How ironic that drivers are once again trying routes through Somerset to avoid the M5 summer queues, just as they were in the 60's/early 70's to avoid the A38. The difference now is that the 2 1/4 hours against 45 mins on the M5, mentioned by A303Chris now, would have been a big improvement on the 4 hours from Taunton to Bristol via A38 as described by WHBM. Add another hour or so to get through Bristol and, the A39 and A37, would have been an attractive alternative. Trouble is as Chris said, those roads have barely changed in the interim period.

However, it is a flashy thing rather like drainage flooding - all the motorists from the west (Cornwall, North Devon, Somerset, WestonSM) all heading along the same route and all arriving at about the same time in the early afternoon trying to get through the same three lanes.
I drove from Dorset to Cardiff on that Friday morning heading for Dr Who and the Olympic football, picking up the M5 at J23 at about 10am and the road was reasonably clear and an easy drive.
By early afternoon it had changed markedly as friends arriving in the stadium at 4.30pm had experienced extremely heavy storms with driving speeds down to 20mph.

One other thing that would help would be if the A31 between the A338 and A35 were upgraded to fully separated dual carriageway. It is not that far and would make a big difference both for those going to Poole/Wimborne and to those further west, for the sake of 10 miles of upgradeed road you would have high quality dual carriageway from the M25 to Dorchester, which itself would relieve the A303 by making the A35 a viable trunk route as well as relieving the A37 and M5 as HGVs from Dorchester/Weymouth etc would divert A35/A31/M3/A34.

Not a lot of money in the big scheme of things but a big difference.


For the A303 if I was a politician with the power, I would persue bite size chunk strategy. I would dual the following as separate short schemes to make local improvements in this order:

Chicklade Bypass (Chicklade Bottom - A350) (D2)

Winterbourne Stoke Bypass (between Wylye bypass and A360 roundabout) (D2)

Monkton Bypass (D2)

Ham and Newtown Bypass (D2)

Newcott Bypass (D2)

Knightshayne improvement (to remove dangerous bend) (D2)

Ilchester - Sparkford improvement(D2)

A303/A37 roundabout grade separation,

A303-A3088 roundabout grade separation

Wylye - Stockton Wood Improvement (D2)

Ilminster Bypass Dualling South Petherton - A358 (to improve North - South connection) (D3)

A350 - Mere Improvement (D2+crawler lanes)

Horton Bypass Dualling (D2)

These would all be relatively short, cheap and mostly uncontroversial, and I would be emphasises that this would all be done for local reasons not as part of a scheme to upgrade the whole road, which is of course out of the question.

I would then use the monumental traffic jams that appeared on the A358, the mile or so past Stonehenge between the A360 and A344 and the half dozen or so sections of remaining S2 on the Blackdowns, none of which would be longer than 2 or 3 miles as a political battering ram to get the controversial bits, now reduced to very short distances, done.

Bring back the Holiday Routes ! For those who don't recall them, they were a series of generally lesser A roads which were signed with HR plates.

Someone from Taunton said he followed them across Somerset to Wincanton races, which seemed sensible, except we found he thought HR was for Horse Races.

Another problem with the M5 in summer is it's full of caravans which suffer from punctures caused by the tyres being standing in the same position all over winter. I've lost count of how many times I've seen scenes like this on the M5.

I'm driving from Holyhead to Haselbury Plucknett on Friday 24 August. I'm hoping to goodness that the traffic has died down by mid-evening - we're stopping with friends in Rowley Regis for an hour, so J3-J25 shouldn't be too bad... I hope.

I’ve been using the M5 for almost the last eighteen years and I have to be honest, it’s one of my more favourable motorways – certainly south of Bristol anyway with it's pleasant views. I'm not exactly a regular user though and certainly south of Almondsbury. I only use this southern section four, perhaps five times a year (and two of those are my yearly September jaunts to Croyde) at most. I have however noticed a gradual increase in traffic over the years even out of peak season when we use it.

I've only ever once used the M5 south of Bristol once during the notorious summer months, but that was back in 1998. I honestly can't clearly remember facing any major problems but then again, we're going back fourteen years so it's not exactly current…

I can lay claim to only one truly bad experience and that came around five/six years ago when I don’t think we beat 50/55mph at most from where we joined from Almondsbury down to junction 27. It was horrendous with regular stop/start traffic. Thankfully my brother was working in Bridgwater at the time and we met up with him at The Compass Tavern(?) by Bridgwater Services on the way down to Devon to break up the monotony.

Generally from my experience, Bristol has always been slow moving. When the Avonmouth Bridge works were going on a few years back, it was effectively at a standstill. It’s something I’ve come to expect and live with. If you're lucky, traffic will have sped up again by the time you get somewhere around the carriageway split south of Gordano. There's usually a bunch up of traffic around the Somerset boarder there or thereabouts (heading south) where it slows for a mile or so and that's about it. We usually cruise quite comfortably along it otherwise.

Over the last couple of years for us, the M5 seems to have behaved itself and even moved 'okay' at Bristol. By 'okay' I mean I’ve managed third gear and even slotting into fourth at one point…! This has always been at Saturday lunchtimes. I recall about five years back we were running quite late (I wasn't well in the early hours) and never hit Bristol until about 2-2:30pm. We flew straight through it and over Avonmouth Bridge with no troubles whatsoever .

