Foundation director on The Infrastructure Podcast
Those in charge of running our most important roads must increasingly turn their attention to looking after the assets they already manage rather than seeking to add new parts to the network.
That is just one of the observations the director Steve Gooding has made in the latest episode of The Infrastructure Podcast.
Steve Gooding told the show’s host Antony Oliver how he endorsed the approach of National Highways as it prepares for Road Investment Strategy (RIS) 3 of switching attention away from “enhancement towards resilience of the existing network.”
He said this was necessary for two reasons:
“One is about climate resilience and the changing weather patterns we have and the impact they have and the other is that a lot of the structure and the construction of the National Highways network dates back, as do I, to the early 1960s and like me it needs a bit of work to keep it going.”
Steve Gooding also noted that perception was perhaps more important than reality when it came to the availability of public chargepoints for electric vehicles, and that too great a focus on the headline number of chargers would miss things that still worried motorists about their availability: “some of them are working and some of them aren’t. And some of them have someone hooked up them already and some haven’t. Some are easier to use than others. It is a mixed picture.”
Gooding said that he hadn’t yet gone electric himself but had experienced the challenges of recharging during a recent road trip round the south east of England in a plug-in vehicle which has been written up in a recent report.
ENDS
Contact:
Philip Gomm – Head of External Communications – RAC Foundation
[email protected] | 07711 776448
Notes to editors:
The RAC Foundation is a transport policy and research organisation which explores the economic, mobility, safety and environmental issues relating to roads and their users.
The Foundation publishes independent and authoritative research with which it promotes informed debate and advocates policy in the interest of the responsible motorist. For more information visit: https://www.racfoundation.org.