Current large road building projects

[ABB125]

You do have to think what's between Manchester and Sheffield though. Would have to be a tunnel, basically, if you want to avoid negatively impacting the Peak District too much. It's much shorter, of course, but the Hindhead Tunnel is a rare example of a road scheme that has actually improved the environment. Then again, the Alps has far longer tunnels, so if they can do it in the Alps, why not the Peak District? I guess that UK spending-averse ethic that other countries don't seem to have so much is the likely reason...

As you've mentioned, it's been done in the Alps (and various other challenging environments). The Peak District shouldn't pose any significant engineering challenges (though there geology might need careful route planning, given the case of the Mam Tor road). The main challenge (like everything else in this country) is political will to spend money on infrastructure

Could they somehow re-use Woodhead as a road tunnel? Could they have done that 40 years ago?

I believe it was considered as part of the M67 planning, but in any case you'd only be able to fit 2 lanes in Woodhead 3 so an additional tunnel would be needed regardless.

 

[AlastairFraser]

As you've mentioned, it's been done in the Alps (and various other challenging environments). The Peak District shouldn't pose any significant engineering challenges (though there geology might need careful route planning, given the case of the Mam Tor road). The main challenge (like everything else in this country) is political will to spend money on infrastructure

I believe it was considered as part of the M67 planning, but in any case you'd only be able to fit 2 lanes in Woodhead 3 so an additional tunnel would be needed regardless.

Perhaps you could build 2 new bore Woodhead rail tunnels (the current tunnels are used for National Grid infrastructure I believe) and use a car transporter to take cars to Stockbridge from a spur rail line near Hattersley. You'd also be able to run 1-2tph passenger services per hour.

 

[DelW]

Why do we need such a large highway through the Cotswolds when we definitely didn't in the past (as I said, in the 80s we occasionally travelled via the M5, A435 and M4 as an alternative and slower 'scenic route' from the Midlands to the South, and it definitely wasn't busy - at the time the A417 didn't even have an M5 junction, hence this routing). Is it worth degrading that part of the Cotswolds when the really large traffic flows could go via the M40/A34 or the M5?

There are (and have been for years) regularly long queues of slow moving traffic northbound at the end of the dual carriageway section south of Birdlip. Traffic today is much heavier than it was in the 1980s, particularly lorry traffic. Going via M4 and M5 transfers the flow onto the very congested section north of Bristol, going via A34 transfers it to the equally congested area west and north of Oxford.

The scheme does also include some bridges to reconnect areas that were effectively severed by the old route, for both people and wildlife.

I wonder if there was a lot of local opposition, another poster mentioned the Air Balloon pub for example.

I have never called into the Air Balloon, but out of town roadhouses like that have struggled ever since drink driving laws were enforced more strictly.

Is the M25 / A3 upgrade at Wisley done and dusted now?

Basically yes, though there were still some finishing and landscaping works ongoing last time I went through there.

Neither of those I would class as major projects under my personal road scheme classification system. Especially the A3: let's spend an extortionate amount of money to make a signalised roundabout slightly bigger* to reduce the length of the queues (by making the queues wider instead...).

Keeping the left-turning traffic flows clear of the roundabout and its traffic signals is a significant improvement, although I agree it was a very expensive scheme.

 

[The exile]

As you've mentioned, it's been done in the Alps (and various other challenging environments). The Peak District shouldn't pose any significant engineering challenges (though there geology might need careful route planning, given the case of the Mam Tor road). The main challenge (like everything else in this country) is political will to spend money on infrastructure

The other difference is that in general in this country, large scale projects such as tunnelling in the main will only improve something that is already possible but sub-optimal as opposed to making something possible / viable in the first place. Compare that with what tunnels in Norway /Switzerland have done.

 

[HSTEd]

Well if we could have a Manchester-Sheffield road tunnel, the A57 could be allowed to go the way of Mam Tor, which is a direction its already going.

But the current project might help the living standards of the people living in the area Mottram in Longendale - I can't imagine what living in that village must be like.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Well if we could have a Manchester-Sheffield road tunnel, the A57 could be allowed to go the way of Mam Tor, which is a direction its already going.