My next experience of the M5 around these parts comes this time next month (a month today, ironically…) on my next holiday in Croyde. As usual, I hope for a clear run and generally it's been fairly reliable to us over the years. I know it can 'bite' though and now that I've said this, you can guarantee what we'll face…

It was partly my own fault we got stuck as my oldest 2 are at school so I have to go during the school holidays so I only book 12 nights away and travel down Sunday afternoon (no problems) and come back early Friday morning to avoid Saturdays at all costs. However on my last night we stayed up late watching the Olympics, forgot to set the alarm and did not get away to gone 10am. Also my 6 month old baby cried the car down between Liskard and Plymouth so we had to stop at the Tamar Bridge to give him his bottle.

I used to travel down the M5 (J22) regularly to see my grandfather at Burnham-on-Sea. we had a rota with other family members and I went down about once every 6 weeks at the weekend. During July / August my self and other family members used to take a day of work and go down mid week. Never had a problem. It does seem to be Hoilday traffic which is the main problem

Sorry, couldn't resist. I will now defer to your higher powers of pedantry!

pedantry n. That arboreal structure from which one hangs a pedant.

I rarely use the M5 south of Bristol. The last twice have been nightmares

I drove down from London to Cornwall on Sun 5th - a bit of slow down at m4/m5 interchange, heavy rain on M5 but no holdups at all to speak off.
Similarly returned on 12th, but straight up the M5 then M6 to manchester this time. M5 was fine, Cheshire was the usual stop start on the M6.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, easily averaged 70 on both journeys and didn't take as long as I feared it would! Guess i was just lucky - maybe Sunday is a quieter day

I live a 10 minute walk from j24 and use the m5 daily for work in highbridge or seeing family in weston or taunton. As already mentioned the m5 performs perfectly adequately throughout the year except in the summer on fri afternoons and through the weekends which makes it difficult budget-wise to justify any grand improvements. Even weekdays during the school holidays are rarely problematic, and of course incidents do occur but probably to a lesser extent than most motorways- i dont often see or hear of anything significant.

The only real problem is the lack of alternatives, the a38 passes through bridgwater and taunton centres and numerous villages, and there is nothing else remotely close. I have on occasion taken the b3139 through woolavington to get home but you can tell we're in the sat nav age as im not the only one!

It is possible to avoid the M5 when it gets overloaded, but I often wondered if my alternative routes were really any quicker. The biggest problem is the River Parrett, as the next bridge upstream is at Burrowbridge, rather a long way from Bridgwater. The River Axe is almost as bad, (if the M5 is jammed, chances are Weston is too), with the bridge at Loxton requiring lots of narrow lanes to get through to Banwell. Mind you, it was nice driving up that way once and seeing th M5 completely stationary in both directions!

Linking in with some other threads, when I was Heading home today, the A82 south was closed at Crianlarich, which must have led to some big detours. It also led to Range Rover Sport Man turning in anyway, and trying to drive through the police car

Funny you should say that as I dived off that way last Friday when the motorway was static up ahead of the slip at J22, then a clear run home via Sherborne and Dorchester.

My family comes from Weston-super-Mare and has been involved in the transport industry. Summer Saturdays, even in the earliest days of the M5 were bad and you accept journey times to be double the length either through sitting in a queue or diverting. There have been some changes. A week or so ago circumstances meant I had to travel from Weston to Taunton on Saturday around 4pm. 15 years ago by that time things would have eased and the motorway would be moving, maybe at about 50 mph but moving. It was still stop start but it is impossible to tell how much of that was the after effects of a northbound car colliding with the central barrier. I also noticed the lack of coaches. Tours appear to have moved their changeover day to Sunday.
This will always be a problem, not helped by the human element. Inappropriate speed, Drivers causing phantom braking, Poor lane discipline, failure to maintain speed after a decline, etc. The extra lane in each direction on the incline between junctions 19 and 20 Gordano to Clevedon should work but the inside is empty as those on the outside MUST get ahead instead of merging in turn and grind to a halt.

The M5's problem is Bert and Ada who only drive to their local shop 200yds from home once a week and then decide to drive to Torquay at the same speed down the M5. That said, the whole point of the M5 is to move holiday traffic (certainly south of Bristol), a job which it doesn't do.

Well, to be fair it does do that job. The only problem is it's a victim of it's own success as for 10 months of the year it's virtually empty then August roles along and you get half the population of London and the Midlands suddenly descend on the South West. Maybe it could benefit from seasonal hard shoulder running south of Bristol!

Of course, as others have said, the only major routes you have to even get there are the M5 and the A303/A30. If those routes didn't exist then the South West would be in perpetual gridlock throughout August!

Strangely I don't remember there being much traffic down that way when we used to go, but that was over 10 years ago and I was still in single digits, age wise!

All I will say is I think the traffic that the M5 south of Bristol experiences this time of year migrated north yesterday as it took me 1hr 40m to get home.

I had the misfortune to use the M5 northbound through the west country a week or so ago (ie in August) and, well, it was just full to bursting, nose to tail crawling along at around 20 mph if at all. All this wasn't helped by the services being shut due to a power cut.

Then all of a suddent, for no apparent reason, all the traffic vanished on the northbound and at just about the same point the previously clear southbound became jammed solid. Very strange.

At one point I had the bright idea of leaving the mororway for the A38. Bad idea, that really was jammed solid. So I U turned and sat in the M5 queue.

The problem is there are simply too many cars around that part of the world at that time of the year. I susepcted if capacity were to be increased it would only fill up again.

Derek

Agreed, i used the wrong phrase really, it does do the job, but not very well!