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The surfaces of Scotland’s motorways are in worse condition and deteriorating faster than other roads, public spending watchdogs revealed today.
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
"Scots drivers facing crumbling motorways amid budget cuts"
(17 posts)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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Surely nothing can deteriorate faster than Edinburgh roads?
Posted 8 years ago # -
The Audit Scotland report shows that Edinburgh's roads have deteriorated over the past 5 years and that spending isn't enough to maintain them at their current state - meaning the are going to get worse.
Just wait for the cries that cycling cash should be spent on fixing the roads. Easy to counter though - bikes simply can't damage a road surface, as they are too light. Increase cycling, reduce car traffic and ease the pressure on the road. However, the real problem is HGVs, and to a lesser extent buses, as they are hugely more damaging to roads than cars. Action to tackle HGVs on urban roads would help - there are options, load consolidation, dry ports etc.
Details: http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2016/nr_160804_maintaining_roads.pdf
Posted 8 years ago # -
But hey at least the capital budget for trunk roads appears to be protected with gold plate
Posted 8 years ago # -
as I noted on the other thread, I thought it was interesting that Humza Yousaf made a point of mentioning the complaints he gets from his constituents about the roads they drive and cycle on.
he also weazled away merrily on actual issue of council funding and blustered about the need to build more and the great returns from such investment.
Posted 8 years ago # -
The Scottish Government intends to spend more than £9,000,000,000 on major trunk road projects in the next 15 years - more than three times what it would cost to bring every road in Scotland up to a decent standard. Yet, fixing our current roads is deemed unaffordable.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@M I wouldn't dare dispute your figures but on the face of it SG/TS is either grossly incompetent/two-faced or SG shows complete contempt for LAs and 'local' voters(?)
Posted 8 years ago # -
"Look! New shiny things!"
Posted 8 years ago # -
"Look! New shiny things!"
Sadly all too true.
Though you'd think that George Osborne would have made standing around in hiviz & hardhat go out of fashion...
Posted 8 years ago # -
Posted 8 years ago # -
chdot - Just for clarity:
A9 dualling: £3,000,000,000
A96 dualling: £3,000,000,000
Forth Crossing: £1,350,000,000
M8 M73 M74: £500,000,000
AWPR: £745,000,000Total - £8,595,000,000 - add in inflation/project over-runs over the next 15 years and it is well over £9bn. Of course, these are only the big ticket projects, there are lots of other smaller scale projects - that still cost in the tens of millions of pounds each (e.g. A82 upgrades).
Posted 8 years ago # -
Depressing really.
Needs one or more of the transport, climate change NGOs, campaign groups (press even) to 'follow the money' and work out who the beneficiaries are - officials, consultants, construction companies etc and how much people/'the economy' really benefit - and whether there are better value-for-money options.
(I think Transform Scotland generally does a good job.)
Posted 8 years ago # -
Posted 8 years ago #
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From link
"
Scotland’s roads are in a dreadful state
Scottish roads are considered to be amongst the worst in the UK. Road markings are deteriorating, pavements are damaged, and potholes are all too common. This often results in pedestrian, cyclist and motorist accidents as well as expensive repair costs."
Posted 8 years ago # -
chdot - thing is, you can't work out if there are better options for some of these major projects. For example, there is no published business case for the A9 dualling project.
Just think about that - the Scottish Government has authorised spending £3bn without a robust business case (at least a publicly available one).
However, HITRANS commissioned a study into the benefits of dualling the A9 in 2007, which predicted benefits of about £1bn over a 30 year period. Now compare that with the cost of the project of £3bn. This means that every £1 of benefit would cost the Scottish Government £3.
Seems pretty obvious to me why no business case has been published - the figures clearly don't stack up (although I'm sure the SG would question the HITRANS figures).
Just remember this when the Minister tells us that they can't invest more in cycling due to Westminster austerity or the need to "modernise" trunk roads. This decision rests solely with the Scottish Government. Imagine if even a fraction of this money had been invested in cycling. £400m could easily give Scotland's major cities streets to rival Copenhagen.
HITRANS report - https://www.hitrans.org.uk/documents/a9_economic_appraisal_study_report.pdf
Posted 8 years ago # -
Business case? Cost benefit analysis? All very high minded I'm sure. We're dealing with basic pork barrel politics here: essentially, the government rewards its own MSPs by spreading a little public largesse around. It's no coincidence that amongst the MSPs constituencies to benefit from these billions will be a number of current and former ministers, including John Swinney, Fergus Ewing and Alex Salmond. This conveniently ties in with a political agenda to switch investment away from the central belt (where, like it or not, most Scots live) to the north and north east of Scotland (though not too far north lest it strays into the vestiges of Lib Dem territory).
So far so normal. However the really depressing thing is they couldn't think of any other investment priorities other than roads. Note that public transport schemes have been scaled back, deferred or cancelled altogether. Alas it seems the Car Is King mentality dominates the SNP.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Maybe those new roads won't be needed after all.
Growth in new UK car sales slows in July
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/04/new-uk-car-sales-slow-down-to-a-trickle-in-july
Posted 8 years ago #
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