Plans for a third Menai bridge will not go ahead, nor major M4 improvements or the controversial £300m Red Route in Flintshire.
Of around 55 road projects placed under review, just 17 were green-lighted and even those come with recommendations for further modifications.
The publication of the Welsh government’s National Transport Plan follows a year-long review.
Deputy Climate Change Minister Lee Waters said the time had come to set the direction for the future of transport in Wales.
He also blamed funding cuts and inflation for curbing the programme.
He told the Welsh Senedd: “We will not get to Net Zero unless we stop doing the same thing over and over.”
“When we published the Wales Transport Strategy two years ago, we committed to start upon a llwybr newydd – a new path.
Waters said: “The publication of this Roads Review, along with the National Transport Delivery Plan, and our new Roads Policy Statement, represents a major step forward on that journey.”
The Roads Review Panel consisted of an independent expert group tasked with assessing the present programme against the new roads policy for a modal shift in transport towards net zero.
Waters said: “Let me be very clear at the outset, we will still invest in roads – but we are raising the bar for where new roads are the right response to transport problems.
“We are also investing in real alternatives, including investment in rail, bus, walking and cycling projects.
“Of course, doing that in an age of austerity is very challenging. Not only are we not getting our share of HS2 investment, but the UK Government is pushing many bus services over a cliff edge, as well as slashing our capital investment budgets.
“Even if we’d wanted to keep progressing all the road schemes in the pipeline we just do not have the money to do so.
“Our capital budget will be 8% lower next year in real terms as a result of the UK Government’s failure to invest in infrastructure.”
The panel also set out four new road building tests to apply when considering investment in future proposals.
Going forward, the Welsh Government will only consider future road investment for projects that:
- Reduce carbon emissions and support a shift to public transport, walking and cycling
- improve safety through small-scale change
- help the Welsh Government adapt to the impacts of climate change
- provide connections to jobs and areas of economic activity in a way that maximises the use of public transport, walking and cycling
In developing schemes, the focus should be on minimising carbon emissions, not increasing road capacity, not increasing emissions through higher vehicle speeds and not adversely affecting ecologically valuable sites.
