M1 WIDENING MAKES WAY FOR HARD-SHOULDER
PLAN Submitted by: 20 Jan 2009
A review has
taken place that determined that Active Traffic Management
(ATM) will provide a better value-for-money alternative for
improving capacity and journey times on the motorway than
widening to four lanes.
It costs £6 million per
kilometre (0.6 mile) to adapt a motorway to "hard
shoulder running", compared to £20 million per
kilometre (0.6 mile) to build an extra lane
Drivers will be allowed to use the
hard shoulder of the M1 after the Government rejected expensive
plans to expand the motorway. Emergency
lay-bys would be provided every 800 metres.
Many people in Leicestershire were
opposed to the earlier proposals for a 10-lane superhighway.
Now, the transport minister, Geoff Hoon, has decided it would
not be value for money.
Instead, the hard shoulder will be
opened up at busy times to provide extra capacity. When the
extra lane is open, it will be advertised to drivers and the
speed limit will be dropped to about 50mph for safety.
Mr Hoon said: "What we are proposing
is to use the hard shoulder on a number of our motorways in
order to relieve congestion at peak times. "We've tried
that out on the M42. That allows us to use the capacity when
we need it, but not to put more concrete on to the countryside
when we don't. The whole point of this is to recognise that
we do need more space on our motorways, but we don't necessarily
need it all the time."
The M1 hard shoulder plan will be copied
on other roads, including the M6 and M25.
Environmental campaigners who have
opposed the widening plans today welcomed the news. Malcolm
Hunter, spokesman for Leicester Friends of the Earth, said:
"We very much welcome the decision to scrap the M1 widening
plans, which would have cost an obscene amount of money that
could be much better spent on improved and cheaper public
transport."
Two projects linked to the widening,
including the Kegworth bypass and a new flyover linking the
M1 and M69, on the site of Leicester Forest East services,
will still be built.
In Kegworth, villagers are delighted
that their bypass will still happen. John Pike, chairman of
Bypass Action Group, said: "I'm very pleased. The traffic
through Kegworth divides the village in half. The air quality
is terrible and getting worse. When the bypass is built, we
can become a proper village again."
Source Leicester
Mercury 20 January 2009
