Dual the A9

Today's Sunday Post column in full.

Will it ever happen? Dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness is apparently a Scottish Government priority. Work is meant to start in 2017 and finish in 2025. By the time Scotland's most dangerous road has two separate carriageways, minimising the chance of head-on collisions – I'll be drawing the old age pension. If that's a priority, I'm a fast-moving HGV.

Figures obtained by Tory MSP Murdo Fraser show more people have died on Scotland's longest road between 2006 and 2010 than on any other Scottish route.

In the last fortnight another pair of double fatalities has added to the terrible toll. And yet only £50m has recently been spent on A9 improvements – a sum that would buy half a mile of Edinburgh tram track plus two-thirds of a tram.

Auld Reekie's ill-fated, over-budget, un-loved tram project probably wrecked the A9's best upgrade opportunity by soaking up £500m from the new Scottish Government in 2007.

So car and bus travellers on the A9 still experience journey times that vary wildly depending on traffic volume, the numbers of caravans and HGVs ahead, road-works, weather conditions and accidents. The road has a mix of single and dual carriageway and the resulting confusion's contributed to some of the 82 deaths in the past five years alone. Why wait to get cracking? Is the recession to blame – is time needed for good planning or is the harsh truth that beyond the busyish stretch to Birnam and Dunkeld the A9's considered just too quiet to justify major government cash?

The Perth to Pitlochry stretch is used by a daily 10,000 vehicles – just 25% of the total hammering daily over the Forth Road Bridge. The population beyond Inverness is less than half the population living beyond Aberdeen -- and of course Inverness isn't an affluent oil capital. Perhaps that's why the A90 was dualled years ago while the A9 is still waiting.

The ecological solution if for freight and passengers to go by train. Agreed. But the rail-line is single track too! Not only does Aberdeen have twice the bandwidth by road, it currently has four times more trains. There are thirty-seven trains every winter weekday between Perth and Aberdeen, and just nine between Perth and Inverness because the single track means trains can pass only at stations.

I always take the train over the car to Inverness to avoid the A9 – but trains are often full to overflowing, in summer booked to the hilt and a delay for one means a delay for all and missed connections at either end with taxis habitually laid on to help stressed passengers complete long journeys.

Lack of investment and picturesque but time-consuming zig-zag routes mean buses and cars are the preferred means of travel in the Highlands for all but tourists. Slow by road and slow by rail. Are Highlanders doomed to lose out both ways? And will elected representatives score party political points or join forces to get dualling work started fast?

Last week, Highland Lib Dem MP and chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, accused the Scottish government of focusing on central Scotland transport projects rather than the A9. That's rich. Transport Minister Keith Brown said Danny Boy should explain why his colleagues at Holyrood voted to spend £774m on Edinburgh trams instead of the A9. Of course we'll never know if the SNP would have used "trams cash" to dual the Great North Road. But some things are for sure.

Glasgow decorators Mark McFarlane and Barry Murray died in an accident at Ralia, south-west of Newtonmore, last weekend. The week before lorry drivers Alex Russell and John Sommerville from Lanarkshire, died north of Blair Atholl. All these men were in their twenties and thirties – their lives ahead of them – until they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time on the A9.

It could have been any of us. You can drive as safely as you like – but if a foreign tourist is momentarily confused about the right side of the road, or a driver misjudges overtaking an HGV compelled to crawl along at 40 mph, or tiredness lets a car career across the central white line – the safest driver is suddenly vulnerable. There have been more than 1,000 accidents in the last five years — that's one every other day.

My Canadian brother in law says the sheer unpredictability of the journey north has turned Scots into "grabby" drivers – always ready to seize the slightest opportunity to overtake.

Despite the A9 tourism in the north is booming with staycationers and adventurous Scots and Inverness is our fastest growing city. How much more would a dualled A9 and a dualled rail-line let the beautiful Highlands blossom?

 

 

Comments

[Kim]

The one thing that really makes the A9 a dangerous road is the almost total absence of enforcement the rules of the road. There are only two fixed speed cameras, police patrols are rare, and there are no average speed cameras. If the Scottish government is really serious about improving safety, average speed cameras along the entire length would be the first step.

As for railways before the 1960's there was an extensive network of railways across the highland. The lost of these railways was a major setback to the economic development of the highlands. This combined with a steady lost of bus services is driving ever increasing levels of car dependency in an economically fragile area. This coupled with an ageing population is just storing up greater problems for the future.

Since the start of the first hydro schemes, Scotland has prided its self on the generation of renewable electricity. Trains and trams can be very effectively run on electricity. The electric car on the other hand, despite having been around for over a century has never taken off, and probably never will do. Building big shiny new roads is not the best solution for the Highlands, putting back the railways would be far more sensible.

[Nan]

I truly believe in the interim the Government need to be more responsive and invest in the current road to curb accident blackspots. It is not ONLY dualling the A9 that can reduce accidents but other safety measures should be considered and implemented.

1. A local community campaigned for a safe junction at Dunkeld and Birnam railway station. In 2010 a solution was agreed by Transport Scotland , namely a Vehicle Activated Sign (VAS) but no money was available to implement this solution. Transport Scotland announced it is to be done within this year but as yet there is no date set. If the government see A9 safety as key why are we still waiting?

2. Several communities along the A9 from Stirling to Inverness have campaigned for better junctions. If you drive the road in the dark it is sometimes quite difficult to see the junction and maybe some improved solar cats eyes or lighting might help, the usual response to this is we do not light junctions but this has be done in other areas eg A90.

3. Many of the existing signs are small and unlit when the road changes from Dual to Single Carriage Way . The introduction of Solar powered illuminated signage may help to help ensure drivers keep on the correct side of the road.

4. Several accident have been on the Dualled stretch of the A9 between Perth and Dunblane, these junction need to be improved to full graded separated junction as the communities using these junction have significantly grown since the road was dualled.


I believe all these solutions are relatively low cost compared to the dualing option and if Scottish Government were serious about safety they would be implementing them now whilst developing their plans for dualling.

I do agress there is need for investment in the Rail infrastructure and more frieght should be transferred to the rail network - maybe someone can work with the whisky industry to move their freight onto the rail newtowk.

[Andrew Fraser]

A9? Scotland's most dangerous road? What rubbish! There's no longer any excuse for peddling nonsense like this. For years, relative risk on GB roads - and those of many other European countries - have been published by the Road Safety Foundation:

http://www.roadsafetyfoundation.org/media/27943/rrm_britain_06-10_-_scotland_region.pdf

And surely we're all now aware that speed cameras and their ilk are the worst possible way of solving our road problems. Haven't we all read Helen Wells? Time we stopped pretending there's no problem with it.

The biggest danger to road safety in this country is the slide back into what Oliver Carsten termed "blame and train" - but that's where we're going.

Nan - God bless her - has the right idea ... but government clearly doesn't want to know. Why? let's put Riddoch on the case ....