M54 Extension and M6 Toll/M42 Jct Improvements announced

[Steven]

One thing that surprised me a lot was the design life of the scheme; apparently the design contractors have been told to make a design for the road that will last for the next 15 years. This struck me as a particularly short time scale (I was expecting 30 or 120 years).

Isn't 15 years roughly when the M6 Toll concession ends and it would go to Highways England control?

It was pretty much a waste of time exhibition, brightened up solely by me terrifying the HE staff by pointing out you could have a Special Road with extra classes allowed, and why that would be a superior option to all-purpose; and Bryn hand-drawing at them an improvement to the northern end...

[Bryn666]

I'm fully expecting an all purpose D2 slamming into both roundabouts to be built.

There seems to be zero ambition on this project but then I did see which consultancy drew the polyline on an aerial photo. Gosh that must have been all of 15 minutes AutoCAD work.

[Robunos]

There seems to be zero ambition on this project . . .

I get the distinct feeling that now MEL have decided not to pay their share, and the M6Toll link isn't going to happen, that HE would rather just forget the whole thing . . .

[ais523]

Isn't 15 years roughly when the M6 Toll concession ends and it would go to Highways England control?

Not nearly, sadly. They get tolls from the time period running from 3 years to 53 years past the start of construction (presumably to encourage the construction to take 3 years). Construction started in 1997, meaning that the tolls are due to be removed in 2050.

EDIT: Apparently some sources are counting this as 53 years from 2000 instead, meaning it'll end in 2053. I'm not immediately sure which source is more accurate.

It was pretty much a waste of time exhibition, brightened up solely by me terrifying the HE staff by pointing out you could have a Special Road with extra classes allowed, and why that would be a superior option to all-purpose; and Bryn hand-drawing at them an improvement to the northern end...

Now I'm curious as to what Special Road restrictions you'd think would be best for the link. Non-motorway special hadn't really crossed my mind, as there isn't an obvious use case for it here.

[jackal]

I think 2053 is indeed the concession end date.

[Bryn666]

Isn't 15 years roughly when the M6 Toll concession ends and it would go to Highways England control?

Not nearly, sadly. They get tolls from the time period running from 3 years to 53 years past the start of construction (presumably to encourage the construction to take 3 years). Construction started in 1997, meaning that the tolls are due to be removed in 2050.

EDIT: Apparently some sources are counting this as 53 years from 2000 instead, meaning it'll end in 2053. I'm not immediately sure which source is more accurate.

It was pretty much a waste of time exhibition, brightened up solely by me terrifying the HE staff by pointing out you could have a Special Road with extra classes allowed, and why that would be a superior option to all-purpose; and Bryn hand-drawing at them an improvement to the northern end...

Now I'm curious as to what Special Road restrictions you'd think would be best for the link. Non-motorway special hadn't really crossed my mind, as there isn't an obvious use case for it here.

If it slams into both roundabouts then non motorway special is logical to prevent it becoming a box shed or housing development corridor, which frankly an all purpose road will be.

[Steven]

Yes, with the way South Staffordshire district are, it's guaranteed to have tin sheds and housing estates spring up on the western side of the road.

Being Special will protect the strategic nature of the road from frontage development and gas mains for the inevitable development.

[Berk]

Have HE conceded the point about Special Roads?? Talking about it is fine enough, but if not...

[Bryn666]

The two senior level seeming chaps we spoke to got the hint. Not sure if the graduate looking wonk talking to Angry NIMBY across from us had any idea of what was planned other than to what DMRB says.

Of course DMRB makes no mention of legislative frameworks for road orders so guess why these things are always fahoobarred.

[ais523]

OK, so here's another attempt at designing the junction to a) freeflow the two important movements, b) be full access, c) be fairly easy to build without disruption and while taking advantage of the existing bridges; it can even handle D2M! As a bonus, it should be fairly easy to navigate through (it's easier to understand than HE's old plans for the junction, at least). The trade-offs are that some of the connections are lower-speed and some of the minor movements will be slow. Green and red lines (i.e. the A460) are all single-carriageway, and (apart from the roundabouts, obviously) two-way traffic.

The main realisation here is that placing a loop in the southwest of the junction would fix both the vertical alignment problems (the area is very hilly, so it helps to have a good 3D map of the area when planning junction designs), and the issues with the existing bridge being at the wrong angle.

The traffic lights in the south-east are the only way I could fit the existing slip road into the space available, but they should only need two phases and don't affect any major movements. (The curvature of roads shown is to aid driver understanding; drivers coming from the M54 will see a turn-off for the A460 southbound and an "all other routes" "straight ahead", drivers from other directions will only have one option. When going south, the road would be laid out as though the whole thing were a right turn filter lane or even a jughandle, and the green lights would show right arrows, to make it clear that you couldn't go "straight on" onto the M54 in the wrong direction.)