But the current project might help the living standards of the people living in the area Mottram in Longendale - I can't imagine what living in that village must be like.

Indeed, and it could be fairly easy to build a Hollingworth bypass from midway along the Mottram bypass if funding is found.

 

[Noddy]

I had a look after my post and it seems to blast right through the escarpment. I do wonder why this route even needs a large highway. Traffic from the Midlands and North to the Central South (Berkshire, Hampshire etc) would go via the M40/A34. Traffic from the Midlands and North to Bristol, South Wales, Devon and Cornwall would stick to the M5.

One word: Safety. The current road is a death trap.

From a Gloucestershire Live (sorry!) report in 2019:

Home Office figures show a total of 75 people have either lost their lives or suffered severe injuries leaving or approaching the roundabout, which serves as one of the main arteries into the county from the M4 and Swindon.


The figures from the last 19 years do not include serious crashes in 2018 where there have been at least a further two fatal crashes, meaning a total of 13 crashes have occurred where at least one person has been killed.

The shocking number of casualties claimed at this county junction

The route is has seen a large number of serious injuries and deaths

www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk

And these are just the really serious accidents with deaths or major life changing injuries. There are many more ‘lucky escapes’ with only ‘minor’ injuries and written off vehicles.

 

[ABB125]

Vaguely on topic for this thread, the Newark bypass upgrade appears to have been halted: National Highways have cancelled their contract with Skanska (construction contractor):

Highways chiefs axe Skanska’s £300m A46 Newark bypass contract

Long-delayed scheme placed on hold for another rethink

www.constructionenquirer.com

Not much available as yet in the way of reasoning behind this. But I suspect it may be related to the new (traffic light controlled) roundabout that has just been built just south of Newark. Spend a large sum of money on improvements, only for all the benefits to be lost by a new roundabout...

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Vaguely on topic for this thread, the Newark bypass upgrade appears to have been halted: National Highways have cancelled their contract with Skanska (construction contractor):

Highways chiefs axe Skanska’s £300m A46 Newark bypass contract

Long-delayed scheme placed on hold for another rethink

www.constructionenquirer.com

Not much available as yet in the way of reasoning behind this. But I suspect it may be related to the new (traffic light controlled) roundabout that has just been built just south of Newark. Spend a large sum of money on improvements, only for all the benefits to be lost by a new roundabout...

Is this part of the current road projects halt to divert money into defence?

 

[ABB125]

Is this part of the current road projects halt to divert money into defence?

Possibly, although I believe there is a quote from National Highways somewhere saying that they're going to procure a new contractor. All very vague (just like the "announcement" about road and energy projects having funding diverted to defence)
But we all know that cancelling infrastructure projects is a great idea...

 

[Strathclyder]

The only major ongoing road project in Scotland at the moment I can think of is the A9 dualing project as already mentioned above.

All the others that come to mind all come from the last 10 to 15 years, have all been finished and are now bedded in: the Queensferry Crossing, the M74 Extension, the M8 Extension from Baillieston to Newhouse (part of the wider programme of improvement works for the M8, M73 & M74, completed in June 2017) and the Renfrew Bridge which was opened last May (the newest Clyde road crossing since the Clyde Arc aka the Squinty Bridge was opened in 2006).

 

[ABB125]

Is this part of the current road projects halt to divert money into defence?

Possibly, although I believe there is a quote from National Highways somewhere saying that they're going to procure a new contractor. All very vague (just like the "announcement" about road and energy projects having funding diverted to defence)
But we all know that cancelling infrastructure projects is a great idea...

It appears to have now been confirmed that Newark is one of the casualties of the increased defence spending; the other is the A38 roundabouts in Derby (which I seem to think was cancelled by Chris Grayling on some rather dubious grounds and then restarted a few years later?)

