Transport -
Gridlock
A future of massive
traffic jams and gridlock across Britain will
move a step closer this week as new figures
reveal that traffic on the country's congested
roads has reached record levels. As drivers
prepared for the usual delays and tailbacks
during the bank holiday rush, a report from the
Office of National Statistics will show that road
traffic increased by more than 1 per cent in
2001, the eighth consecutive yearly rise.
Although the percentage increase appears
superficially small, because of the billions of
miles that are travelled by car each year the
increase has a large impact on the amount of
traffic on the road. Figures for the first half
of 2002 show that the rate of increase is
accelerating, to 2 per cent a year for cars and 3
per cent a year for lorries.
The report will reveal that last year Britons
drove nearly 296 billion miles on the roads, an
increase of 5 billion miles on the year before,
with car travel making up 80 per cent of
journeys. If the increases for the first half of
2002 are maintained for the next six months, as
appears likely, the figure is likely to break the
300 billion-mile mark for the first time.
Transport analysts are now predicting rising
numbers of 'mega-jams' - tailbacks of more than
10 miles - as cars try to squeeze on to ever
busier roads. Last Easter drivers were trapped in
a 12-mile tailback on the M40 in Oxfordshire
after an accident. In autumn 2001 two mega-jams
paralysed roads around the Midlands. In November
there was a 16-mile tailback on the M1 after a
crash, with surrounding roads, including the A5,
becoming gridlocked for six hours.
Durham is set to become the first British
location to introduce congestion charging for
people driving into the city centre. London will
follow suit with the Mayor, Ken Livingstone,
introducing a £5 daily charge for people driving
into the centre between Monday and Friday.
The new traffic figures come at an embarrassing
time for the Government. In 1997 John Prescott,
the Minister responsible for the environment,
pledged that he 'would have failed' if he did not
bring the number of car journeys down within five
years. Prescott will join the Prime Minister at
the Earth Summit in Johannesburg over the next 10
days. Ever-increasing motor traffic, one of the
leading producers of harmful pollution, is one of
the major issues to be discussed. 'The record is
poor, compared to the big promises that were made
at the beginning of the first Labour Government,'
Hounsham said. "The words that John Prescott
said all those years ago will come back to haunt
him with increasing regularity."
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