Funding system for road schemes needs overhaul
Funding system for road schemes needs overhaul
/ Letters
READERS may be familiar with a catchy tune by country music artist Chris Rea called The Road to Hell.
Whenever I listen to this song I am somehow reminded of the roads of Oxfordshire with its endless roadworks. These gridlocked roads truly are roads to hell.
One may reasonably question why it is that the highways department always has ample funds to conduct countless road schemes and roundabout innovations in times of alleged austerity.
This paradox has often left me perplexed.
One day an opportunity arose for me to ask this question of a highways engineer.
He was digging up a perfectly-good stretch of hard wearing stone kerbing and replacing it with a far inferior and weaker concrete kerbing. I was frankly appalled at the wastage.
He agreed the replacement kerbing was inferior and told me that the next year’s highways budget was contingent on the amount spent during the previous year.
Therefore, there is a perverse incentive for the highways departments to spend as much as possible on road schemes in order to secure a larger budget for the next year.
Thus, when all other essential services are being cut left, right and centre, the department of highways will always have enough cash to ensure that endless traffic schemes prevail.
In fairness, sometimes the results are pleasing, as in the fancy brick pavements in Cowley Road and St Clement’s.
Whenever I listen to this song I am somehow reminded of the roads of Oxfordshire with its endless roadworks. These gridlocked roads truly are roads to hell.
One may reasonably question why it is that the highways department always has ample funds to conduct countless road schemes and roundabout innovations in times of alleged austerity.
This paradox has often left me perplexed.
One day an opportunity arose for me to ask this question of a highways engineer.
He was digging up a perfectly-good stretch of hard wearing stone kerbing and replacing it with a far inferior and weaker concrete kerbing. I was frankly appalled at the wastage.
He agreed the replacement kerbing was inferior and told me that the next year’s highways budget was contingent on the amount spent during the previous year.
Therefore, there is a perverse incentive for the highways departments to spend as much as possible on road schemes in order to secure a larger budget for the next year.
Thus, when all other essential services are being cut left, right and centre, the department of highways will always have enough cash to ensure that endless traffic schemes prevail.
SUSAN THOMAS
Magdalen Road
Oxford
No comments:
Post a Comment