M2 junction 5 improvements

[Ben302]

It's amazing how much progress has been made already since the closures went in on Friday evening. I have had to drive the route from Detling and onto the M2 london bound at J5 each day, a reversal of my usual route as I have to access the area from the M20 side. The contractors have already removed the J5 exit slip from the point where the upgraded barrier ends up to the point where the road bends round to meet the roundabout. On the A249 itself, they've finished construction of the new southbound carriageway and new entry slip from the roundabout up to the final binder course layer. They've also started breaking out the the existing carriageway at Church Hill where the new and existing roads meet and removed the temporary barrier. They've left a single lane corridor so the properties that frent the road can be acccessed and the road from south green lane up to Rumstead lane has been reconfigured into a S2 to maintain access to those properties between the two. The church hill turning has been closed and largely removed except for a small signalised entry and exit point for HGV and Agricultural traffic too wide to use the very narrow Chalky Road to access stockbury and the John Deere dealership at the top of Church Hill. The trade-off with the closures is that M20 J7 is a nicer junction to navigate with alot of the traffic removed from it

[AnOrdinarySABREUser]

All updated on OSM, will take a little while to render.

[Darren]

An unexpected problem this weekend - yesterday a "soakaway" was found, meaning the A249 northbound is going to be closed for most of the weekend (they're opening one lane overnight on Saturday into Sunday, as there's a closure on the M2 then). The A249 southbound remains closed until the end of March.

What they've not mentioned is that the official detour won't work if you're going west next weekend, or the weekend after, as the Blue Bell Hill junction spits you out onto the c/d lanes of the M20 - which will be closed for roadworks next weekend (and the weekend after). If you're aiming for the M20 to head west, it'll be better just to stay on the A2 and join the M25 there instead.

There have also been accidents on the M2 pretty much every day this week, often in the immediate vicinity of the M2 onslip from J5. Apparently it's people joining from the sliproad and barging out into lane 2 which causes the problems!

National Highways have also published a nice high-res shot of the junction 5 works as of a couple of days ago.

https://nationalhighways.co.uk/media/mh ... 2024-5.jpg

[John McAdam]

An unexpected problem this weekend - yesterday a "soakaway" was found, meaning the A249 northbound is going to be closed for most of the weekend (they're opening one lane overnight on Saturday into Sunday, as there's a closure on the M2 then). The A249 southbound remains closed until the end of March.

As detailed on the National Highways M2 J5 project page.

Presumably in an ideal world, documentation of this existing soakaway should have been found during the planning stages of this project! (Maybe such documentation never existed or has since been lost.)

I note that neither the ongoing A249 Southbound closure nor this weekend's Northbound closure feature in the National Highways Daily Closures / Road closure report - I suppose that's because the A249 is only managed by NH from Stockbury Roundabout northwards up to Sheppey, with the A249 southwards towards Detling and the M20 being a Kent County Council managed road.

[Ben302]

I had to use the A249 Northbound today and as I passed through the roadworks, they've slightly realigned the route traffic takes as it passes by the Church Lane section. Instead of bearing left along a temporary tie in to the new Northbound carriageway, traffic now bears right using a temporary crossover onto the new Southbound carriageway which is complete with markings and studs before crossing back over to the new northbound carriageway as before. It's only two weeks to go before the route is due to be reopened both ways and the section between Stockbury roundabout and the Church Lane turning looks ready to go aside from the final layer with a new stretch of concrete barrier and verge side VRS and street lighting largely in place.
Still a bit to do on the M2 exit slip before tarmac goes down there but looks to be progressing well. The Flyover itself is structurally complete just needing parapet rails and surfacing and barrier to be laid.

Scheme page has just been updated too.

[AnOrdinarySABREUser]

I had to use the A249 Northbound today and as I passed through the roadworks, they've slightly realigned the route traffic takes as it passes by the Church Lane section. Instead of bearing left along a temporary tie in to the new Northbound carriageway, traffic now bears right using a temporary crossover onto the new Southbound carriageway which is complete with markings and studs before crossing back over to the new northbound carriageway as before. It's only two weeks to go before the route is due to be reopened both ways and the section between Stockbury roundabout and the Church Lane turning looks ready to go aside from the final layer with a new stretch of concrete barrier and verge side VRS and street lighting largely in place.
Still a bit to do on the M2 exit slip before tarmac goes down there but looks to be progressing well. The Flyover itself is structurally complete just needing parapet rails and surfacing and barrier to be laid.

