Better planning and evaluation of road schemes is needed, given the five-year-early surpassing of predicted traffic levels for three controversial bypasses, according to countryside advocates. Traffic on the Newbury, Blackburn southern, and Polegate bypasses has grown by as much as 56%, while traffic reductions on the town centre routes bypassed have not been as great as expected. The findings come from research carried out for the Countryside Agency and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Researchers found that the amount of induced traffic encouraged on to the three new roads was much higher than the local highways authorities or Highways Agency had predicted – 46% higher in the case of the Newbury bypass after six years. Meanwhile, traffic has crept back up on the roads they bypassed, already exceeding the estimate for 2010 at Newbury, and up 9% in Polegate after three years. An analysis of 10 of the 12 one-year after ‘post opening project evaluation’ studies which have been produced to date found traffic volumes had increased by 10-35% compared with the volumes on the old roads they replaced. This provides ‘a strong case to consider the issue of induced traffic in more detail in future evaluations’. The POPEs do not, on the whole, comment on whether above-trend traffic growth was anticipated, nor do they investigate how much of the growth is due to re-routing of local traffic. Chief executive of the Countryside Agency, Graham Garbutt, said: ‘We need to be sure the effects of building new roads are fully understood.’ And Rebecca Lush, co-ordinator for anti-road group Road Block, said the report was a ‘vindication’ for the thousands of people who protested against the building of the Newbury bypass. • Beyond transport infrastructure. Lessons for the future. : http://www.surveyormagazine.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=archive.featuredetail&IsPaper=true&articleID=3144