Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/half-million-pound-study-to-explore-oxford-to-cambridge-expressway (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/half-million-pound-study-to-explore-oxford-to-cambridge-expressway)

It very sad that the old predict and provide system is returning to the Road Construction programme, this road will destroy the environment, generate traffic , and move traffic from rail, whilst at the same time there is still no link to Cambridge by rail ( phase 3), it seems the road lobby operate in a different world.
Where are the North Oxford rail objectors now, I wonder.

But as a strategic road this is subject to a similar control period process as rail.  So funding (other than for the study) is still a long way off.  And before you ask it is not clear that Highways England is able to deliver its current CP on budget either.  We wait and see. 

The study will cost ^512,000. Whether it's worth it is another matter.

Sorry. Back to Pedants' Corner  ;)

But it's worth ^512,000 to the company doing it, isn't it?


Yes, good idea!

(I hope the government gets good value for the half million quid!)

What a waste of public/taxpayer's money. Likewise the airport expansion commission. Surely the governement understands that action needs to be taken to curb greenhouse gas emmissions and that modal shift from private cars to public transport is an important part of that. If they were serious about this then it should be blindingly obvious that building new infrustructure to allow increased car/plane traffic is at best unecessary and at worst counter-productive. They shouldn't need to commision a study, they should just say "no, we're not building a new motorway/runway/airport/dual-carriageway/road bypass".

It's not really a pedantic point. The words chosen influence the perception of the study.

A report into the A34 from Bicester to the M4 was only completed earlier this year for the Oxfordshire Growth Board, with two recommended options - either to build an extra lane on the existing route (involving buying up a number of the houses adjacent through the Botley area of Oxford to demolish them), or a new dual carriageway from the M40 to North Abingdon and the extra lane after that.

There was a similar feasibility report 10 years before that, with broadly similar conclusions.

When the A43 from the M40 to Kettering was being dualled, back in the 1990s, I remember travelling along it and thinking what a shame the Government could afford two east-west trunk road routes (the A43 and A14) south of the Birmingham-Leicester line, but not a single railway.

Now the third one is well underway - the A428/A421 route under discussion here, which has been already been greatly upgraded between the M1, A1 and Cambridge. Yet there's still no sign of East-West Rail getting any further than Bedford.

It's enough to make you want to move to Scotland...