A82 Dunglass Roundabout to Dumbarton Fork

[Dunragit]

Between Dunglass Roundabout and Dumbarton Fork the A82 is the only road available. Along the rest of the route from Glasgow to Tarbet, there's the A814 acting as a local access road. A blockage between these two junctions would mean traffic within the Strathclyde commuter region needing to go all the way up to Drymen to get around it.

The land between these junctions was previously an Esso oil terminal and there has been a long-term project to get the site decontaminated and ready for other development. The council has now approved its plans to redevelop it for light commercial and industrial use.

As part of this, the gap in the A814 will be filled with the new development access road. The Dumbarton Fork junction will be totally rebuilt for full access between the two parallel routes, while the Dunglass Roundabout will be upgraded to handle more traffic using the A814 exit.

The site masterplan is available at https://plandocs.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/ ... No=4457521 alongside other documents on the West Dunbartonshire Council planning portal as planning reference DC20/088.

[Bryn666]

Seems reasonable enough. Given resilience and access to NW Scotland from Glasgow is an ongoing problem it's a rare example of an acceptable development road being plonked in.

Now if the utterly substandard A82 up to Tarbet could be fixed as well that would be grand.

[OLD GIT]

Bryn - I still remember that section from over 50 years ago, and today's version is quite an upgrade

[jackal]

Thanks for the info - I went through here yesterday as it happens. But I'm afraid these proposals make things worse than the (dire) status quo.

Note in particular that Dumbarton Fork currently only has one set of lights in both directions and prohibits the (unnecessary) right turn off the A82, so conflicts are minimized and the A82 is only held up for the right turn off the A814. Of course a GSJ would be better but if you have to go with an at-grade junction, you want to keep right turns (and the delay and danger they bring) to a minimum, as the current design does.

The proposal replaces this arrangement with an absurd hamburger-style cut through with two sets of lights impeding the A82 and conflicts aplenty. This is to allow the right turn off the A82 into the new development site. So the main strategic access to the Dumbarton, the Vale of Leven and the whole of Argyll is sacrificed for developer profit. Yippee!

Dunglass roundabout is also signalised, so strategic traffic is again sacrificed for access to the new development. Likewise A82 capacity is sacrificed for a new movement into the development site (westbound off the A82).



You'll see as well that the drawing above conveniently 'forgets' about the A82 through Milton. This is a real horror show with multiple narrow reserve gaps and property accesses flying at you from all angles on a road with 50,000 AADT. Go along here if you fancy a white knuckle ride: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.93595 ... 384!8i8192

The problem isn't just that the design ignores Milton, but that it makes it unlikely if not impossible that it will ever be fixed. The rational improvement is to bypass Milton with a high quality A82 alignment between Dunglass Rbt and Dumbarton Fork, crossing the railway twice. Some parts of the development, such as the new bridge near Dumbarton Fork, are plainly in the way of such a bypass, lumbering the residents of Milton with motorway-like traffic levels (in fact much more than the M8 across the Clyde at Bishopton) going through their village in perpetuity.

It is simply absurd to suppose that putting a local access road (called "A814") the other side of the railway helps the A82 when no traffic currently going between Dunglass Rbt and Dumbarton Fork would actually divert to it. The access road is very indirect and has half a dozen or so at-grade junction, so is evidently only of use for, you guessed it, accessing the development. In terms of the trunk road it is only a hindrance due to the aforementioned additional movements and conflicts, and the barrier to a Milton bypass that it poses.

If this has been approved by Transport Scotland they have confirmed their status as rubberstamping vassals of developer greed.

[swissferry]

Media reports over the years have suggested this will redevelop a brown field site and relieve congestion on the A82. I reckoned it could do one or the other but was sceptical it could do both. Now that I've seen the plans it looks like it will redevelop a brown field site but increase congestion on the A82. Depending on light phasing it may help A814 traffic from Dumbarton though the stacking space is limited. It does give the alternative of joining at Dunglass, again impeding the A82. Not sure if it will help or hinder the quarry exit at Dunglass. The signalised roundabout may slow the traffic but suspect it will be more difficult for quarry traffic to find safe gaps to emerge without additional signals unless the roundabout becomes as grid locked as the other signalised ones on the A82 in Dumbarton.

I would have preferred removing the Dumbarton Fork and turning Dunglass into a GSJ.

