This blog is inspired by a news article out in the regional press today entitled "Second Tyne Tunnel will transform the region, predicts project MD".  For those not familiar with this project a second road tunnel has been built under the river Tyne which until now has served as a bottleneck on the A19.  The A19 is a motorway in all but name that runs from North of Newcastle down to North Yorkshire.

 
 
Right now the new tunnel is open but the old one is closed for refurbishment, so it is still the scene of very large traffic jams in both directions at peak hours.  With twin tunnels about to open the capacity of the junctions either side is attracting a lot of attention.  These were supposed to have been completely rebuilt, but the money was not there and only minor works have been done.

Trevor Jackson, the project director says “Development and traffic growth go hand in hand, and as we finally see the constraints lifted traffic will come rushing, and business with it......We are doubling the tunnel so that has the potential to have the traffic arriving at double the rate at the Silverlink Roundabout in peak hours – how do the Highways Agencies intend to allow for this?"

Personally I think that Mr Jackson is underestimating both the scope and scale of the traffic changes that are going to result from the twin tunnels going operational in the next few months.  I'm reminded of a study of the London Westway when it was built 40 years ago, highway engineers expressed amazement that an extra 18,000 cars had "come from nowhere" onto the route at peak hours.

Until now the Tyne Tunnel bottleneck has provided a powerful incentive for motorists to stagger their journey times and if possible to avoid commuting this route at all.  The effect is powerful enough that businesses won't usually consider relocation from one side of the river to the other as the impact on their staff is seen as too big (this started to change about six months ago).

The public transport options on this route are less than ideal, with the choice being a bus through the road tunnel, a ferry crossing at South Shields, or taking the Tyne & Wear Metro (light rail) all the way into Newcastle and then back along the other side of the river.  The river here is crying out for a rail or tram link but it doesn't exist.

It seems likely that we are going to see significant increases in car traffic on all the A roads anywhere near the tunnel, with a knock on effect on all of the popular rat runs nearby.  All of those junctions within a few miles radius including those close to Newcastle City Centre, which are already at capacity are going to see more traffic.

There are twin foot and cycle tunnels under the tyne, but these see a lot less use these days as both housing and employment are less concentrated along the river than they used to be.  The new Tunnel did finance some minor improvements  to the NCN 72 cycle route which follows the river, but this is primarily a leisure route as it does not run in a straight line.

From what I can see the east-west bicycle commuter routes in the vicinity, both on and off road are going to suffer as a result of this new traffic.  Those using the A193 which is my main route into town will run into faster and heavier traffic at its junction with the A19 (one of the few locations where it will speed up) .  Those on the off road Coast Road Cycle Route will see heavier traffic as they try and cross slip roads, which are already a big problem.

To take a pessimistic view on things I'd say that my own bike commute will become increasingly unviable as the levels of delay and risk increase.  Increased risk will eventually translate into deaths and injuries in the vicinity of some of these road junctions.

Public pressure is likely to increase to spend even larger sums of public money on road junction improvements in North and South Tyneside.  Whilst I'm going to try and do my best to ensure that these also include improvements for those on foot or on bikes, it seems inevitable that the main focus will be on increasing car capacity at the expense of everything else.

Public satisfaction with their driving experience in the locality is gong to actually get worse as a result of the twin tunnels.  In the past the misery was confined to those actually going through the tunnel at peak times who faced a 30 minute delay.  In future this delay will be dissapated over a wider area with 5  to 10 minute delays at a lot of other locations.  Using a bicycle to get around will become a lot less attractive on some key routes, and marginally less attractive over a wide area.  Using buses may also become less attractive as they will also suffer delays.

If you are going to deliberately engineer a major increase in traffic volumes it would take careful planning and infrastructure improvements for all modes over a very wide geographical area in order to avoid problems.  That is not generally how we do things in the UK, progress marches on.