Should our canals be made into roads?

[Mister_H]

Canals are often the most direct routes for connecting major built up conurbations, yet all these major convenient major routes are wasted and mostly preserved to appease the eco types / champagne socialists and other selfish rich elitists who want a boat along with their nice home in the suburbs.

 

Canals are man made and was originally designed solely to move goods and people, at present they're redundant and would go along way to ease congestion and could easily be concreted roads for light traffic.

 

There are many reasons why converting canals to roads would be pointless and would not serve as good routes for roads. They are far too narrow...modern roads at a minimum need to have space for three lanes, similar to the the Stocksbridge bypass at a minimum and trunk roads often need to be dual carraigeways. Many canals are built on the contour to stay level as much as possible. That means that many of them are very circuitous. This would create numerous dangerous blind bends following these routes would require very low speed limits. And what government would go to the considerable expense and engineering to do it for "light traffic" restricted to 20-30 mph?

 

The canal system is a well used resource for leisure and in some cases freight. Users of the canals include walkers, cyclists and canoists from all backgrounds and classes. Many boat users are far from being "champagne socialists" and "rich elitists" most of the boats you see on the canals are acquired after decades of saving by the their owners. Thousands of people hire boats for their holidays each year. All this feeds a lot of money into the economy, especially in rural areas.

 

Canals are part of our industrial heritage and were the first catalyst for the industrial revolution. In my view that's a heritage that should be preserved. They are a unique habitat for wildlife and provide much loved and used green space in many of our cities and rural areas.

 

I personally think the idea of converting canals to roads is bonkers.