Will the UK ever increase the amount of lanes our roads have?

Norman_Castle

CreditCardChris said:

 Almost every major road I drive down has disgusting bushes and shrubs on either side, can't they just cut that crap down and make another lane.

I feel so claustrophobic when driving in the UK, there's always a hedge or pedestrians or houses 5ft from me. Dunno about anyone else.

We could tarmac the whole country, get rid of trees and "disgusting" bushes, knock houses down to provide roads and parking. Sounds good, shall we start with your house?

If you don't like it, stop driving.

Aylesbury_Duck

Hand in your keys and give up your car.
There's no need for extra road capacity. What's needed is a fundamental shift in driving habits, people's incessant need to travel, attitudes to travel to work and a smoothing of travel times.  There is absolutely loads of spare capacity in the existing road network, just not at the times you want to use it.  So either put up with congestion, travel at times when it doesn't exist, or don't travel by road. 

You remind me of the pensioners round my way who complain that the supermarket next to two large secondary schools is full of school kids at lunchtime, making the shop busy and producing long queues at the tills. They forget that it's them that has chosen that precise one hour slot on a term-time weekday to do their shopping, when the store is open 24 hours a day for nearly the whole week. 

eamon

Too many people and too many cars.

Outside of London there is no practical alternative to the private motor car for most people. Buses are derided as "peasant transport" or worse still "w****r mobiles". Bus deregulation has been the disaster that just keeps giving.

Supersonos

Ectophile said:

The M25 frequently has extra lanes added to it.  In places, it's now up to 5 lanes.  It never seems to do any good.  

That's because most people insist on using only the two outer-most lanes.  I spend most of my time on the M25 overtaking on the inside, because lane 1 is almost always empty.

If people drove correctly, there'd be considerably less congestion/problems on the roads.  

treeroy

I get that the UK is an old country and our roads were not designed for today's car usage but that doesn't mean we cannot expand the major roads.

We are expanding major roads. Plenty of road upgrades are happening all the time. It takes time and money but if a road is over-full and it's a major A road, it does tend to eventually see upgrade of some sort. 
As for town and village roads like the ones in your pictures, not much you can do unless you want to dig up every house in the town and rebuild them elsewhere. not much you can do 

cubegame

Little point in adding more lanes when the advent of self-driving cars will remove traffic congestion much more effectively.

Supersonos

cubegame said:

Little point in adding more lanes when the advent of self-driving cars will remove traffic congestion much more effectively.

I'd love to agree with you, but I think any sort of genuine self-driving car is decades away.

I don't think any of these manufacturers is really considering the human element.  If anything, I wonder if self-driving cars will increase congestion.

DrEskimo

Supersonos said:

cubegame said:

Little point in adding more lanes when the advent of self-driving cars will remove traffic congestion much more effectively.

I'd love to agree with you, but I think any sort of genuine self-driving car is decades away.

I don't think any of these manufacturers is really considering the human element.  If anything, I wonder if self-driving cars will increase congestion.

https://youtu.be/iHzzSao6ypE

Supersonos

DrEskimo said:

Supersonos said:

cubegame said:

Little point in adding more lanes when the advent of self-driving cars will remove traffic congestion much more effectively.

I'd love to agree with you, but I think any sort of genuine self-driving car is decades away.

I don't think any of these manufacturers is really considering the human element.  If anything, I wonder if self-driving cars will increase congestion.

https://youtu.be/iHzzSao6ypE

That's a very simplistic example.

A few weeks ago I spent over £100 on a cab so I could drink on a night out in London.  Parking would have cost £40+.  But if I had a self driving, electric car I could set it to just wander around the streets for several hours and it would've been pretty much free.  All it takes is a few thousand people to do the same, and congestion would be epic.

There are so many scenarios that no-one could ever think of.  No human can truly predict human behaviour.

Would you want to buy a self-driving car that sticks to the speed limit, doesn't nip through the amber light and, even worse, other drivers cut you up knowing your self-driving car will come to a halt to prevent a collision?  I don't think I would.

The_Rainmaker

Has reality put the brakes on self-driving cars?

Article in the saturday Telegraph at the weekend.