, socially and environmentally in the 21st century.
There is no doubt that the transport lobby will regard these objectives as fanciful but we have reached crisis point with regards to traffic congestion, not only on every M4 junction access from Cross Hands to Chepstow, but on the UK motorway network in general.
A £1.4bn public investment in traffic management schemes, improving public transport and kickstarting our Metro systems, would relieve the misery of thousands of commuters, have far wider economic benefits and improve the public health of millions of our citizens.
Nigel H Rees Tongwynlais, Cardiff