The trouble is across the Vale, NIMBYS have fought day after day to stop new housing developments.
With new developments comes new and improved road infrastructure. So start saying "Yes" to new schools, health centres, shops, roads & homes and there will be alternative routes.
First thing to build should be the A34M running from Swindon past Didcot and across to Aylesbury and Milton Keynes. It would open up vast swathes of the countryside and improve the lives of millions.
Sorry, but we are where we are and in the case of the rather large Grove airfield developments, the nimbys have not done very well at stopping anything. Not that development here was ever going to pay for any new bridges for either the A338 at Wantage Road, or the A417 further west, anyway, never mind extra roads.
The A34 doesn't go anywhere near Swindon, nor would any A34M. And even if some new road had been built from Oxford to Swindon, it would be running north of the railway, so would do nothing to assist matters crossing from the Wantage area anyway, so the bridges where Network Rail has fouled up would still need rebuilding.
And why you are quite so enthusiastic about some new road and concreting over a huge swathe of the Vale beats me. It would be the end of any prospect of reviving an Oxford-Didcot-Swindon-wherever train service and only add to the traffic congestion in Oxford and Swindon, so where's the benefit in that?
Yes, and such is an example of gold plating in the extreme.
From the number of times people moan about it you would think that the ECML was non functional because the headspans fall over every five seconds or something.
I am not convinced the business case for abandoning them really makes that much sense. Especially with the balooning cost of electrification.
I think you'll find any cost increases on the GW route have rather more to do with the muddle over bridge replacements than with the overhead kit.
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