Blue Route the best option to addressing M4 congestion

The Blue Route had the support of environmental groups including Friends of the Earth Cymru

Traffic congestion at the Brynglas Tunnels on the M4 near Newport has raised its head again. In 2021 Welsh Government set up the Transport Commission on congestion in south-east Wales chaired by Lord Burns with a team of well-respected Transport professionals. It recommended a public-transport-led series of solutions though some road-based options could be considered.

Rhun ap Iorweth the new First Minister has been drawn to say he will examine a roads-based means of relieving that congestion including the ‘Blue Route’.

This columnist wrote the Blue Route report published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in 2013 as an alternative road solution when it was clear that Welsh Government’s ‘Black Route’ option – a new six lane motorway across parts of the Gwent levels – was unacceptable on cost and environmental grounds.

The Black Route is currently estimated at £2.5bn (£936m in 2013) compared with the Blue Route at £1bn (£380m in 2013). Also, congestion is mainly at peak working-day periods largely the result of work and school travel. This provides an opportunity for public transport to be the solution with possibly a Brynglas Tunnel by-pass if that is found necessary.

The Blue Route had the support of environmental groups including Friends of the Earth Cymru as it used the existing A48/ A4810 road footprint. It upgrades the A48 Newport Southern Distributor Road from the M4 (J28) to Queen’s Meadow and the A4810 running parallel to, and south of, the Llanwern steelworks site; now a major housing development with a ‘Burns Report’ railway station. It would rejoin the M4 (at J23A Magor Services).

This would be less disruptive than option C in the then government’s plan which built on the footprint of the A48 (at J28) to the M4 (J24) – the already congested Coldra interchange and passing a large established housing area at Ringland.

The Blue Route was expected to divert 15% of traffic from the M4 – sufficient to reduce congestion in the peak periods concerned through constructing overbridges at the intersections to achieve free flowing traffic. This could be built incrementally prioritising the most congested junctions thus spreading the cost over several years.

There is an argument that a new motorway would form a grand entry into Wales. However it will not solve the congestion problem. Research has shown that added capacity on a route will lead to extra traffic and create environmental damage along that route and the adjacent land alongside it. That may not only destroy habitats and green spaces but also homes and gardens.

It is not easy to persuade car users onto public transport but that has to be the policy direction for over congested roads in south-east Wales. The Burns report delivery unit in Welsh Government has worked up plans for the stations in the Burns plan together with adequate park and ride facilities and ride-on bus connections. The new tram-trains serving north of Cardiff commuters from later this year will show how effective such high-quality improvements can be.

As owners of the rail infrastructure in Wales (excluding Core Valley Lines north of Cardiff) it is the responsibility of the UK Department for Transport to fund track and station enhancements, as well as maintenance through Network Rail. This has so far not been forthcoming for the ‘Burns’ stations; and only small funding percentages in Valley Lines electrification and Cardiff Central reformation costs. Yet again showing how reasonable is the ‘ask’ from Welsh Government for responsibility for rail infrastructure and Barnett consequential funding from HM Treasury.

The development of more bus lanes and bus roads will make journey times by bus more attractive than the car. Prior to the introduction of trams in Dublin, the dual-carriageway road between south Dublin and the city centre in peak periods had one lane for buses only. Introduced in the 1980s, I saw its success for myself; because the journey time to / from the city centre by bus was less than in the over-crowded car lane.

However, the First Minister in looking for road solutions, might find one nearer home. The Menai Straits currently has two road crossings between Ynys Mon (his home territory) and the mainland. One of these designed by Thomas Telford (1826) can take limited traffic and a third crossing from the A55 is urgently required. Perhaps north Wales’ A55 expressway has a better case for road construction than the already highly transport-invested south east Wales.

Professor Stuart Cole CBE is Emeritus Professor of Transport (Economics and Policy), University of South Wales.