Traffic Congestion on the M4

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:55 pm on 26 September 2018.

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Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 1:55, 26 September 2018

Well, I feel Mike Hedges's pain on this one a little bit, I'm afraid, and I'm interested, on the corridor study, in whether it covers the point that I'm about to raise with you now. During the eight months of the junction 41 closure, which David Rees referred to yesterday, the usage at peak morning time of the Harbour Way distributor road, which the First Minister opened five years ago, rose from 14.5 cars a minute to a staggering 14.9 cars a minute. The Government report on the closure stated—well, reminded us, really—that the purpose of Harbour Way is to reduce local traffic on the M4 between junctions 38 and 41 and provide a high-standard dual carriageway, which it is, parallel to Port Talbot. Those figures, collected in a time of what was local misery, I think we agree, don't exactly reflect value for money: that road cost £107 million. Nor did it effectively control pollution. And I can tell you that there is no meaningful signage from the motorway itself edging people towards that distributor road. And during this period of the extended 50 mph slowdown from Earlswood, there's nothing there that says, 'Use Harbour Way instead'. So, what can Welsh Government, and the local authority, in all fairness, do to encourage people to use that distributor road?