UK road building behind schedule

[Pebb]

Source: 4car

It's a familiar experience: you get the builders in, and the job takes far longer than expected and costs far more. That's the story with Britain's road building schemes, too, according to a report from the National Audit Office.

The spending watchdog claims the average new road is costing British taxpayers 40% more than planned, and more than a quarter of the current road building and road improvement programmes are behind schedule. Some programmes have even quadrupled in cost since they were originally commissioned. The Highways Agency has been criticised for its failure to control costs and properly oversee its contractors.

Particularly expensive schemes have included the A43 Silverstone bypass, the A21 Lamberhurst bypass and the A41 Aston Clinton bypass. The A46 at Newark has now run up a £317 million bill, and the estimate for a tunnel for the A303 at Stonehenge now stands at £510 million.

 

[95GTIVR6]

We have this problem in the states all the time.

However, im not sure if this qualifies as "Auto News" but im not a Mod so there isnt anything I can do about it.

 

[Duke]

You know, if the British automotive press spent their time with jackhammers and paving equipment instead of bitching about how no car in the world rides well enough to be driven on British roads, you people wouldn't have this problem.

 

[TheCracker]

Source:4car... The A46 at Newark has now run up a £317 million bill...

And worth every penny, i've been to Newark (GTParties) and a bypass would be a great way to avoid the place

You know, if the British automotive press spent their time with jackhammers and paving equipment instead of bitching about how no car in the world rides well enough to be driven on British roads, you people wouldn't have this problem.

Clarkson & Co. did have a go at this in the first episode of the current series of Top Gear - at least they've tried.

 

[Famine]

In general our "new" roads are pretty good. They just take forever to get built. Re-laying of old roads are almost always dismal and bitty and distintegrate at the first sign of a car over 1,100kg.

 

[95GTIVR6]

We have large, heavy trucks that like to travel on small roads thus tearing up the roads. The city/state tries to patch the damage but once a good rain comes, its pothole central.

Im sure it would be more expensive just to pave the whole road but sometimes I think it would be more efficient timewise. I dont know, im not an engineer.

 

[Dave A]

You know, if the British automotive press spent their time with jackhammers and paving equipment instead of bitching about how no car in the world rides well enough to be driven on British roads, you people wouldn't have this problem.

The British press shouldn't have to. As Famine said, the newer roads are good, they just don't get built quick enough.

 

[Jim Prower]

They can't be as bad as some of the rural roads around here...I mean, there are some that haven't been re-paved since the '50s...and some that aren't paved!

 

[GilesGuthrie]

You know, if the British automotive press spent their time with jackhammers and paving equipment instead of bitching about how no car in the world rides well enough to be driven on British roads, you people wouldn't have this problem.

Ah, but we're entitled to bitch about it because we all pay eleventy billions pounds a minute in tax from the very instant that we consider buying a car. If the tax were used to build a high-quality integrated multi-mode transportation network, instead of being used to shore up a canker-blighted array of public and civil services, we'd be in a much better position.

So we have crap roads because Tony and his cronies are too scared of upsetting the pathologically lazy by cutting off their unemployment benefit.