The government should not proceed with its planned £6bn programme to convert motorway hard shoulders into regular lanes because major safety concerns exist, an influential group of MPs has warned.
The report by the House of Commons Transport Committee said that “all lane running”, where the hard shoulder is used as a live lane of traffic, threatened to put lives at risk. Previously, “smart motorway” schemes have only used the hard shoulder at peak times or to deal with congestion.
The committee said it did not agree with government that all lane running is an incremental change and a logical extension of previous schemes. It concluded that the permanent loss of the hard shoulder in all lane running schemes was a radical change and an unacceptable price to pay for such improvements.
Chair of the Transport Select Committee, Louise Ellman MP, commented: “The permanent removal of the hard shoulder is a dramatic change. All kinds of drivers, including the emergency services, are genuinely concerned about the risk this presents.
“It is undeniable that we need to find ways of dealing with traffic growth on the strategic network. But all lane running does not appear to us to be the safe, incremental change the Department [for Transport] wants us to think it is. While ‘smart motorways’ have existed for years, this is fundamentally different. Government needs to demonstrate that all lane running schemes do not make the road any less safe that the traditional motorway with a hard shoulder.
The House of Commons Transport Committee has concerns over all lane running on Britain’s motorways. Image: Felix Bensman/Dreamstime.com
“The government has a model which has worked. The scheme on the M42 has a track record of safety and performance but subsequent versions have gradually lowered the standard specification. The most recent incarnations of all lane running have less provision for safety measures than original pilot schemes.”
She said the Committee heard “significant concerns” about the scarcity, size and misuse of emergency refuge areas and “worryingly high levels” of non-compliance with Red X traffic signals, used in all lane running to indicate a lane is not in use.
“Levels of public awareness and confidence about using these motorway schemes are unacceptably low,” Ellman added. “Government needs to demonstrate considerable improvement in this area, including more emergency refuge areas, driver education and enforcement, before the Committee will endorse the extension of a scheme which risks putting motorists in harm’s way.”
In 2015, the Department for Transport forecasted that traffic on the strategic road network would increase by up to 60% by 2040. All lane running and smart motorways are seen as a way of addressing this growth without incurring the costs of traditional motorway widening.
Plans are in place to permanently convert the hard shoulder into a running lane on around 300 miles of motorway. Highways England has a programme to create 30 all lane running schemes with a construction cost of £6bn over the next nine years.