[Dunragit]

Thanks for the info - I went through here yesterday as it happens. But I'm afraid these proposals make things worse than the (dire) status quo.

Note in particular that Dumbarton Fork currently only has one set of lights in both directions and prohibits the (unnecessary) right turn off the A82, so conflicts are minimized and the A82 is only held up for the right turn off the A814. Of course a GSJ would be better but if you have to go with an at-grade junction, you want to keep right turns (and the delay and danger they bring) to a minimum, as the current design does.

The proposal replaces this arrangement with an absurd hamburger-style cut through with two sets of lights impeding the A82 and conflicts aplenty. This is to allow the right turn off the A82 into the new development site. So the main strategic access to the Dumbarton, the Vale of Leven and the whole of Argyll is sacrificed for developer profit. Yippee!

Dunglass roundabout is also signalised, so strategic traffic is again sacrificed for access to the new development. Likewise A82 capacity is sacrificed for a new movement into the development site (westbound off the A82).



You'll see as well that the drawing above conveniently 'forgets' about the A82 through Milton. This is a real horror show with multiple narrow reserve gaps and property accesses flying at you from all angles on a road with 50,000 AADT. Go along here if you fancy a white knuckle ride: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.93595 ... 384!8i8192

The problem isn't just that the design ignores Milton, but that it makes it unlikely if not impossible that it will ever be fixed. The rational improvement is to bypass Milton with a high quality A82 alignment between Dunglass Rbt and Dumbarton Fork, crossing the railway twice. Some parts of the development, such as the new bridge near Dumbarton Fork, are plainly in the way of such a bypass, lumbering the residents of Milton with motorway-like traffic levels (in fact much more than the M8 across the Clyde at Bishopton) going through their village in perpetuity.

It is simply absurd to suppose that putting a local access road (called "A814") the other side of the railway helps the A82 when no traffic currently going between Dunglass Rbt and Dumbarton Fork would actually divert to it. The access road is very indirect and has half a dozen or so at-grade junction, so is evidently only of use for, you guessed it, accessing the development. In terms of the trunk road it is only a hindrance due to the aforementioned additional movements and conflicts, and the barrier to a Milton bypass that it poses.

If this has been approved by Transport Scotland they have confirmed their status as rubberstamping vassals of developer greed.

I think the council are the developer. There's a wider project about regenerating the Clydeside, and I'm not sure how well a motorway-like bypass would have worked with that. The A82 won't ever be free-flowing because Dumbarton spilled out across it a long, long time ago, and geography prevents it being redirected to the north or south. I think in Transport Scotland's mind, there's little point trying to speed up long distance strategic journeys through Dumbarton when those same strategic journeys will hit the horrors north and west of Tarbet anyway. A 40mph dual carriageway with lots of central reservation gaps is heaven compared to the Rest and Be Thankful!

If you wanted to improve strategic access to Argyll and beyond, then bolder interventions like a Clyde estuary tunnel seem more worthwhile. There's only so much improvement you can make to the A82 given the circuitous route caused by the sea lochs.

[jackal]

The A83 west of Tarbet is no more an excuse for the substandard A82 through Newton than the A77 at Maybole was an excuse for the substandard A77 at Fenwick (pre-M77).

As its name suggests, a lot of traffic exits at Dumbarton Fork as it's the main access point to the main town in the area. Volumes are much lower after that so it's the natural point to end the high quality route linking to the M8 over the Erskine Bridge. The fact that a high quality route has to end somewhere is not a reason against taking it as far as it's needed.

The whole point of Transport Scotland's existence is to take a more strategic and national perspective on transport than councils and developers (and councils masquerading as developers) are wont to do. I'm open to brownfield development but not at the cost of getting in the way of a bypass for an unsafe and congested 50k AADT trunk road through a village.

[Dunragit]

Milton is odd, though, in that it's entirely to the north of the A82. The buildings to the south are largely just westbound A82 services. If the interaction of local and long distance traffic became too problematic, you could solve it by shifting the A82 south by a carriageway, redeveloping the services onto a new access road, and turning the northern one into a local access road for Milton.

It's easy to criticise councils for adding in development-oriented junctions on trunk roads, but they're having to look at a wider picture than just traffic flows. How much economic damage is really done by slowing down traffic a little bit? Adding a little bit of congestion is hardly going to be the straw that broke the camel's back here for strategic journeys. From the local and national government's perspective, frustrating a car commuter into taking the 60-year-old, 4-6tph electric commuter train service into Glasgow instead is hardly a bad thing. The development potential of the site likely will be larger than the economic benefit of the dual carriageway bypassing Milton to the south, making waterfront development impossible (without the same sort of flow-inhibiting junctions).

