Does Luton need a northern bypass?

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JohnnyMo
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by JohnnyMo »

IIRC the Airport Strategy for SE England publish just after the turn of the century.

Option for Luton airport were do nothing, passenger number increase from 5M / annum to about 10M. Or, add a 2nd runway; passenger number to eventually reach 20-25M by 2030 but with improvements to roads to cope. These included dualing the Luton Bypass, North Luton Bypass, Hitchin Bypass ...

Situation now is Luton will handle 18M by the early 2021 on a single runway and with the exception of M1 Jct10 to the airport no major road improvements.

The current plans have Luton handling over 36M passenger/ annum by about 2040.
https://www.llal.org.uk/Documents/vision2020-2050.pdf
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by Berk »

Isn’t the issue that Luton is in the wrong place?? You’ve got Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick.

Why do you need another airport within 20 miles of London??

Of course, it’s a bit late in the day to be pointing that out...
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by Big L »

Luton Airport is in the right place - it's by far the easiest to get to of the London airports from anywhere up the M1, which covers quite a lot of the country.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by Berk »

On the wrong side of Luton?? 🤔
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by JohnnyMo »

Berk wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 20:09 Isn’t the issue that Luton is in the wrong place?? You’ve got Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick.

Why do you need another airport within 20 miles of London??

Of course, it’s a bit late in the day to be pointing that out...
City, Southend, Oxford ...

As for being in the wrong place, it could be a mile or two nearer Luton, this would improve Luton Town Centre. :twisted:
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by Big L »

JohnnyMo wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 20:59
Berk wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 20:09 Isn’t the issue that Luton is in the wrong place?? You’ve got Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick.

Why do you need another airport within 20 miles of London??

Of course, it’s a bit late in the day to be pointing that out...
City, Southend, Oxford ...

As for being in the wrong place, it could be a mile or two nearer Luton, this would improve Luton Town Centre. :twisted:
There are few things I imagine would be better for Luton town centre than a bulldozer. Or a lot of dynamite.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by darkcape »

Absolute shortsightedness that this will be built as mainly S2, with all the difficult bits I.e the rail bridges being D2 it makes no sense!
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by trickstat »

Big L wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 21:09
JohnnyMo wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 20:59
Berk wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 20:09 Isn’t the issue that Luton is in the wrong place?? You’ve got Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick.

Why do you need another airport within 20 miles of London??

Of course, it’s a bit late in the day to be pointing that out...
City, Southend, Oxford ...

As for being in the wrong place, it could be a mile or two nearer Luton, this would improve Luton Town Centre. :twisted:
There are few things I imagine would be better for Luton town centre than a bulldozer. Or a lot of dynamite.
A few year's ago I was chatting with a couple of colleagues. One is about a year older than me and the other ten years younger. The latter was very surprised when we told her that in the '70s and '80s, it was quite common for people from Stevenage to visit Luton for a shopping trip. This despite the fact that for most of that period the journey involved negotiating the narrow Tilehouse Street in Hitchin before the Priory Bypass was opened.

It's worth mentioning that Luton Airport expansion can be a touchy subject in certain areas of Herts. Cue plenty of comments about Luton Council wanting to expand their airport when it's people in Herts who are most negatively impacted. While I have some sympathy they've obviously never been at Luton's running track just after a plane has taken off. I'm not on the flight path myself but I grew up on it.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by Berk »

darkcape wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 22:04 Absolute shortsightedness that this will be built as mainly S2, with all the difficult bits I.e the rail bridges being D2 it makes no sense!
I think what’s worse is that there’s no extension to the A505 on the cards yet. So the councillors worries about A6 traffic might come true in the short term.

