M4 Relief Road

I've been very critical of Drakeford up until now, but this was an excellent decision. He made the tough choice that Carwyn chickened out of and deserves a great deal of credit. Hopefully the £1 billion can now be spent on innovative public transport initiatives and the traffic around Newport can be dealt with by shutting half of the ludicrous number of junctions around the town and forcing local traffic off the motorway.

A disastrous decision for the whole of south Wales. By all means improve public transport, but we need a functioning road network as well - neither can replace the other.

Sadly this did not come as a surprise, from the moment he became First Minister it was clear that Dithering Drakeford was not a fan.

You may not agree with his decision, but the very last thing you can call it is "dithering". It was quite brave I reckon.
Decisive Drakeford more like. He was openly against this project from day one. He stuck by his guns and followed his convictions, and didn't merely make the easy choice or pay mere lip service to the enirovnmental concerns when he finally was in a position of influence. He didn't waver an inch.

That £1.4bn cash is only for the black route M4. The UK Government will now take away most of the £1.4bn on offer.

No, they won't. It's a borrowing power, not cash, and it wasn't contingent on it being used for the M4 relief road.

It's true that the Welsh Government used the M4 relief road as an example of why the Welsh Government should have similar borrowing powers to local councils. It was ridiculous that they didn't have those powers and no one is suggesting that they'll now be removed.

His decision was to do nothing - there is nothing brave about that.

I will whole heartedly support anyone who actually comes up with a solution to this and sees it through. No vague concepts about setting up commissions or the 'need to invest in public transport'. These are the easiest things to say and offer no solutions at all.

His decision was to do nothing - there is nothing brave about that.

No it wasn't. Let me flip that response. A decision to do the wrong thing, just because of some perceived "well what else can you do?" would still be a stupid decision.

My issue isn't that he rejected the black route (the option his government put forward), it's that he rejected it and offered nothing else.

My issue isn't that he rejected the black route (the option his government put forward), it's that he rejected it and offered nothing else.

This.

It wasn't a brave decision, the can has been kicked again with the setting up of another 'commission' There was no solution given, not even the 'blue route'. Absolute joke.

Public transport just won't cut it here - at least not for the foreseeable future. Improvements to buses in Newport won't help much. Improvements to trains between Newport and Swansea won't help much. The M4 is being used, to a large extent, by people wanting to go from, e.g., Chepstow to McArthur Glen, or Porthcawl to Caerleon with their 3 kids for a day trip. Or Cardiff Gate to Newport Retail Park. That is, predominantly places without good public transport options between them, and where getting good public transport options would cost more than investing in road transport - even when you account for the environment.

Unless we fundamentally change how towns are laid out and where people live (so either we concentrate work/shopping in a few nodes, or all live near where we work), private road transport is going to be very important.

Idealism is all well and good but sometimes has to meet reality. And I'm worried by the rhetoric that it hasn't yet.

I really do worry about the dithering of the Welsh Government and their inability to just deliver big infrastructure projects. While I can't profess to know anything really about how you go about building a new motorway or designing or implementing a joined up transport infrastructure, from the outside looking in it seems to be lots of money wasted on feasibility studies and consultancy without anyone having the balls to think bold and just get things done.

A few things it's pretty obvious even to the layman that we need at the moment and looks like we're miles off.

1. A dual carriageway linking the Airport and Barry to the M4
2. The M4 relief Road - what's the plan now this has been shelved - nothing - we're now going to go through a another few wasted years of committees looking at alternatives
3. A proper rail link to the airport - the line down there already exists for god sake.

Cardiff has huge potential but it needs infrastructure if it's to thrive.

Some ideas:

Stop east and west bound entries on Newport junctions between Coldra and High Cross between 6am - 9am and 3pm - 6pm
Create motorway junction for Severn Tunnel Junction station
Create 3 permanent lanes between Bridge and Coldra
Ensure trains from Ebbw Vale and get to Newport
Build St Mellons Parkway with direct link from M4/A48M
Create missing M4 junction at Thornhill