Move to tackle M-way gridlock

Mar 5 2008 by David Higgerson, Liverpool Daily Post

PLANS to allow motorists to use the hard shoulder on busy stretches of motorways to tackle congestion were unveiled by the Government yesterday.

The M62 and the M6 are among the roads which are expected to be used.

Business and motoring groups gave a guarded welcome to the announcement, but said more needed to be done to tackle worsening gridlock on motorways, while environmental campaigners called for alternatives to car use.

Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said: “If congestion is left to grow unchecked, it will increasingly disrupt people as they go about their daily lives,” she warned.

Building and widening roads was expensive, and the debate over road pricing had become “sterile”, so the Government was pressing ahead with plans to open the hard shoulder on a number of motorways in England and considering opening lanes limited to cars carrying more than one person, or where drivers were willing to pay a toll.

The announcement follows a trial on the M42 where the hard shoulder was used as an extra lane