[jackal]

Though the A82 is geographically on the south side of Newton it effectively splits it into western, central and eastern silos. For instance, Milton Brae to Hillview requires two right turns across the A82 mainline; Hillview to Colquhoun Rd would require a further two death-defying right turns across the A82 mainline.

It's an intolerable situation, and the bypass the only sensible solution. It would surely be on the agenda in England or up north where the SNP spend all the road budget.

Quite aside from the effect on Newton itself, the economic value of making 50,000 vehicles a day have more reliable, safer journeys is not difficult to imagine. For starters there are 10,000 HGVs and LGVs that can hardly get the train, nor can the bulk of car and bus users, who have start or end points away from stations. I would always get the train if going from central Glasgow to Dumbarton, say, but a train to Dumbarton is not a practical option even for most of Glasgow, and of course things are far worse for rural areas.

The train is lovely for the lucky few but the inherent limitations of the mode (great expense of lines and stations, hence limited coverage) mean it is not a realistic prospect for the majority. That's why cars have ten times the modal share in the UK and pretty much every European country. It's fantasy to think that the typical car user has an easy train ride to where they want to go but just needs to be nudged into using it.

[Bryn666]

The train is lovely for the lucky few but the inherent limitations of the mode (great expense of lines and stations, hence limited coverage) mean it is not a realistic prospect for the majority. That's why cars have ten times the modal share in the UK and pretty much every European country. It's fantasy to think that the typical car user has an easy train ride to where they want to go but just needs to be nudged into using it.

It's complete lack of ambition and imagination to say it "is fantasy to think" things can't be changed. Cities smaller than Glasgow have far more extensive rail, tram, and active travel infrastructure all across Europe, they are not all going "oh, well, everyone drives so why bother trying to change that".

You want to know what will be really economically damaging? Uncontrolled climate change fuelled by poor transport planning. 50,000 vehicles using the A82 will be a lot more economically affected if sea level rises cause this area to become subject to frequent floods. Even overall sea level rises of just 1 metre will see this development site in a high risk flood area without massive sea defence works.

Traffic resilience is a right and proper goal - but we should not be building lots of new capacity to encourage more driving whilst purposefully neglecting public transport and active travel options.

[Ritchie333]

It's complete lack of ambition and imagination to say it "is fantasy to think" things can't be changed. Cities smaller than Glasgow have far more extensive rail, tram, and active travel infrastructure all across Europe, they are not all going "oh, well, everyone drives so why bother trying to change that".

But Jackal did say that he takes the train where practical, for presumably the same reason I do - parking in city centres is such a ballache, it makes public transport attractive as it's far less stressful. But the West Highland Line cannot cope with the goods traffic served by the multitude of HGVs using the A82 and branch roads, who have to go that way because it's the only way to get stuff delivered.

It also doesn't help that Glasgow did have an extensive rail and tram network up to the 1960s, then half of it shut down.

[Bryn666]

It's complete lack of ambition and imagination to say it "is fantasy to think" things can't be changed. Cities smaller than Glasgow have far more extensive rail, tram, and active travel infrastructure all across Europe, they are not all going "oh, well, everyone drives so why bother trying to change that".

But Jackal did say that he takes the train where practical, for presumably the same reason I do - parking in city centres is such a ballache, it makes public transport attractive as it's far less stressful. But the West Highland Line cannot cope with the goods traffic served by the multitude of HGVs using the A82 and branch roads, who have to go that way because it's the only way to get stuff delivered.

It also doesn't help that Glasgow did have an extensive rail and tram network up to the 1960s, then half of it shut down.

Correct, wider strategic traffic into remote rural areas is always going to need roads as it did before railways came along, but we should remember the entire reason our urban cores exist is they were made feasible by decent radial public transport from adjacent areas. Blackburn for example didn't exist as a county borough until 1851, 4 years after it was connected to Manchester by a railway line. The canal and turnpikes didn't spur the growth in remotely the same way, most of the industry came on the back of trains - previously it was a religious centre and not much else, having been a mere ford on a Roman Road in early days.

