What does infrastructure mean for drivers?

One particular of the defining qualities of the last Parliament was the improved use – by all major parties – of the term infrastructure.

We even got an Infrastructure Act, offered its Royal Assent in February 2015, and there is a discrete infrastructure unit inside HM Treasury. Blimey.

But what is infrastructure? Is it just the massive engineering stuff politicians speak about so they can say they’re spending billions of pounds for our benefit? Your HS railways and your Crossrails?

Or is it much a lot more intimate, affecting the every day life of quite a lot every person in the nation – and thus deserving of our closest consideration?

Civilized responses

Take the notion mooted by John Hayes, the last administration’s transport minister, that UK roads need to cease to be regarded as mere building projects and a lot more as performs of art.

That’s appropriate. Hayes desires our roads to resonate with our unconscious understanding of beauty. He even invoked the ancient Greeks and Romans, civilizations that looked beyond the utility of the infrastructure to contemplate its type.

Once more, blimey. But surely Hayes has a point. Our road ne2rk is ugly. It is a mass of drab, functional, soul-sapping concrete that does not so significantly work at 1 with nature as split it in 2.

Route of all evil

Numerous roads aren’t even fit for purpose. Rather of assisting the public make the most of nearby services and amenities, they usually reduce us off from towns and cities, steering us into distant retail parks.

Hayes desires something distinct. He believes roads can lift the soul, so he envisages a road ne2rk that fits into the landscape and carries cleaner, greener cars.

There are indicators that we are producing progress, and that some of our newer roads are a triumph of kind over function.

Hindhead revisited

Feel of the tunnel constructed to bypass the village of Hindhead in Surrey. It not only protected the surrounding countryside, but also made it better by reuniting 2 commons that have been previously split.

The reunion created the biggest location of lowland heath in southern Britain. Developers also planted 200,000 trees and shrubs to give a haven for wildlife.

Price issues

Ok, so roads do not have to be undesirable. But will lovely roads be far more high-priced? Not according to Hayes, who argues that good design require be no much more expensive than undesirable style.

It’s partly down to advances in green technologies and building techniques, such as smarter lighting, creating green bridges, a lot more tunneling and much better noise barriers.

Whether or not Hayes’ vision will ever become reality relies in the brief term on the Conservatives regaining power at the forthcoming election and, in the longer term, on sector, regional government and the populace at big getting into his argument.

Digging deep

The factor is, I’ve never ever noticed a gorgeous pothole. Some very impressive ones, and some that have stirred powerful emotions. But none has struck me with its aesthetic qualities quite as difficult as it has struck my suspension.

So if I had been spending the £15 billion the last government earmarked for investment in roads by the end of the decade, I’d use it to fix the shocking state of the highways.

Right after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I’m a lot more than satisfied to gaze upon a flawless stretch of smooth tarmac.

What does infrastructure mean for drivers?