The main concern I have with this design is the merge from the local roads onto the M54 westbound. Because there's a roundabout just out of view to the south, you could move this pretty much anywhere on the map, but any position seems potentially awkward from a merging safety point of view. (The given position seems like the easiest solution to the issues, because you could lay it out as a lane drop + lane gain, meaning that there would be no issues with an immediate merge and giving plenty of time for people to find a lane with a suitable merging distance before reaching the M54 mainline.)

Mapping data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

[Bryn666]

As a starting point that may work but I think your vertical profiles will be impossible on that sketch! Doesn't mean a rubbish design; it just needs refining to reflect reality a little.

You need 5m of vertical clearance and slip road gradients of no more than 1 in 20 ideally. Then your loop radius needs to be at least 40m. Any less and you'll probably tip HGVs right over.

The key question for the M54 junction is:

Who is the new road for? Is it a strategic trunk road connection? If yes then do not connect it to the old A460 at this end at all (J11 only) and freeflow direct to the M54. That leaves the existing interchange for A460 traffic.

If it's to improve access to Wolverhampton rather than M54 then slam the road into the existing roundabout and provide extra lanes.

I think we need to look at the former really.

[ais523]

The picture I gave doesn't really show scale, but the existing bridges underneath the M54 are 228m apart (the existing roundabout is gigantic as roundabouts go), and you can deduce the scale from that. So there's almost certainly room for a loop that's large enough (especially because you could place an advisory ilmit if necessary to help lorries move through the junction at a safe speed for them). You might need to move some of the minor sliproads in order to give enough room, though.

I think the new road's intended both as an access between north Wolverhampton and the north and east, and as a strategic link between the M54-to-the-west and the north and east. To me, that implies you'd want a freeflow strategic route, plus a local access that need not be of particularly high quality.

[Truvelo]

My experience of driving through the area shows M54 J1 isn't really a problem in its current form. In fact the only queues at this junction are on the A460 heading north away from the roundabout which is caused by the lights in Featherstone. The problem most of the proposed layouts for this junction have including the fantasy ones is they add multiple roundabouts and or/traffic lights to the A460 through route.

[Berk]

The trouble is you need to get from J1 to J2 to get to that side of Wolverhampton and into Salop...

It’s quite hard work if you’re coming from the east.

[ais523]

My experience of driving through the area shows M54 J1 isn't really a problem in its current form. In fact the only queues at this junction are on the A460 heading north away from the roundabout which is caused by the lights in Featherstone. The problem most of the proposed layouts for this junction have including the fantasy ones is they add multiple roundabouts and or/traffic lights to the A460 through route.

I think there's quite a bit of sentiment for discouraging the A460 through route once the new road is built. It'd basically be an LAR for Featherstone/Hilton and Shareshill, with any longer-distance journey using the new route instead. (Some people have even gone so far as to seriously suggest the use of traffic-calming measures – which I think is probably overkill – but that implies that if it's awkward to get to from the new J1 design, that probably isn't a big deal.)

Note that once the new road is built, the existing A460 almost certainly won't be a primary route, and there's a decent argument to be made that it shouldn't be an A road either. (Bypassed roads that have become LARs normally end up as B roads, unless the new road's route is significantly different and thus the old route is still useful for semi-strategic purposes.)

It's also worth noting that the A460 immediately to the south of M54 J1 is infested with roundabouts anyway, and thus any sort of freeflow would be mostly pointless (although I can see why you'd want to avoid having five roundabouts in a row!).

[Robunos]

It's also worth noting that the A460 immediately to the south of M54 J1 is infested with roundabouts anyway, and thus any sort of freeflow would be mostly pointless (although I can see why you'd want to avoid having five roundabouts in a row!).

Have a look at the A41 between M5 J1 and it's junction with the A4444, I count SEVEN (although the one nearest the M5 is grade separated for through traffic) . . .

[jackal]

It's also worth noting that the A460 immediately to the south of M54 J1 is infested with roundabouts anyway, and thus any sort of freeflow would be mostly pointless

Sure, the question is whether there's freeflow onto the M54 as per HEs most recent design, or if they give up on this as a strategic link and put everything into the existing rbt.

[Truvelo]

When I said A460 through route I meant from the existing A460 south of the M54 to the new A460 between M54 and M6. To travel this route in many of the proposed designs involves a lot of messing about at J1.

[Chris Bertram]

My experience of driving through the area shows M54 J1 isn't really a problem in its current form. In fact the only queues at this junction are on the A460 heading north away from the roundabout which is caused by the lights in Featherstone. The problem most of the proposed layouts for this junction have including the fantasy ones is they add multiple roundabouts and or/traffic lights to the A460 through route.

Traffic often backs up onto M54 up the west-facing offslip during evening peak, when I'm travelling past. Is this the Featherstone lights at work?

[Steven]

Traffic often backs up onto M54 up the west-facing offslip during evening peak, when I'm travelling past. Is this the Featherstone lights at work?

Yes it is.