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What do you think do you reckon it could work?

It will be intresting to see just how much they save once they have paid for the road and paid to fix the road up a bit as it does look a bit rough.

duel-carriageway? Oh dear oh dear.

Perhaps Steven Spielberg will film the opening ceremony involving a battered old truck

But seriously- surely the road is open to the public if technically private? A road looking similar, and in the right place has been on maps for many years- going from Magor to the Southern Distributor road in Newport.

EDIT: Looking at Google Mapa, I see it is there, marked as Queensway- and running from the M4 at Magor right to the Southern Distributor. Nothing new about this road- maybe they could call it the A455?

I take it that its here

At first I thought "what were they smoking" but now I've looked I think it could work though to be effective would need the intermitted junctions for accessing Newport closed off, a pain for accessing the roads to the north. To work everything would need to be done properly, ok now I see the problem...

Except for the fact that there are barriers at either end.

You know what? I was thinking that too. As you come out of Newport Retail Park onto Queensway Meadows (the public part of it), there are still signs saying A455 (not in brackets!) which wouldn't need to be changed!

The question is, what happens to this road and the SDR? Do they become trunk roads as the WAG are advocating using them instead of the existing trunk road (the motorway)? They probably don't realise that the SDR itself is privately owned as it was built as a PFI project.

I would say not. The M4 would remain the strategic route for through traffic. By closing some of the junctions on the M4, its use as a local route is reduced. Local traffic would use the Llanwern Route so it would be appropriate for that to be controlled by the local authority.

Simon

Presumably we'd lose the Magor S3 in all of this. I guess it would be upgraded to D2.

Yeah, the S3 would probably be lost. Not sure if J23A would also see an upgrade.

As far as I can see, the ONLY thing that using this D2 would mean is slightly less traffic at J24 - other than that I can't see any benefits whatsoever. J23A to J24 is never normally a problem, and it won't take one car out of the Brynglas Tunnels.

I can see every household along the route kicking up a massive fuss about this, even though its a good idea on the surface.

An absolutely brilliant idea.

Do the minimum of work required now to connect it all up and provide a bit of instant relief - improve to motorway standard later on.

Can someone clarify - are the Brynglas Tunnels the only reason why the M4 has not been upgraded at Newport, or are other factors at work too?

I imagine they are assuming that all traffic to West Newport will use this road and thence the SDR, but without radical improvements to it, I can't see that happening. Let's see - between Queensway Meadows roundabout on the existing SDR and M4 Junction 28 there are five roundabouts and nine sets of traffic lights, plus a maximum 50 mph limit with 40 and 30 sections. How is that going to be any quicker/easier than even a congested motorway? It may relieve pressure on the Coldra but I doubt it'll do anything to reduce traffic levels through the tunnels. They already tried that with junction 25a.

Well that is the main reason - with the exception of the tunnels it has already been widened from D2M to D3M throughout within its existing boundaries. This means lots of intermittent hard shoulders and tight curves. Most of the Newport bypass stretch is urban motorway in character - i.e. surrounded by houses on either side, which prevents any further widening.

Thanks. I'm probably being naïve here, but surely when weighed against the cost of the cancelled M4 bypass, even the cost of widening the Brynteg Tunnels (probably by buying all the property above) would come out as a cheaper option?

How is it a 'Bypass' if it is surrounded by houses?

There are houses on either side, but it bypasses the residential streets. Quite simple really.

And it completely avoids the town centre.

It takes traffic away from the existing road network. Have you seen the topography surrounding Newport? There's a small matter of some huge-ass valleys to the north, and sea to the south. Therefore you have to go through the fringes of the urban area.

The Newcastle Western Bypass is completely urban too but it's still a bypass.

The A5 by pass of Tamworth goes much closer to the centre of the town than the original route of the A5 did.

That's because it is the Bonehill/Fazeley/Wilnecote by-pass...never meant to be a Tamworth by-pass as that road is on the A51/A453.