Transport policy - an admission of failure?

The Government has announced that the experiment of allowing the hard shoulder to be an additional usable lane on the motorway has been l extended to further motorways. It seems that much time will be saved and less damage done to environment and, wonder of wonders' the rate of accidents might go down.

This is from the Government which cancelled motorway projects in the pipeline when they came into power, and swallowed the nostrum of some of their "green" cronies that "If you build more motorways, you'll only encourage more cars and motorists!"

So fully did they seem to swallow the anti-car philosophy, that they have enthusiastically embraced lower maximum speeds, removed lanes for the use of occasional buses, installed revenue raising speed cameras, and charged exorbitant taxes on fuel which are to be topped up by road pricing to price people off the roads. This was not so much "If you can't beat them, join them" as "If you can't beat them, get rid of them."

Given where people live and where they work and shop, and the absence of reasonable convenient public transport, the car is the last possession that many will want to give up. We may need better public transport but we also need a fit-for-purpose road system. This small admission by the Government, we must hope, is a sign that they may have at last come to see how people live and work, and they may cease to do more damage to our economy through their road-hate attitude. We may even come to rejoice in roads fit for the 21st century!