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He also said "much of [£10bn spent on roads is spent] on anti-car traffic calming schemes, priority measures for buses and cyclists and so on."

At the beginning of October Dr Wellings was involved in an exchange on Twitter where he said cyclists are “low-value”, don’t pay for roads and “delay traffic”. Dr Wellings is often wheeled out by the BBC as a commentator on transport matters. He has appeared before the transport select committee and is lauded by MPs, including Angela Leadsom, the MP who last year wanted to bring in a ‘dangerous cycling’ bill.

Dr Wellings is no fan of cycling:

“Removing underused cycle and bus priority measures will increase efficiency of the network…Uneconomic cycling priority measures…impose major time losses on motorists. Another problem is that cyclists fill up gaps in traffic due to slower speed, delaying motorists at junctions."

Despite having a PhD and supposedly being an expert on transport, Dr Wellings doesn't seem to know that roads are paid by all tax payers, not just motorists as he said:

"Maybe cyclists should pay to use cycle lanes – can’t see why taxpayers should be forced to subsidise them."

In his report he wrote "…bicycles, horses, pedestrians and so on" are "users who currently may not pay anything to use the road space."

And cycle lanes should be grubbed up not because they are famously crap but because the vast amount of money spent on them (!) is wasted on uneconomic losers: “Lots of cycle lanes are barely used. Vast amounts of money and road space wasted on a tiny minority of (often low-value) users.”

In his opinion, British cities have not been greatly modified to accommodate motor traffic. Far from it. According to Dr Wellings “strict planning regulations have prevented British cities from adapting to cars.”

Dr Wellings believes "motorists have tended to have little influence over transport policy in recent decades" and he no fan of anybody who thinks motorists ought to slow down a bit:

“A free market in transport would mean ending the state control and ownership of roads. Decisions regarding the deployment of speed cameras would be the responsibility of private road owners. These individuals would have to consider customer preferences for both speed and safety. Thus private road owners would probably focus on the wants of motorists rather than the demands of the road safety lobby. Since slower roads could mean a reduction in profits, as drivers switched to alternative routes, it seems likely that private road owners would avoid arbitrary reductions in the speed limit……There is no necessary role for government in the provision of speed limits or to ensure that motorists are registered, insured and trained. Moreover, road owners would…have a strong incentive not to introduce measures that were unpopular with drivers.”

In the current report Dr Wellings said road privatisation would be opposed by many but that "voter-taxpayers will appreciate lower taxes, whereas voter-drivers will appreciate shorter commuting or journey times and lower-cost fuel."

He doesn't feel privatised roads would lead to less rights for non-motorised road users: "it's likely that rights of way for pedestrians, bicycles and horses would be preserved without charge, even though they would impose costs on road owners and motorists."

Last week the National Audit Office warned the Coalition Government that highway decentralisation could involve “risks”.

Largely local administration of roads would be a reversal of 110 years of national stewardship. In 1903, the Roads Improvements Association – an organisation created in 1886 by CTC and the forerunner to British Cycling – successfully lobbied the Government of the day to, in effect, nationalise the roads of Great Britain. Prior to this, roads were the responsibility of hundreds of local authorities, with an appalling disparity in quality of road upkeep from parish to parish, region to region.

The creation of a central highway authority was brought about thanks to the dogged insistence of a cycling official, Williams Rees Jeffreys. In 1900 he was elected a member of the Council of the Cyclists’ Touring Club and by 1901 was CTC’s representative on the Council of the Roads Improvement Association. He wanted the RIA to push for a “a Central Highway Authority and a State grant for highway purposes.”

In the 1940s, British Prime Minister Lloyd George said William Rees Jeffreys was “the greatest authority on roads in the United Kingdom and one of the greatest in the whole world.” Rees Jeffreys became the first secretary of the Roads Board, founded in 1910. This was the first central authority for roads in Great Britain since the Romans. The Roads Board later became part of the newly-formed Ministry of Transport, which has now become the Department for Transport.

If our current Government presses on with their localism agenda – and perhaps even allows roads to pass into private ownership – the hard work and vision of Rees Jeffreys and others could be undone.

Meanwhile, in America, Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, has said roads are not just for cars, and that cyclists and pedestrians are “more important” than motorists.