Motorway Hard Shoulder Running Scheme Extended

Tuesday, 8. December 2009

The pilot hard shoulder running programme that was started on the M42 has now been extended, a month sooner than expected. The new section, open from the 9^th December, is on a seven mile stretch of the UK’s busiest motorway, the M6, running between junctions 4 and 5. This stretch of the hard shoulder is opened up to traffic during busy periods and will have the first ‘through junction running’ allowing drivers to drive across exit and entry lanes when hard shoulder running is in operation. Transport minister, Chris Mole said that the Government was on target to provide 340 miles of hard shoulder running at a cost of £3 billion, due to be available by 2015. The M42 experiment has shown an improvement of 22% on journey times. Journeys have also become safer with the number of accidents in a month down from an average of 5.1 to 1.8. Just goes to show what I know as I didn’t think it would work. But then again there are some that believe the scrappage scheme has been a huge success. By Graham Hill