A34 relief 'years away'

Drivers using the road are used to delays caused by congestion and crashes, but the Government has today (August 15) been accused of sweeping the problems under the carpet after it was revealed no realistic solutions or funding are on offer until 2016.

Since 2001, there have been 438 accidents and 15 deaths on the Oxfordshire section of the A34, but calls for the road to be widened or improved -- especially through Botley, west of Oxford -- have been ignored.

Meanwhile major housebuilding schemes for Didcot, Banbury and Bicester are being drawn up without any plans to increase the capacity of the road.

Today, the Oxford Mail can reveal there are five options available to transport planners -- adding a third lane in either direction, building a new Oxford bypass, forcing long-distance freight off the road and on to trains, or two forms of road charging.

The A34 forms a key part of the road link between the South Coast ports at Southampton and Poole and the Midlands and the North, joining the M40 near Bicester to the M3 at Winchester.

Because of ever-increasing traffic, controversial bypasses were built in the 1990s at Newbury and Twyford Down. Last year a £38m scheme to burrow the A34 under the M4 at Chieveley was completed.

The road carries 90,000 vehicles a day and most agree it is outdated (there is no hard shoulder in the Oxford area) despite -- statistically speaking -- becoming safer since 2001, when there were 106 accidents, five of which were fatal.

In 2002 there were 110 accidents, three of which were fatal, in 2003 there were 91 crashes, four of which were fatal and in 2004 there were 87 accidents, two of which were fatal. So far this year there have been 44 accidents and one death.

The Highways Agency, the Government body which maintains the A34, has said no improvements will be made during the life of the Oxfordshire Structure Plan, which runs until 2016.

Early next year, the South East England Regional Assembly -- the unelected body looking after the interests of the region, which is now chaired by Oxfordshire County Council leader Keith Mitchell -- is due to present its ideas to ministers on what should happen to the road.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said that even if the Highways Agency was to look at widening the road immediately it was "unlikely" anything would happen before 2016, but added the agency would continue to look at the question of the A34 -- including small improvements.

Last month the Oxford Mail revealed that road toll booths, with the aim of discouraging local traffic using the A34 as part of the Oxford ring road, could be in place at Pear Tree, Botley and South Hinksey interchanges within three to five years.

Oxford West and Abingdon MP Evan Harris, who has lived in Botley for 14 years, said: "I have first-hand experience of the terrible problems and congestion on this nightmare stretch of road.

"We desperately need long-term thinking by politicians on how to shift people out of cars and into public transport and especially how to make the transport of goods by Rail more economically viable.

"This means tough choices on how we make the polluter pay and use the resources to subsidise cleaner forms of transport."

Mr Mitchell said: "There are no obvious solutions -- perhaps the solution is a mixture of policies.

"The dam is going to have to break soon and more road building -- at least in some pinch points on the A34 -- seems like the only logical option to me.

"Investment in rail to alleviate some of the road pinch points ought to be attractive, if only the rail industry could be allowed to include social and environmental benefits in the decision-making process, as well as costs to the industry.

"Providing real alternatives to the car always sounds attractive, but the trick is making the alternatives feel as clean, reliable, safe and attractive as the good old car -- we're nowhere that utopian state yet.

"What is crystal clear is that we cannot continue as we are. The Government must not be allowed to continue to duck these critical issues."

A Thames Valley Police spokesman added: "Figures suggest the number of collisions is actually falling -- this could be due to the fact that there is more congestion, which inevitably slows the traffic down.

"There's a very high volume of traffic on the A34, which increases the risk of collisions when the traffic is moving.

"There are no safety improvements planned, although improvements at junction 9 of the M40 and some resurfacing is due to take place."

James Styring, the co-ordinator of Oxford cycling campaign group Cyclox said: "No cyclist in their right mind would use the A34. The solution is not expanding roads, as this only leads to more cars. Rail services should be improved."

Richard Mann, of Oxford Friends of the Earth, said: "The fundamental problem is peak time traffic toward Bicester. Bus lanes could be put in, but the sheer volume of traffic is so huge that so much money would need to be spent on improving it."

Rail freight operator Freightliner already has a healthy share of the market between the West Midlands and the South Coast, keeping about 1,000 lorry journeys off the road each day, but a spokesman said that without Government investment in the rail network, the amount of freight on trains is unlikely to increase.

The spokesman added: "We're waiting for the Government to release funds so we can transport more by rail. We have 15 services taking 1,000 container boxes from Southampton to the north of the country daily, and the infrastructure can cope with this."

Andrew Smith, of Bletchingdon-based haulage firm Smith's Haulage said: "We're a big company and we already spend huge amounts of money on road tax and fuel duty. We're being forced to use the larger roads.

"We couldn't deliver by rail because not all our customers have rail tracks at the bottom of their garden."