The M11 extension that never happened

Halstead · Post by **Halstead** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 19:49

You know after some thought and some mad motorway ideas I may try and design something to coincide with the plans to extend the M11 that are pipedreams for now. Anyway the M11 towards Humber Bridge sounds like a fitting idea in my view!

Halstead · Post by **Halstead** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 23:17

Anyway here is the extended M11 terminus near the Humber Bridge. Also the M180 has been extended east and there are C/D lanes to combat the weaving. If I have time I create a version for AA maps.

si404 · Post by **si404** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 17:43

after years of doubting any seriousness of this scheme, thinking it was just a bit of political spin to help win seats in the East of England, I found here some scans from a 1991 feasibility study.

then again, 1991 was coming up to an election, and the feasibility study didn't seem to think it was feasible (though the candidates wouldn't have to say that), else we would have seen more of this scheme, and things on the A1 would have been scrapped/make less overkill (Alconbury-Peterborough for one!). No plans along this corridor seem to have come anywhere near proposal.

I have tried my best to transcribe that tiny scan into a crude google maps map.

Halstead · Post by **Halstead** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 19:07

Bloody hell and there I was thinking that the M11 would stop at Lincoln. on the link provided the extension starts from J9 of the M11. Seeing as the plannings took place in 1991 if it did get built J9-14 could have been renumbered the M111, the M14 or a mixture of the both.

Chris5156 · Post by **Chris5156** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 20:08

sabristo simon wrote:after years of doubting any seriousness of this scheme, thinking it was just a bit of political spin to help win seats in the East of England, I found here some scans from a 1991 feasibility study.

Excellent work! I have never been a believer, but you have converted me. Good heavens.

I wonder if the two-lane Humber Bridge would have become a bottleneck?

roadtester · Post by **roadtester** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 20:28

It would have been great to see this built but I can't see that it would have had much traffic on it - most of the areas it would have run through are pretty empty.

I think a more sensible idea would be to upgrade/reclassify to motorway:

1) the Cambridge-Huntingdon section of the A14

2) the A1, at least as far as far as Newcastle

3) the A19 (at least the bit that's presently HQDC, not the SC bit that everyone always overlooks).

ABeaton · Post by **ABeaton** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 20:34

Chris5156 wrote:
sabristo simon wrote:after years of doubting any seriousness of this scheme, thinking it was just a bit of political spin to help win seats in the East of England, I found here some scans from a 1991 feasibility study.
Excellent work! I have never been a believer, but you have converted me. Good heavens.

I wonder if the two-lane Humber Bridge would have become a bottleneck?

I doubt it. They would have paved over the footpaths or do what they did with the Tamer Bridge and used cantilevers to make it D3M. Infact this planed route would have speeded up the East Coast non end at all.

Chris56000 · Post by **Chris56000** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 21:04

Hi!

Paragraphs 10.3 and 10.7/10.8 are especially noteworthy - para. 10.3 suggests the route *would not necessarily* be motorway - para 10.3 specifically mentions "High quality dual carriageway".

The prats in Labour who resurrected the A446(M) B.N.R.R. as a tolled scheme should have read this study note -

a) "The road would give best value for money if built from public funds"

and

b) "The road would not provide adequate traffic relief to exsisting routes if built as a tolled scheme".

and

c) We believe upgrading the A1 to Newcastle would not be a cost-effective option".

Perhaps these wassocks in the Labour Party ought to be made to sit in 20 miles of M6 jams morning, noon and night and see where their rotten M6 toll has got them!

Chris Williams

si404 · Post by **si404** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 21:12

roadtester wrote:I think a more sensible idea would be to upgrade/reclassify to motorway:

That was central government's plan at the time, saving the A19, and possibly the A14 (going the A1 all the way, though there were of course A14(M) plans there).

The feasibility study was produced by the county councils, in particular Humberside (well it needed the Humber Bridge to be less of a white elephant!).

Chris56000 · Post by **Chris56000** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 21:16

Hi!

Many years back I watched an American film about the plight of a small town bypassed by a new motorway, resulting in the local shops and businesses almost having to close because the motorway was built without exit slip-roads to provide access to the town, I believe they made a tempoary access - then cordoned and barricaded the whole motorway so traffic had to go through the town again, and they also closed off the one exsisting partial interchange that *was* built so traffic couldn't rejoin the motorway!

Can any other SABRE members remember seeing it, and what was its title?:?:

Chris Williams

coasterjunkie · Post by **coasterjunkie** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 21:23

Chris56000 wrote:Many years back I watched an American film about the plight of a small town bypassed by a new motorway, resulting in the local shops and businesses almost having to close because the motorway was built without exit slip-roads to provide access to the town, I believe they made a tempoary access - then cordoned and barricaded the whole motorway so traffic had to go through the town again, and they also closed off the one exsisting partial interchange that *was* built so traffic couldn't rejoin the motorway!

Can any other SABRE members remember seeing it, and what was its title?:?:

I've seen this film! It is called Honky Tonk Freeway.

