The Government are reluctant to do anything that is seen as unpopular when it comes to roads. There is an old saying in politics; 'Never get involved with parking or dogs' as it divides the nation pretty equally.
When governments say that they want to reduce congestion everyone agrees, but disagree violently on how to do it.
Some want more and wider roads. This upsets the environmental lobby as it encourages more cars to use the now clearer roads (and usually just causes worse problems somewhere else on the system).
Some want greater restrictions on driving, such as road pricing, which makes drivers pay for the roads they use according to the time of day and level of congestion. This was simply hinted at in 2007 and caused nearly two million to sign a petition opposing a policy that was yet to be proposed by any party.
A compromise that might be more acceptable is to charge tolls on new roads. Most people seem to back the idea of not raising taxes further and so this is the only way to build new roads.
But is this an integrated transport policy? A series of tolled and non-tolled roads might not work at all. Drivers may cram on to the non-tolled roads to avoid the charge causing even worse congestion in areas not designed for heavy traffic.
The M6 toll road (the Birmingham Northern Relief Road) is a case in point. Opened in 2004 the latest figures show it carrying just 39,000 vehicles a day, almost half the predicted 74,000 a day when it was planned. The rest continue to battle each other for space on the congested M6 to the south.
Toll roads may be a convenient way of avoiding the problems of fiscal policy faced by the UK at present, but it lacks the broader and deeper thinking required to meet the challenge of the 21st Century.