(18 Apr 2022, 10:15 am)Adrian wrote I agree it's been encouraged for decades, but planners must still see it as being vastly underused, when people still opt to short cut over the Tyne Bridge and central motorway for example. I think there was hope that the air quality restrictions would tackle some of this, but omitting private cars has put a bit of a spanner in the works here. Maybe it'll be dealt with when the original scheme is deemed insufficient, or maybe they'll look to tackle it in another way, e.g. congestion charging.

I'm a bit too young to remember the realignment in 86, but certainly there's been constant investment in the A1(M) between J61 at Bowburn and J80 at Seaton Burn for decades now. Then there's the projects on the A19 that you mention, plus the £265m or so that the expansion of the Tyne Tunnel cost into a second tunnel.

The best option (but it's not cheap at all) would be to build a new bridge where the Friars Goose Crossing was planned and remove most the traffic from the centre but have it tolled to try and promote people to use public transport with the Newcastle bridges getting tolled at the same time. It would also open links to get buses going across from Walker, Wallsend, Byker and the likes to Heworth without travelling via Newcastle to give a faster service to places South, it's way too long right now having to travel 15 minutes in the wrong direction on a bus before heading in the right direction.

Not to mention the benefits of giving good links to all the industry on the Tyne around Wallsend for HGV's and try and promote some more industry along there getting jobs to the areas around there which are pretty desperate in places.