Inspiring Welsh Road-Building Policy
Wales announced an inspiring road-building policy yesterday. It came as the Welsh government responded to the findings of its Roads Review Panel.
From now on, the Welsh government will apply strict tests before deciding to go ahead with any road-building. The tests are designed to make sure Wales’s road-building policy is consistent with its climate change commitments.
Announcing the government’s response to the findings of the Roads Review Panel, Deputy Climate Change Minister Lee Waters said:
‘Our approach for the last 70 years is not working.
As the review points out the bypass that was demanded to relieve congestion often ends up leading to extra traffic, which in time brings further demands for extra lanes, wider junctions and more roads.
Round and round we go, emitting more and more carbon as we do it, and we will not get to Net Zero unless we stop doing the same thing over and over.
When Julie James and I took up our new roles, we made it clear that in this decade Wales has to make greater cuts in emissions than we have in the whole of the last three decades combined.
Greater cuts in the next ten years than the whole of the last 30 – that’s what the science says we need to do if we are to future-proof Wales.
The UN General Secretary has warned that unless we act decisively now we face a climate catastrophe.
If we are to declare a Climate and Nature Emergency, legislate to protect the well-being of future generations, and put into law a requirement to reach Net Zero by 2050, we simply have to be prepared to follow through.’
deputy climate change minister lee waters
The Welsh Government’s Response to the Road-Building Review
In responding to the Roads Review, the Welsh government set out four tests for current and future investment in roads. Roads will only be funded:
- To support modal shift and reduce carbon emissions. This means ensuring that future roads investment does not simply increase demand for private car travel, but contributes meaningfully to modal shift.
- To improve safety through small-scale changes. Safety changes should be focused on specific safety issues, not increases in road capacity. Speed limits are a primary tool for improving safety.
- To adapt to the impacts of climate change, to ensure roads can continue to function and contribute to modal shift.
- To provide access and connectivity to jobs in a way that supports modal shift. The location of new developments should maximise the opportunity of access by sustainable means and prevent rat-running.
‘World-Leading’
The Guardian quotes Glenn Lyons, Professor of Future Mobility at the University of the the West of England:
‘World-leading should be used sparingly, but I have no hesitation in using it when it comes the Welsh government and its willingness to step back, question what we’ve always done and ask whether a different way ahead is now needed for road investment.’
professor glenn lyons
The BBC reports the comments of Christine Boston from Sustrans.
‘If we’re serious about meeting the climate crisis challenge, we need to become a society that supports multi-modal transport.
If we want people to walk, wheel or cycle alongside using public transport, we need continued investment in improving infrastructure that supports that.’
christine boston, sustrans
Findings of the Roads Review Panel
The Roads Review Panel was led by Lynn Sloman MBE. The panel was set up in June 2021 and reported in September 2022; its findings have now been published.
Summary
In the Panel’s Findings report, the Summary recites the terms of reference that were given to the panel:
‘Our terms of reference make clear that in future, Welsh Government will avoid action that increases carbon emissions from constructing, operating, maintaining, and expanding the road network, especially in the next 15 years when most vehicles in use will be powered by fossil fuels.’
quote from summary of road review panel’s findings
The panel were directed to take account of Welsh government policies including Net Zero Wales, which requires a 63% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030.
Under those policies, car mileage per person must be reduced by 10% by 2030, and the percentage of trips made by sustainable modes must be:
- 39% by 2030 and
- 45% by 2040
The panel identified four purposes and four conditions for future road investment. They form the basis of the Welsh government’s four tests for future road-building.
The four purposes include shifting trips to sustainable transport to reduce carbon emissions.
The four conditions include that schemes should not lead to higher vehicle speeds that increase emissions, and should not increase road capacity for cars.
Discussion and Recommendations
The panel says that until now trunk road schemes have been focused on increasing capacity and speeds for private cars. Since the publication of the 2021 Wales Transport Strategy, this has started to change.
Now the objective for trunk and local roads should be to achieve modal shift and reduce car use. There should be a Trunk Roads Modal Shift programme and a Trunk Roads Safer Speeds and Routes programme.
Instead of focusing on road sections with a congestion problem, investment should target stretches with a safety problem for pedestrians and cyclists.
Road space should be reallocated to active travel from motor vehicles in urban areas, or obtained by land purchase in rural areas.
On safety, the panel says that some schemes are genuinely about safety, such as speed limit reductions. Others, like climbing lanes, are not.
‘Differential acceleration lanes and climbing lanes were said by scheme sponsors to be safety interventions because they may reduce driver frustration from slow-moving vehicles. The hypothesis is that driver frustration leads to risky overtaking behaviour, and that by providing formal overtaking opportunities, differential acceleration lanes and climbing lanes reduce this risky behaviour, and hence reduce collisions. The Panel did not find evidence to support this hypothesis.’
extract from section on safety schemes, p37 of the panel’s findings
The panel recommends an updated road safety strategy which prioritises schemes with the biggest safety benefits across the highway network as a whole.
Speed limit reductions and enforcement are low-cost, effective safety measures.
Matching the speed limit to the road layout is more effective and cheaper than attempting to change the road geometry to meet a design standard for the national speed limit.