 

[jimm]

I had a look after my post and it seems to blast right through the escarpment. I do wonder why this route even needs a large highway. Traffic from the Midlands and North to the Central South (Berkshire, Hampshire etc) would go via the M40/A34. Traffic from the Midlands and North to Bristol, South Wales, Devon and Cornwall would stick to the M5.

Why do we need such a large highway through the Cotswolds when we definitely didn't in the past (as I said, in the 80s we occasionally travelled via the M5, A435 and M4 as an alternative and slower 'scenic route' from the Midlands to the South, and it definitely wasn't busy - at the time the A417 didn't even have an M5 junction, hence this routing). Is it worth degrading that part of the Cotswolds when the really large traffic flows could go via the M40/A34 or the M5?

Try asking people living in Gloucester, Cheltenham and station-less Cirencester why it needs a 'large highway'. This work is nothing to do with encouraging traffic from the Midlands to go that way. It's about tackling what has been an obvious problem ever since the A419/A417 was dualled between Swindon and Birdlip in the 1990s.

Quite apart from the trunk road traffic trying to get through, the Air Balloon roundabout and the section dow to the foot of the Cotswold ridge was a chokepoint for traffic trying to get from the Cirencester to Gloucester and the North and from the North Cotswolds to the M5 to head south and into Gloucester. The tailbacks from the old roundabout back up the A436 were notorious, to put it mildly. There was no rush whatever about the rush hour in a miles-long queue trailing back towards Seven Springs.

Its the last missing piece of dual carriageway between J11A on the M5 and the M4 at Swindon.

It was said after the A419/A417 Swindon to Birdlip dualling was completed that the section between Birdlip and the bottom of the hill was the only section of road that was not a dual carriageway or motorway-type road all the way from Bari at the bottom of Italy all the way to Gloucester (making allowance for the Chunnel transfer needed from Calais to Folkestone).

 

[TrackWatch]

I think relatively speaking, in terms of length and complexity, the A428/A421 changes between the Black Cat (St Neots) and Caxton Gibbet is one of the bigger current projects.

But I’d agree, there are projects playing catch up - like M3 J9 Winchester (that @Harpo mentioned earlier) are basically rectifying original design flaws. I think the A34 should have been a freeflow junction when the M3 was first built.

It used to be freeflow between the old A33 Winchester bypass dual carriageway and the split to A34 or continue on A33 towards Basingstoke. So M3 completion downgraded this freeflow movement as to move between the new M3 and A34 introduced the junction 9 roundabout. Once past the j9 roundabout, the old freeflow remained.

Aside from the new section of M3 bypassing the old A33 from Popham to Winnall, the new interchange arrangements from M3 to A34 were very much a downgrade. Only in the UK...

 

[swt_passenger]

It used to be freeflow between the old A33 Winchester bypass dual carriageway and the split to A34 or continue on A33 towards Basingstoke. So M3 completion downgraded this freeflow movement as to move between the new M3 and A34 introduced the junction 9 roundabout. Once past the j9 roundabout, the old freeflow remained.

Aside from the new section of M3 bypassing the old A33 from Popham to Winnall, the new interchange arrangements from M3 to A34 were very much a downgrade. Only in the UK...

Yes I agree. The odd thing is, I used to join the A33 from the then A333 at Hockley lights, (huge queues there), and then head northbound on the A34 regularly, back in the 70s, and I don’t really remember any significant delays passing through what must have been a flat junction at Winnall (that became J9). I suppose that must have been a much less busy junction back then, with no industrial estates, no Tescos etc. Old maps suggest in the 60s it was a pair of staggered T junctions, I can’t even remember if there were traffic lights…

 

[DM352]

It appears to have now been confirmed that Newark is one of the casualties of the increased defence spending; the other is the A38 roundabouts in Derby (which I seem to think was cancelled by Chris Grayling on some rather dubious grounds and then restarted a few years later?)

I hope at least the middle A38 roundabout with the Ashbourne road will get sorted as it was at a standstill yesterday before rush hour. The nearby houses boarded up are also still there opposite the park now looking worse for wear.

I do prefer rail but this is one road that has needed finishing since the 70s when they truncated the test track for it to install the first roundabout.