Living in Newtown and walking to work I rarely drive from one side of town to the other.
I have no direct experience of the traffic chaos and slow speeds that have been reported in your pages.
On a return trip from Mach I did an experiment to see how long it would take to cross Newtown from the theatre roundabout to the Dyffryn turn near the Gro.
We were in one of those long convoys of traffic that occur on our windy roads. Although stopping for two traffic lights and the Macdonalds roundabout the transit took 6m 46s for the 2.4-mile journey. I calculate this used 24p of diesel. I was interested to see what improvement the orange bypass option would give.
I estimate the length of the new road with its two roundabouts to be 3.3 miles. I guess the average speed would increase from the 21.3mph which I measured to 35mph. Why only 35mph? I have assumed that you would still be stuck in the queue behind the slow moving vehicle that you had been following since Mach. Don’t forget that none of the bypass options are dual carriageway or have overtaking places. The bypass will save 67seconds but cost 9p more than the route through town.
If it were possible to travel at the legal speed limits on both roads then the bypass would save 60 seconds and cost 15p more.
More fuel cost since the wind resistance of the car increases with speed.
So if you have to commute across Newtown twice a day on a one hour commute to Shrewsbury you will knock one minute off your journey but spend at least £30 more a year in fuel by using the bypass.
This seems a bad investment of £51 million.
A small fraction of this money could be used for state of the art traffic signalling on the whole route through town. Also is it a coincidence that the public consultation for the bypass is on the same week that the main road grinds to a halt because of the Tesco development?