We need to think bigger than just "driving" as a solution to problems. Planners aren't interested though, they want quick cheap wins to pat themselves on the back with. Nothing is planned beyond the current electoral cycle, and scant regard is given to the wider impacts, it's all about stupid metrics like journey times or nebulous £ returns which look good on spreadsheets but leave a toxic legacy environmentally, socially, and leave us all worse off in the long run.

The world is more than economist wet dreams. Until we realise this, we are on a collision course with extinction as a species. That's not hyperbole - the IPCC report this week is barely scraping the surface of the problems we have created.

[jackal]

The train is lovely for the lucky few but the inherent limitations of the mode (great expense of lines and stations, hence limited coverage) mean it is not a realistic prospect for the majority. That's why cars have ten times the modal share in the UK and pretty much every European country. It's fantasy to think that the typical car user has an easy train ride to where they want to go but just needs to be nudged into using it.

It's complete lack of ambition and imagination to say it "is fantasy to think" things can't be changed. Cities smaller than Glasgow have far more extensive rail, tram, and active travel infrastructure all across Europe, they are not all going "oh, well, everyone drives so why bother trying to change that".

If other countries' rail systems are so spectacular, why is it not in the numbers? The UK actually has higher than average rail modal share.

There's the utopian Europe imagined by British local transport planners, and then there's Europe as an actual place, with actual transport problems and trade offs much the same as the UK's. The former is a parochial reverie that we're better off without.

Yes, things can be changed, but that has to be evidence based and context specific, not tired old one-size-fits-all shibboleths. "Make everyone go on the train/cycle/walk like they do in fantasy Europe" doesn't get us anywhere.

[Bryn666]

The train is lovely for the lucky few but the inherent limitations of the mode (great expense of lines and stations, hence limited coverage) mean it is not a realistic prospect for the majority. That's why cars have ten times the modal share in the UK and pretty much every European country. It's fantasy to think that the typical car user has an easy train ride to where they want to go but just needs to be nudged into using it.

It's complete lack of ambition and imagination to say it "is fantasy to think" things can't be changed. Cities smaller than Glasgow have far more extensive rail, tram, and active travel infrastructure all across Europe, they are not all going "oh, well, everyone drives so why bother trying to change that".

If other countries' rail systems are so spectacular, why is it not in the numbers? The UK actually has higher than average rail modal share.

There's the utopian Europe imagined by British local transport planners, and then there's Europe as an actual place, with actual transport problems and trade offs much the same as the UK's. The former is a parochial reverie that we're better off without.

Yes, things can be changed, but that has to be evidence based and context specific, not tired old one-size-fits-all shibboleths. "Make everyone go on the train/cycle/walk like they do in fantasy Europe" doesn't get us anywhere.

Enjoy your climate change then. Humanity has no greater folly than it will lay down its own life for that of a financial model it invented.

[jackal]

Enjoy your climate change then. Humanity has no greater folly than it will lay down its own life for that of a financial model it invented.

I think you'll find that dealing with climate change also works better when it's evidence based and context specific.

[Bryn666]

Enjoy your climate change then. Humanity has no greater folly than it will lay down its own life for that of a financial model it invented.

I think you'll find that dealing with climate change also works better when it's evidence based and context specific.

Yes, I think you'll find the evidence is pretty clear that road transport is one of the biggest contributors to global CO2, so your proposal to encourage ever increasing amounts of it flies in the face of this evidence and context.

But yeah, whatever, do continue to mansplain reality to us.

[jackal]

Enjoy your climate change then. Humanity has no greater folly than it will lay down its own life for that of a financial model it invented.

I think you'll find that dealing with climate change also works better when it's evidence based and context specific.

Yes, I think you'll find the evidence is pretty clear that road transport is one of the biggest contributors to global CO2, so your proposal to encourage ever increasing amounts of it flies in the face of this evidence and context.

But yeah, whatever, do continue to mansplain reality to us.

Sick burn, sister.

[Bryn666]

Moving away from Jackal's utopian spreadsheet world for a minute...

The area north of the proposed link road would, if properly safeguarded, provide an ideal place for a small railhead to cater for things that can go on rail. It seems bizarre that it hasn't even been considered as a future aspiration.

It's not a poor proposal - far far worse exists out there, but to criticise it as not being sufficient to encourage more road journeys is a very backwards view. The real failure is not providing active travel infrastructure. Glasgow city centre is 10 miles away - for many cyclists this is small fry provided the infrastructure exists.

