Northern England looks forward to a M6 without jams

There was a watery winter sun to brighten Tim Jackson's journey down the M6 yesterday but he was struggling to find much consolation in it. The notorious six-lane section from junction 20 to junction 11always looks the same to the 47-year-old delivery van driver. "Tedious, maddening, never any different," Mr Jackson said of it while stopping in south Cheshire.

Transport Secretary Alistair Darling's decision to recommend widening of the M6 to four lanes each way between the Midlands and Manchester was described by motoring groups yesterday as an "early Christmas present", but Mr Jackson is aware of how the environmental lobby doesn't tend to take these issues lightly. "We've been talking about this for 10 years or so ... it won't be an overnight wonder."

He's right. The consultants Arup – who spent two years studying M6 jams between Cannock, Staffordshire, and Lymm, Cheshire before advising the Government to make a 47-mile section of it eight lanes wide – concluded the work would probably take six years and cost about £650m.

Businessman David Piggot-Smith, who uses the motorway regularly, has worries about the cost, with Arup's report suggesting a £2.50 toll, paid at any entry point, making the M6 the first public toll motorway in Britain. "There's no quicker or more effective way to the Midlands," said Mr Piggot-Smith, 51. "Those of us who drive a lot are going to feel it in the pocket." But some in the business community feel that tolls may be worth it if they make Northern England easier to reach. Arup concluded that the unreliability of the M6, which carries up to 90,000 vehicles an hour, was affecting the North's "economic health".

Widening will certainly not solve all the M6's problems. Though it is expected to boost capacity by 34 per cent, traffic flows are predicted to grow by 43 per cent over the next 30 years. That lends weight to another motorist's observation, "The trains need to be right first. All the freight seems to go by road and if the railway system were better we could have less of those awful lorries," said Judith Nolton, 63.

There was some evidence of integrated transport solutions in Mr Darling's announcements, with 35 miles of extensions to Greater Manchester's Metrolink tram service getting the go-ahead. The cost of new lines out to Oldham, Rochdale, Manchester Airport and Ashton-under-Lyne will be £800m.