LONDON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Britain will abandon its target on Tuesday for cutting congestion on the roads as its transport strategy frays at the seams, according to government sources.
Last week, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling pledged to widen crowded main roads as part of a road-building drive on a scale not seen for years as progress on public transport has proved elusive.
A day later, the Strategic Rail Authority said 33.5 billion pounds ($53 billion) allocated to the rail network in the government's 10-year transport plan was already running short and that major expansion projects may be shelved.
Now, government sources say, Darling is poised to drop a central plank of that plan -- a pledge to cut road congestion by six percent over the decade.
One official, who said he will make a written parliamentary statement, said the target was no longer feasible.
Prime Minister Tony Blair took power in 1997 declaring he would curb car use by radically improving public transport.
Five years on roads are as congested as ever, the firm that ran Britain's rail infrastructure plunged into administration, train crashes have cost lives and plans to part-privatise London's crumbling underground rail network remain in turmoil.
Blair's deputy, John Prescott, famously said in 1997 he would have failed if over five years more people were not using public transport and far fewer car journeys were being made.
But Prescott had to wait three years until he was allowed to launch the government's 10-year blueprint which pledged more than 180 billion pounds for transport, much of it going to rail.
"The government's 10-year transport plan is now an utter shambles," Conservative transport spokesman Tim Collins said.
Britain's main employers group, the Confederation of British Industry, called for the government to pump in more funds.
It estimates that the cost of the plan had risen from 180 billion to 195 billion pounds, the bulk of which was desperately needed by the railways.
"It is now clear that the current budget will not deliver all promised improvements," CBI Director General Digby Jones said. "But business does not want this plan torn to shreds. It would be tragic to squander this once in a lifetime opportunity to cure Britain's transport headache."