But when it is completed, it’ll be a very good link from Cambridge, all the way to Leighton Buzzard. :)
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by c2R »

darkcape wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 22:04 Absolute shortsightedness that this will be built as mainly S2, with all the difficult bits I.e the rail bridges being D2 it makes no sense!
That makes sense in a peverse way, as otherwise the widening might never happen. This way, it's ready for the inevitable extension to the A505 - and I'm suprised that the parish councils to the north are objecting, as it would relieve the Hexton, Barton, Sharpenhoe, Harlington de-facto Luton northern bypass immensely.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by owen b »

I haven't looked at the proposal in detail, but on the face of it, it's very bad. It's an at grade S2/D2 through green belt to enable 4,000 new houses to be built. It will inevitably add traffic to already congested routes across Luton, specifically the A6 New Bedford Road, A5228 Stockingstone Road and A505 Hitchin Road, which will be the de facto rat run for the missing link from the A6 north of Luton to the A505 east of Luton. The only question it answers is "What is the cheapest road we can build to enable an attractive area of green belt to be ruined?"

Frankly, this proposal does not support the missing link ever being built. The missing link would go through an area of very high environmental / landscape value where only a very expensive road probably with a Baldock bypass style tunnel would be acceptable (as per comments I made in this thread ten years ago :shock: ). The current proposal is quite obviously not intended for longer distance traffic and will probably be inadequate from the start, let alone with any additional traffic being added to it if the missing link is ever built. To be fair, the Oxbridge expressway reduces the need for a strategic route via Luton, for example the Cambridge to Leighton Buzzard journey will be served by the expressway from Cambridge to Bletchley, then the already D2 A4146 link to LB.

As for comments about Luton town centre, well yes, The Mall (formerly the Arndale Centre) is looking very tired and needs refurbishment or redevelopment, and the main railway station building is a dreadful hole. On the other hand, over the last few years there has been a lot of investment : Inner Ring Road completion, railway station new multi-storey car park, station frontage, pedestrianisation and improvement of station to town centre roads, St.George's Square refresh, many new university buildings. The Power Court redevelopment recently got planning permission (includes the new Luton Town stadium). The redevelopment of the old Vauxhall car plant is in progress. Towards the airport (itself only 1.5 miles from the town centre), A1081 from M1 J10 (Airport Way) has had various improvements over the years, Luton DART (Direct Rail-Air Transit) is under construction, and the airport terminal and surrounding area has had a lot of work.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by c2R »

My understanding was that the missing link was going to be even more nasty than that, i.e. the road would skirt the existing town boundary, joining the A505 between Stopsley and the Crematorium.

edit - (as much as I'd love to see a twin bore tunnel under the hills and a southern Hitchin bypass.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by owen b »

c2R wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 23:58 My understanding was that the missing link was going to be even more nasty than that, i.e. the road would skirt the existing town boundary, joining the A505 between Stopsley and the Crematorium.

edit - (as much as I'd love to see a twin bore tunnel under the hills and a southern Hitchin bypass.
I can't see how that would be remotely acceptable unless the road was gold plated in terms of its environmental mitigation. Such a route is green belt, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, goes through a golf course, areas of archaeological significance, involves a steep hill, and I'm not sure where or how it would meet the A505 given the various existing and new developments on that side of the A505 (Stopsley urban area, Inspire sports centre, crematorium, business park).
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by Berk »

My thought was that it would need to meet the A505 at its closest point (i.e. somewhere between Lilley and Beech Hill), rather than making a beeline for Stopsley.

Unless that would be worse??
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by MotorwayPlannerM21 »

Ignoring the current frankly rubbish plans, here's my attempt. It is a D2 with GSJs (apart from M1 J11a, which it meets at-grade). It could be opened in stages; the first being the actual bypass itself. The map also includes a link to the A1(M) and A505 dual carriageway at Baldock, with a southern bypass of Hitchin.

There is also a possible link from the western terminal junction (of the bypass, not the whole link), but there is currently no easy way to plug it into existing roads. If the airport has a major redesign, perhaps the new link road could be fitted into the design. This would relieve the current A505 into town and along Vauxhall Way, which could also be dualled (there is provision for dualling for most of it).

