12-lane freeways to ease crisis on roads :-)

Surely you jest.

Britain's first 12-lane superhighway, modelled on America's freeways, is set to be built in Britain as part of expansion plan costing up to £6bn to cope with the crisis on the country's roads.

Yeah right.

I am a supply-sider when it comes to roads: supply induces demand. It seems empirically one of the iron laws American life. But I shouldn't get out on too much of a limb. Perhaps there are some British circumstances --- they are starting from a very, very low installed base and so forth --- which suggest that Britain needs more highways. Of course you can't really build much for £6bn.

My dim recollection (1993) from driving around London is that there seemed to be plenty of "interstate-style" ring road and plenty, plenty of cars overall. Out of London (we made a pilgrimage to Portmeirion in Wales) my memory is that while the roads were narrow, which of course meant that my "hey! it's only 300 miles" meant a tiring drive, the traffic didn't seem so terrible. Of course that was vacation and everything looks different then.

But Darling makes an interesting proposal: build more highways and then charge for them so not too many people will use them.

Say, talking about more imports from America, we also have a very nice bridge; it will look smashing in London.