I WENT to the consultation exhibition on the A483/489 Newtown Study this week and was amazed to discover that all the options for alleviating traffic congestion consist of a new bypass in one form or another!
How are members of the public to make an informed choice on whether a bypass is needed if all alternative options are excluded?
According to the exhibition, only one third of the traffic on the A483/489 is through traffic, so there is tremendous potential for reducing traffic by encouraging walking, cycling and bus use for local journeys. It is hardly surprising that there is high car use at present.
Planning blunders in the past have resulted in supermarkets being built in the industrial area on the edge of town, rather than in the town centre itself, making access by car a much more attractive option.
However, the situation could be rescued to some extent if all the town bus routes served Pool Road and Morrison’s as well as the town centre and ran frequently rather than only hourly.
It seems that the consultants have not carried out any in-depth studies to determine the reduction in traffic levels that could be achieved by a suite of measures such as this.
There is clearly a need to stop high vehicles using Heol Treowen and Plantation Lane in order to avoid the low railway bridges.
The exhibition claims that the bypass is the only means to achieve this. However, another solution would be to construct a short link road into the Mochdre Industrial Estate from Dolfor Road and raise only the Llanidloes Road railway bridge.
The UK government is committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. How can the construction of a Newtown bypass be consistent with this objective, given the tendency of road traffic to expand to fill the road space available?