Robert Woolley wrote...

derek wrote:

Last year was the first since (IIRC) 1957 that there was not one inch
of new motorway. This government have been in power 6 years!
My journey times are longer now by about20% than they were in 1974
when I first took a job involving extensive travelling despite
significantly better cars.

So despite all this roadbuilding, your journey times have gone up?

Have you considered the possibility that roadbuidling doesn't solve
congestion?

There are at least two other equally-valid possibilities:

(a) his journeys are longer, more numerous and/or are undertaken in a busier
part of the UK, or

(b) due to increases in traffic (especially during the prosperous 1980s),
the congestion would have been even worse had it not been for the
(relatively small) expansion of the high-quality road network (meaning that
not enough expansion has taken place).