Scheme page has just been updated too.

Also, tons of new signs have been installed along the northbound offslip. This includes the roundabout directions, lane drop, M2 coastbound directions and chopsticks signs.

[Ben302]

I hope that this sign is retained as it's survived intact despite the works going on around it. OK it's on the wrong side of the road as you drive along the future southbound exit sliproad, but it looks well engineered compared to the usual 3 posts in the ground installations. If it were to be retained maybe it could be modified with the new road layout.

[AnOrdinarySABREUser]

I hope that this sign is retained as it's survived intact despite the works going on around it. OK it's on the wrong side of the road as you drive along the future southbound exit sliproad, but it looks well engineered compared to the usual 3 posts in the ground installations. If it were to be retained maybe it could be modified with the new road layout.

They’ll have to repaint the sign to include the new links but otherwise it’s okay. I wouldn’t be surprised if they replace it though to make it be more in line with the square roundabout sign installed on the northbound offslip.

[Darren]

I hope that this sign is retained as it's survived intact despite the works going on around it. OK it's on the wrong side of the road as you drive along the future southbound exit sliproad, but it looks well engineered compared to the usual 3 posts in the ground installations. If it were to be retained maybe it could be modified with the new road layout.

It's not long for this world - if you spin round, you can see where its replacement will go!

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Hfq4qiS15v1iqbCn9

[Brenley Corner]

I hope that this sign is retained as it's survived intact despite the works going on around it. OK it's on the wrong side of the road as you drive along the future southbound exit sliproad, but it looks well engineered compared to the usual 3 posts in the ground installations. If it were to be retained maybe it could be modified with the new road layout.

I see this sign twice a week on the way home on my Canterbury/Sheppey commute and, like others, I can honestly not see a future for it - as much as it would be good. It would be in a very confusing place once the A249 is open via the flyover - it was designed and built for the old A249 approach to the roundabout and would be in the same place for the new mainline A249 if left in situ. I think it has been left in place for so long because it is not in the direct path of any construction and is still 'helpful' for traffic on the southbound off-slip until the new sign is in place and until the flyover opens. Besides it would need a lot of updating - local road access in the wrong place, no straight-ahead A249 necessary, dedicated left turns etc etc.

[AnOrdinarySABREUser]

The southbound carriageway has reopened 2 days earlier than expected, with the local access road expected to open on the 6th of April.
National Highways project page
OpenStreetMap

[Ben302]

the Londonbound exit slip has also reopened this evening ahead of schedule too.

Lots of progress has been made over the past few weeks elsewhere with the flyover structure itself complete and now parapet rails are being installed and the road bed being laid. the a249 carriageways to the north of the structures are now being progressed with the road bed being laid and work to tidy up the tie ins where the road will meet the original A249 carriageways.

Elsewhere on the M2 as you head up towards Junction 4, there have been diverted traffic temorary signs placed as you approach the exit slip, however the one just after the half mile sign reads "sheppey diverted traffic with an arrow pointing diagonal top left, the same sign appears just as the slip road starts, however the one inbetween (situated between the 300 and 200 yard countdown posts) is slightly smaller and reads sheppy diverted traffic with a diagonal arrow top left. I spotted the typo along with many others

[MotorwayPlannerM21]

The link from Oad Street onto the roundabout opened at 6 am this morning, according to National Highways. It doesn't look like Open Street Map has been updated yet, though.

[AnOrdinarySABREUser]

C’est fait.

edit: corrigé le français

[Ben302]

Since the Oad Street link was opened yesterday, there have been several incidents where people have been driving down the link expecting to be able to get onto the A249 as per the temporary arrangements, are now finding that they are having to turn around as the road now does a sharp left into Oad Street rather than going straight ahead onto the yet to open South Green Link/former A249. Reports on local Facebook groups of queues heading down Oad Street owing to HGV's turning around at the bottom of the hill. Hope they install better signage warning drivers to not follow sat navs despite there already being signs directing traffic onto the new A249 southbound slip.

[Darren]

Hope they install better signage warning drivers to not follow sat navs despite there already being signs directing traffic onto the new A249 southbound slip.

It shows how vulnerable people are to out-of-date sat-navs! Even if they update via an online connection, Bing Maps and Google Maps are both woefully out of date with the junction.

