Downgraded Roads (photos please)

I don't mean status as in an A road made into a B road, I'm talking the size and layout. All I can think of is Sheffield and Birmingham but I'm sure there are other examples...

Can anyone post any photos of roads that were built big, but have been downgraded...

I have many photos of Sheffield's Arundel Gate/Castle Square in the 1960s...so different compared to now!!! It was a whole new route cut through the city.

This is Arundel Gate currently...


Here is what it used to be like...









Here is Castle Square aka Hole in the Road...

Former A130 at Rettendon in Essex has been singled.

And the well-known former A1 through Fairburn in Yorkshire.

I don't have photos of this road as it was, but St Helens has a weird example.

A dual carriageway town centre relief road (Chalon Way) was built in the 1960s or 70s, just south of the original centre.

Then in the 1990s another one (Linkway East and West) was built a bit further south, and the older one was converted to access roads and car parks.

Does anyone know more about how or why?

This small section of the A249 by the Bearsted Road/Chiltern Hundreds Roundabout in Maidstone was left redundant following the diversion of the A249 onto Bearsted Road as a result of the 1993 reconstruction of the M20 in the area. Aerial views show the former stump and remnants of the Juntion 7 londonbound slips in use as a Park and Ride but streetview shows the whole are re-developed into a business park with the Park and Ride relocated slightly but at the end of the new build can be seen the former islands of the at-grade turn onto J7

There are numerous examples of this of course; particularly in urban settings. Arundel Gate is a fairly impressive one though, the modern route looks totally different.

Manchester city centre had plenty of remodelled roads after the IRA bomb - Corporation Street went from S4 to a narrow bus mall for example.

The eastern side of Birmingham's Inner Ring Road is a good example - from a GSJ'd D2 to a 20mph boulevard

There is an example at Mount White, a bit north of Sydney. This is the old Pacific Highway, which used to be the main road between Sydney and Newcastle until the parallel freeway was completed.

This stretch was D2 with 100 km/h speed limit (the other carriageway is out of sight to the right). Now it has been marked as D1 and has a speed limit of 60 km/h. Insanity.

And will soon be a tram track as the Second City Crossing will use this road with a station outside the entrance to th Arndale.

Queen Square in Bristol is quite impressive.

It went from this to this.

Surprised no-one's mentioned the former A74 (changed from D2 to S2 plus cycleway) yet.

Got stuck on that 2 weeks ago while on my way to presenting at the Aston Conference centre on the university. Absoulute nightmare. Took 25 mins to get from the end of the A38(M) to the car park on campus.

The former A66( A597 until 1968) from Bridgefoot to Cockermouth. This once important road peters out past Brigham as a single track road and ends in a hedge beside the A66/A595/ ex A66 for Cockermouth roundabout. Even the divisional police headquarters and the traffic police HQ abandoned Brigham in 2003, making the final section of the old A66 west of Brigham even more forlorn.

The ultimate downgraded road has to be our old friend, the former A625 at Mam Tor. From a main road to two dead-ends which also act as car parks, a farm access which doubles up as a footpath, and a landslipped section.

The former A13 (now A1306) eastbound through Dagenham remains D2 until the edge of Rainham where it becomes a much-narrowed S2.

It wasn't long ago that this was the main route between London and the Dartford Crossing, clogged up with lorries and long-distance traffic (well, if you call between London and the South East coast "long distance"). Now it's a little local road in the far east of London.

The knock-on effect is that this area no longer feels quite as Londoney somehow. It's almost reverted back into being a little Essex backwater.

The former A23 through Coulsdon is a similar example. The original route has almost become like a little village lane!

I suppose you could say the same for most bypasses, but it's particularly striking when the original route is kept intact, just narrowed and literally made smaller.

If you are travelling on the eastbound carriageway of the A69 near Horsley, you can see the old S2 A69 passing some houses, it's totally narrowed down and is only for access.
Down the road from me, the once very busy A595 Hensingham Road, which was by passed in 1991, is now a cul de sac and a car park for people who live beside the road.

I can't believe that nobody's mentioned Salford Crescent (A6) yet.

I also immediately thought of the original A74.

But, as that has been nominated, I'll suggest the A417/A419 original Cirencester bypass. Okay, it still carries the A429, but it not what it must have been before the construction of the new 'outer' GSJd bypass.

I'd mention the A80 which was the main road from Stirling to Glasgow until the opening of the M80 Stepps Bypass - it was dual carriageway (not sure how much of it though) and now from about a mile after Crowwood Roundabout it's just single.

The original Wymondham bypass now has a strange feel to it having been margianlised by the new A11.

Now pretty well deserted it feels like a mjor road (albeit only S2) and it doesn't really fit into the town road network. It seems especially strange to me because I used to fight my way along it everyday for four years when it was a terribly under capacity trunk road.

Derek

Is that the recently "improved" bit of the A6 just before it joins the inner ring road, the bit that looks like a surreal artist has taken over the street design??