NEW BRIEFING by @ippr.bsky.social Making every pound count: Why new roads are not the route to prosperity Transport investment has to be mission-led and outcomes focused. New road building, over other forms of investment, does not deliver good value for money or help meet Labour’s missions

Making every pound count: Why new roads are not the route to prosperity | IPPR

From renewable energy to active travel infrastructure, from nature restoration to home heating, there are key areas where investment can return economic, s

“… decisions about transport investment have been informed by road capacity projections based on predicted traffic growth. These approaches, and the reluctance to acknowledge or factor induced traffic into decision making, has led to congested, polluted streets and car-dependent developments”

It’s interesting that so many responses to reports of Labour loosening the fiscal rules ignore the need to prioritise where investment is targeted.

We don't build new roads, we just endlessly 'improve' the ones we have. I swear traffic is no better when construction ends, but it was so much worse during construction that we think it made things better when in truth 'before' and 'after' are the same.

Do you know of anyone working on efficient allocation of the existing road space? There's so much reluctance to talk about the role of congestion charging in reducing private vehicle use, but real change won't happen without it.

Really good piece Stephen. One important step would be to measure health impacts of different proposed transport projects and include these in cost-benefit-analysis. The TRUUD project (truud.ac.uktruud.ac.uk/wp-content/u...