ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the predict and provide rationale explains the focus of government policy in the post-war period, in which the priority has been to expand the road network in response to increasing congestion and the rapid growth of road transport. The protests had little lasting impact either on the balance of power between the insider and outsider groups or on the ideas orthodoxy which had dominated the politics of transport from the inter-war period. The chapter argues that the road lobby has been able to maintain its status as an insider group during post-war period simply because the structural imperatives of the state and the policy objectives of all governments in the post-war era have happened to reflect the objectives of the pro-roads groups. However, by the mid-1980s, the agenda setting process began to be affected by an increase in public concern over the environmental impact of road vehicles.