Andy

owen b · Post by **owen b** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 21:49

At long last! Well done Simon for digging this up like some long lost sunken treasure ship. I was beginning to wonder whether the sceptics would prevail, but I knew that this scheme had got beyond the fantasy/blue sky thinking stage if only it could be proved. But talk that it might have been only a high quality dual carriageway concerns me deeply. Will this scheme ever take its rightful place in the Pathetic Motorways Hall of Fame?

roadtester · Post by **roadtester** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 22:41

I'm a bit hazy about the timings but I'm just wondering whether the promotion of this - IMHO rather unlikely - scheme (which I remember quite well from the time) put enough doubt into the minds of policy-makers about the wisdom of doing the A1 motorway upgrade to have contributed to getting that dropped?

The 'Background' section of the scan talks about the road as a means of 'opening up' the eastern counties of England - but IMHO the comparative emptiness and relative inaccessibility of e.g. the Wolds is part of their appeal.

However, I think the point the document makes about taking development pressure off Cambridge and York to the benefit of areas nearby that haven't done so well probably applies to a greater extent today than it did then.

DavidBrown · Post by **DavidBrown** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 22:52

Steven on the M64 page on PM wrote:Firstly, it's the longest and most nationally important motorway for which there is absolutely no visual evidence in existence .

Think you can change that, now.

Chris56000 wrote:Many years back I watched an American film about the plight of a small town bypassed by a new motorway, resulting in the local shops and businesses almost having to close because the motorway was built without exit slip-roads to provide access to the town, I believe they made a tempoary access - then cordoned and barricaded the whole motorway so traffic had to go through the town again, and they also closed off the one exsisting partial interchange that *was* built so traffic couldn't rejoin the motorway!

What's that got to do with anything?

Anyway, fantastic find Simon! Interesting to note that it's from 1991 - as soon as it disappeared from any proposals, the A1(M) was built in North Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire and the A19 was widened through Teesside. Irony?

BobSykes · Post by **BobSykes** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 22:57

So, still no evidence then of a scheme to extend the M11 to Newcastle?

Or York, or Hull, or Lincoln, or wherever this fabled scheme was supposed to go.

A pressure group campaigning for a new, or improved, trunk road running from Newmarket and up the A17/A15/A19 corridors is hardly an M11 extension is it? Although the document is headed "the East Coast Motorway", it also talks of a trunk route "with a connection to the M11" (ie, via the A11).

Still no "official plan" then. In fact, I think this does actually bury the idea that there was some official M11 plan once and for all; now we know it was just a crackpot study by the haulage/roadbuilding industry and roads-hungry local authorities.

owen b · Post by **owen b** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 23:07

"Still no "official plan" then"

Which, to be fair, is pretty much what I suggested when I started the previous thread thus :

"Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 19:05 Post subject: M11 Extension

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the CAR magazine thread, I'm wondering is there any evidence for an M11 extension (Cambridge to Humber Bridge) proposal? I definitely recall seeing something on television about it many years ago (BBC1 Look East, late 1980s?), but I think it was just some local pressure group making a noise. I don't recall any official plans. "

BobSykes · Post by **BobSykes** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 23:48

The EACO-ROUTE proposal was no more an extension of the M11 than the dualling of the A11 to Norwich is.

B4133 · Post by **B4133** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 09:49

Halstead wrote:Bloody hell and there I was thinking that the M11 would stop at Lincoln. on the link provided the extension starts from J9 of the M11. Seeing as the plannings took place in 1991 if it did get built J9-14 could have been renumbered the M111, the M14 or a mixture of the both.

Something like the M1411 - Britains first four digit motorway.
How i worked it was that if built (doutb very much so) that junction 5 would be modified into a forked- roundabout (imagine the M45 but with a roundabout 1/2 a mile north of it) and junction 4 would also be the same design but freeflow could be a problem on the M180.

Chris5156 · Post by **Chris5156** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:57

Chris56000 wrote:The prats in Labour who resurrected the A446(M) B.N.R.R. as a tolled scheme should have read this study note -

a) "The road would give best value for money if built from public funds"

The Conservatives signed the deal with the Midland Expressway consortium in 1991. Labour had nothing to do with the M6 Toll being what it is.

coasterjunkie wrote:I've seen this film! It is called Honky Tonk Freeway.

It's actually a British film set in America. And a hugebox office flop.

owen b · Post by **owen b** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 17:52

I had a hazy memory of a proposal to extend the M11 from Cambridge to the Humber Bridge.

Now it turns out that, despite the study being called "The East Coast Motorway Feasibility Study", the road would probably have been built as high quality dual carriageway (according to Section 10.3 of the report), which means that it could not have been an M11 extension (at least not numbered as M11, though it would in practice have served a similar function). It also turns out that the road was planned from Newmarket, not Cambridge, so I wasn't quite right about that either.

The study was sponsored by a consortium made up of 16 councils and 19 private sector organisations, and received contributions from the Commission of the European Communities (Section 1.5). The study was conducted over ten months (Section 1.6).

A fairly remarkable find, I think.

SABRE

The M11 extension that never happened

Another Thought!

Re: Another Thought!