Better signs would be useful, but as everything aside from OpenStreetMap is out of date (the latter thanks to AnOrdinarySABREUser's sterling efforts)... it's inevitable, really. Even with all the signs in the world, some people will still blindly follow their sat-navs.

[Bryn666]

Hope they install better signage warning drivers to not follow sat navs despite there already being signs directing traffic onto the new A249 southbound slip.

It shows how vulnerable people are to out-of-date sat-navs! Even if they update via an online connection, Bing Maps and Google Maps are both woefully out of date with the junction.

Better signs would be useful, but as everything aside from OpenStreetMap is out of date (the latter thanks to AnOrdinarySABREUser's sterling efforts)... it's inevitable, really. Even with all the signs in the world, some people will still blindly follow their sat-navs.

We should be taking these people off the roads entirely, if their sat-nav outranks what they can physically see how can they be trusted to operate heavy machinery?

[Ben302]

Hope they install better signage warning drivers to not follow sat navs despite there already being signs directing traffic onto the new A249 southbound slip.

It shows how vulnerable people are to out-of-date sat-navs! Even if they update via an online connection, Bing Maps and Google Maps are both woefully out of date with the junction.

Better signs would be useful, but as everything aside from OpenStreetMap is out of date (the latter thanks to AnOrdinarySABREUser's sterling efforts)... it's inevitable, really. Even with all the signs in the world, some people will still blindly follow their sat-navs.

Even today as I was using the A249 south from Sittingbourne to Detling and I was using google maps via Apple Car Play in my van and I was locating a new customer on Detling Hill and as I approached Stockbury roundabout I was instructed to take the second exit at the roundabout. Despite the mapping software being updated to the new layout it still tried to send me down the Oad street link rather than the new slip road, it corrected itself once I was past the point the road passes the bottom of Oad Street. I imagine a few google-based apps will be making the same error for a few more days as it's always struggled to update the changes in road layouts here.(It even showed the M2 Coastbound entry and exit having 5 different routes onto the roundabout)

[AnOrdinarySABREUser]

Better signs would be useful, but as everything aside from OpenStreetMap is out of date (the latter thanks to AnOrdinarySABREUser's sterling efforts)... it's inevitable, really. Even with all the signs in the world, some people will still blindly follow their sat-navs.

Thank you! Unfortunately, other parts of the world aren't so fortunate on OSM and I've been focusing on bringing them up to standard as well. It feels like a one man job sometimes.

As for incidents involving sat navs, well, it's to do with laziness from drivers and sat nav providers here. Obviously, drivers should be using their own judgement when it comes to getting to their destination, but sat nav providers should also be providing up to date resources as drivers feel far more comfortable driving in unfamiliar areas when the sat nav is leading the way. Ultimately, it's the driver's responsibility to be reading the road and driving based on their judgement, not the judgement of others and that includes sat navs, but that doesn't mean that sat nav providers shouldn't be keeping their resources up to date either. It's not as if the roundabout is a big multi-lane one either.

[jnty]

Better signs would be useful, but as everything aside from OpenStreetMap is out of date (the latter thanks to AnOrdinarySABREUser's sterling efforts)... it's inevitable, really. Even with all the signs in the world, some people will still blindly follow their sat-navs.

Thank you! Unfortunately, other parts of the world aren't so fortunate on OSM and I've been focusing on bringing them up to standard as well. It feels like a one man job sometimes.

As for incidents involving sat navs, well, it's to do with laziness from drivers and sat nav providers here. Obviously, drivers should be using their own judgement when it comes to getting to their destination, but sat nav providers should also be providing up to date resources as drivers feel far more comfortable driving in unfamiliar areas when the sat nav is leading the way. Ultimately, it's the driver's responsibility to be reading the road and driving based on their judgement, not the judgement of others and that includes sat navs, but that doesn't mean that sat nav providers shouldn't be keeping their resources up to date either. It's not as if the roundabout is a big multi-lane one either.

Honestly it would probably be more helpful if satnavs went 'you're on your own mate' in these situations. (Having been through the A303 works when Google Maps was going crazy about a slightly tweaked layout, even though I was ignoring the navigation it was actually extremely distracting while trying to follow the inevitably sub-ideal signage, navigate blown-over barriers and get over the feeling that you're always going the wrong way.)