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missing links
It's become very popular among roadbuilding advocates to describe what they're asking for as a "missing link". Dual carriageway up Crickley Hill, Leeds Inner Ring Road to the M621, the "Cumberland Gap" (M6), Widmerpool to Newark A46. There are so many schemes in Scotland described as "the missing link in Scotland's road network" that it's amazing any roads are joined up at all: a 10km stretch of the A8 in Glasgow, the road between the Forth Road Bridge and Newbridge, Edinburgh, Ellon to Balmedie etc etc. But there are infinite places you can point to on a map and say, "wouldn't it be good if there was a road joining this and this", and paradoxically the more roads are built, the greater becomes this infinity. Similarly, as roads are dualled, the statistical likelihood of a journey involving dual carriageway goes up, so the number of bits you could describe as missing links goes up. It's a red queens race.
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