Of course, in an engineering and economic world dominated by middle class men who think their car and journey time is all that matters, there's no chance of infrastructure proven to be used by anyone but themselves being provided. I'd suggest some people wanting economic justification and context for not endlessly expanding the motorised vehicle part of the road network start with the research by Dr Rachel Aldred: http://rachelaldred.org/

[Ritchie333]

The area north of the proposed link road would, if properly safeguarded, provide an ideal place for a small railhead to cater for things that can go on rail. It seems bizarre that it hasn't even been considered as a future aspiration.

Looking at a map, it appears this area is part of the former Lanarkshire and Dumbartonshire Railway line, which was closed in favour of the nearby and mostly parallel North British Railway. This is a key problem with rail infrastructure that has been around since the Beeching Report - land is not protected and sold off for whatever use is deemed necessary, such as housing estates and bypasses, making reopening any railways monumentally difficult. This doesn't happen in other countries - closed railways have the land left aside for potential future re-opening.

[Gav]

Thanks for the info - I went through here yesterday as it happens. But I'm afraid these proposals make things worse than the (dire) status quo.

Note in particular that Dumbarton Fork currently only has one set of lights in both directions and prohibits the (unnecessary) right turn off the A82, so conflicts are minimized and the A82 is only held up for the right turn off the A814. Of course a GSJ would be better but if you have to go with an at-grade junction, you want to keep right turns (and the delay and danger they bring) to a minimum, as the current design does.

The proposal replaces this arrangement with an absurd hamburger-style cut through with two sets of lights impeding the A82 and conflicts aplenty. This is to allow the right turn off the A82 into the new development site. So the main strategic access to the Dumbarton, the Vale of Leven and the whole of Argyll is sacrificed for developer profit. Yippee!

Dunglass roundabout is also signalised, so strategic traffic is again sacrificed for access to the new development. Likewise A82 capacity is sacrificed for a new movement into the development site (westbound off the A82).



You'll see as well that the drawing above conveniently 'forgets' about the A82 through Milton. This is a real horror show with multiple narrow reserve gaps and property accesses flying at you from all angles on a road with 50,000 AADT. Go along here if you fancy a white knuckle ride: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.93595 ... 384!8i8192

The problem isn't just that the design ignores Milton, but that it makes it unlikely if not impossible that it will ever be fixed. The rational improvement is to bypass Milton with a high quality A82 alignment between Dunglass Rbt and Dumbarton Fork, crossing the railway twice. Some parts of the development, such as the new bridge near Dumbarton Fork, are plainly in the way of such a bypass, lumbering the residents of Milton with motorway-like traffic levels (in fact much more than the M8 across the Clyde at Bishopton) going through their village in perpetuity.

It is simply absurd to suppose that putting a local access road (called "A814") the other side of the railway helps the A82 when no traffic currently going between Dunglass Rbt and Dumbarton Fork would actually divert to it. The access road is very indirect and has half a dozen or so at-grade junction, so is evidently only of use for, you guessed it, accessing the development. In terms of the trunk road it is only a hindrance due to the aforementioned additional movements and conflicts, and the barrier to a Milton bypass that it poses.

If this has been approved by Transport Scotland they have confirmed their status as rubberstamping vassals of developer greed.

I think the council are the developer. There's a wider project about regenerating the Clydeside, and I'm not sure how well a motorway-like bypass would have worked with that. The A82 won't ever be free-flowing because Dumbarton spilled out across it a long, long time ago, and geography prevents it being redirected to the north or south. I think in Transport Scotland's mind, there's little point trying to speed up long distance strategic journeys through Dumbarton when those same strategic journeys will hit the horrors north and west of Tarbet anyway. A 40mph dual carriageway with lots of central reservation gaps is heaven compared to the Rest and Be Thankful!

If you wanted to improve strategic access to Argyll and beyond, then bolder interventions like a Clyde estuary tunnel seem more worthwhile. There's only so much improvement you can make to the A82 given the circuitous route caused by the sea lochs.

To say that its pointless due to the obstructions someplace else misses the point. what if the traffic doesnt get as far north as the locations you speak off ? lots of residential and commercial before there so why not improve the immediate area - other imporvements can come at a later date. Remember you have aggreko and other through that network.

What they are planning really isnt going to address it well. And I do think that they could design in a motorway style route to at least Loch Lomond.