Most of the junctions along the route are dumbbells because ther seemed to be the easiest/cheapest junction to build and can have accesses to developments built into them quite easily.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by owen b »

Berk wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:57 My thought was that it would need to meet the A505 at its closest point (i.e. somewhere between Lilley and Beech Hill), rather than making a beeline for Stopsley.

Unless that would be worse??
Better for long distance traffic, worse for local. According to this document (very old but still interesting I think) https://www.luton.gov.uk/Transport_and_ ... eaflet.pdf page 4, less bad for "heritage of historic resources" and biodiversity, worse for landscape effect. You decide your priorities, you take your pick whether it's better overall.

Honestly, there is no good route from the A6 north of Luton to the A505 east of Luton. All routes have major problems. Of course if you chuck enough money at it there can be fairly good mitigations. But to do the job properly would cost an awful lot of money and would still be controversial.

I'm not saying that in all circumstances I would be against any road north and/or north east of Luton, but certainly I am dead against any cheap and nasty scheme which would just open up a particularly fine bit of green belt to be destroyed and would only add to congestion in Luton.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by Berk »

If my idea became a proposal, would that be the least worst option you could choose??

The councillors may share your view that New Bedford Road, Stockingstone Road and Hitchin Road will get a larger share of local traffic, but that is probably already true today, and surely isn’t likely to change if a bypass is built.

What is worse is building the western half of the route before the eastern half has even been planned properly. I don’t think they should allow it to proceed until then. Otherwise it will result in this nightmare scenario.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by c2R »

Id want it done as a proper bypass, d2 from the m1 to A505 with only the A6 as an intermediate junction, with the Easter section as a bored tunnel, meeting the A 505 much further east.

I suspect we'll end up with something very nasty indeed though...
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by owen b »

Berk wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 19:27 If my idea became a proposal, would that be the least worst option you could choose??
Personally, no I wouldn't choose an outer route, although I admit as a local I might be biased. If there was definitely going to be an A6 to A505 road, I'd go for the inner route linking up with the Vauxhall Way / Stopsley Way roundabout. That way i) the damage to the AONB / green belt would be minimised; ii) the new road would form an outer cordon for Luton which would discourage inappropriate development; iii) it would link up with Vauxhall Way and then to Airport Way providing much needed congestion relief for New Bedford Road / Stockingstone Road / Hitchin Road. Of course an inner route would be worse for longer distance east / west traffic, but the A505 isn't a particularly high quality route anyway, the Oxbridge expressway will take some of that traffic, and in any case, even an inner route would link conveniently to the D2 A505 Stopsley Way going straight to Hitchin.
Berk wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 19:27 The councillors may share your view that New Bedford Road, Stockingstone Road and Hitchin Road will get a larger share of local traffic, but that is probably already true today, and surely isn’t likely to change if a bypass is built.
But a new road from J11A to the A6 will only make traffic on those roads even worse. Traffic reaching the A6 from M1 J11A on the new road will have to disperse on existing overloaded roads. That rat run will serve an obvious missing link. Another rat run will be to come off the new road, head north on the A6 towards Streatley, then east and then south east on minor roads through Lilley, over the A505, through Great Offley and joining A505 at the east facing slips after the village. I know Lilley well, that minor road is narrow and has the most cycle-unfriendly road humps I know of. Yet another variant will be to head up the A6 to Barton and then the B655 to Hitchin. All of these routes will get more traffic as a result of this road proposal and the associated housing development.
c2R wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 23:12 d2 from the m1 to A505 with only the A6 as an intermediate junction
To be fair I see the logic for a junction (preferably a GSJ) with Sundon Park Road (1 km east of J11A). The B579 currently goes under the railway line at a horrible low, narrow, traffic light controlled bridge by Leagrave station. Sundon Park Road is a much better route and would give much better access to much of north Luton than the ridiculously circuitous route at M1 J11A and via that horrible railway under bridge.
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Re: Does Luton need a northern bypass?

Post by Patrick Harper »

I think the route via Harlington and Barton-le-Clay is sufficient for bypassing Luton from the north.
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