Results
Analysis since the construction of the bypass has shown that instead of the predicted 47% reduction in road deaths due to the new road, there was a 67% increase (from 6 to 10) in the five years after it opened. However, the total number of casualties fell by 32% (from 455 to 311).
The same report concluded that the levels of traffic on the old road had not fallen as much as might have been expected, possibly because of traffic being able to use it for other reasons. In 2006, the Highways Agency defended the scheme from allegations by the Campaign to Protect Rural England that traffic had returned to previous levels: the Highways Agency's rejoinder being that the road had reduced traffic problems in the town.
There are now proposals to widen a section of the A34 to three lanes all the way up to the intersection with the M4 motorway at Chievely.
Read more about this topic: Newbury Bypass
Famous quotes containing the word results:
“It amazes me when I hear any person prefer blindness to deafness. Such a person must have a terrible dread of being alone. Blindness makes one totally dependent on others, and deprives us of every satisfaction that results from light.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The peace conference must not adjourn without the establishment of some ordered system of international government, backed by power enough to give authority to its decrees. ... Unless a league something like this results at our peace conference, we shall merely drop back into armed hostility and international anarchy. The war will have been fought in vain ...”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)