Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

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roadtester
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by roadtester »

Mark Hewitt wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 08:54 Any idea that visitors to the stones should pay to have the road removed is about the daftest thing I've ever heard. As said above the road is the newcomer to the area so the mitigation of the road should be down to the roads budget, nobody else. To suggest otherwise is the worst kind of car blindness and entitlement.
And before that, a long time ago, the stones were the crashing, shocking, visually intrusive man-made newcomer.

If today's NIMBYs and "put it in a tunnel" crowd had been around then, Stonehenge would never have been built. At the time it would probably have been the biggest man-made intervention in the British landscape of all time, the HS2 of its day.

Today's "you can't have a dual carriageway within sight of the stones" would have been "you can't make that massive clearing in the forest to put up that monstrosity" and we'd have had "What's the point in expending all that effort bringing massive stones from Wales when people are still living in huts on a subsistence diet?" as well - not to mention the howls at the despoliation of the natural landscape involved in quarrying the stones in the first place.

And we'd probably have had "Can't you make it smaller with shorter stones so it doesn't stick out so much?" and from the tunnellers "Can't you put the stones underground? Won't that be OK as long as they're pointing in the right direction?"
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by Herned »

Mark Hewitt wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 08:54 As said above the road is the newcomer to the area
Strictly the archaeological evidence is that the road may have been there first, and that it may be very much older as a migratory route for cattle.

So the stones should be demolished to preserve the solitary existence of the road in the landscape :D
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by Bryn666 »

roadtester wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 09:23
Mark Hewitt wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 08:54 Any idea that visitors to the stones should pay to have the road removed is about the daftest thing I've ever heard. As said above the road is the newcomer to the area so the mitigation of the road should be down to the roads budget, nobody else. To suggest otherwise is the worst kind of car blindness and entitlement.
And before that, a long time ago, the stones were the crashing, shocking, visually intrusive man-made newcomer.

If today's NIMBYs and "put it in a tunnel" crowd had been around then, Stonehenge would never have been built. At the time it would probably have been the biggest man-made intervention in the British landscape of all time, the HS2 of its day.

Today's "you can't have a dual carriageway within sight of the stones" would have been "you can't make that massive clearing in the forest to put up that monstrosity" and we'd have had "What's the point in expending all that effort bringing massive stones from Wales when people are still living in huts on a subsistence diet?" as well - not to mention the howls at the despoliation of the natural landscape involved in quarrying the stones in the first place.

And we'd probably have had "Can't you make it smaller with shorter stones so it doesn't stick out so much?" and from the tunnellers "Can't you put the stones underground? Won't that be OK as long as they're pointing in the right direction?"
Yes, well that's that me convinced then, let's level anything of historic importance so you can drive somewhere. Car blindness and entitlement of the highest order indeed.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

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Bryn666 wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 10:12
roadtester wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 09:23
Mark Hewitt wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 08:54 Any idea that visitors to the stones should pay to have the road removed is about the daftest thing I've ever heard. As said above the road is the newcomer to the area so the mitigation of the road should be down to the roads budget, nobody else. To suggest otherwise is the worst kind of car blindness and entitlement.
And before that, a long time ago, the stones were the crashing, shocking, visually intrusive man-made newcomer.

If today's NIMBYs and "put it in a tunnel" crowd had been around then, Stonehenge would never have been built. At the time it would probably have been the biggest man-made intervention in the British landscape of all time, the HS2 of its day.

Today's "you can't have a dual carriageway within sight of the stones" would have been "you can't make that massive clearing in the forest to put up that monstrosity" and we'd have had "What's the point in expending all that effort bringing massive stones from Wales when people are still living in huts on a subsistence diet?" as well - not to mention the howls at the despoliation of the natural landscape involved in quarrying the stones in the first place.

And we'd probably have had "Can't you make it smaller with shorter stones so it doesn't stick out so much?" and from the tunnellers "Can't you put the stones underground? Won't that be OK as long as they're pointing in the right direction?"
Yes, well that's that me convinced then, let's level anything of historic importance so you can drive somewhere. Car blindness and entitlement of the highest order indeed.
Don't misrepresent my views.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by Bryn666 »

roadtester wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 10:14
Bryn666 wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 10:12
roadtester wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 09:23

And before that, a long time ago, the stones were the crashing, shocking, visually intrusive man-made newcomer.

If today's NIMBYs and "put it in a tunnel" crowd had been around then, Stonehenge would never have been built. At the time it would probably have been the biggest man-made intervention in the British landscape of all time, the HS2 of its day.

Today's "you can't have a dual carriageway within sight of the stones" would have been "you can't make that massive clearing in the forest to put up that monstrosity" and we'd have had "What's the point in expending all that effort bringing massive stones from Wales when people are still living in huts on a subsistence diet?" as well - not to mention the howls at the despoliation of the natural landscape involved in quarrying the stones in the first place.

And we'd probably have had "Can't you make it smaller with shorter stones so it doesn't stick out so much?" and from the tunnellers "Can't you put the stones underground? Won't that be OK as long as they're pointing in the right direction?"
Yes, well that's that me convinced then, let's level anything of historic importance so you can drive somewhere. Car blindness and entitlement of the highest order indeed.
Don't misrepresent my views.
Don't misrepresent anyone who wants to preserve this historically significant site by ensuring the road project is done properly as a NIMBY then. Your constant desire to be contrarian is extremely tedious.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by RichardA35 »

As I was about to say before the interruption:

Bringing some factual basis into the discussion regarding journey time savings "to Cornwall".
Looking at the Transport Assessment 7.4 section 6.5 onwards, the predicted benefits in journey times are tabulated based upon the length of A303 from the A34 to the A36 - generally about a 30 minute journey.
The results are looked at for am & pm peaks and for "busy days" (6 summer holiday Friday - Sunday weekend days + some unspecified other busy days).
I haven't checked to see whether this report was updated during the Examination so figures might have changed.

The asumption is that, without the scheme the journey time will lengthen in a pretty linear fashion to the year of 2041.
For the year outside the "busy days" geneally at summer weekends, the extension in journey times is in the order of approx. 2 - 3.5 minutes.
For the "busy day" the journey time is predicted to lengthen by about 10 minutes to about 50 minutes by 2041 (whether this has included for people reassigning their journeys via other routes is unclear or I haven't found the paragraph)
The predicted journey saving with the scheme is most marked on the busy days and saves some 19 minutes (for folks off to their holidays). I'm a bit uncertain how many days we are looking at but this might be as few as 30-40 days of the year but let's say 20% of the year to be generous.
For the people using it for the rest of the year - say 80% of the time - (daily commute or off to the weekend home) the predicted journey saving is 3.5 - 6 minutes.

That is one of the key parts of the conundrum to be considered for the large expenditure proposed on the scheme as well as all the other factors - the improvement in the lives of Winterbourne Stoke inhabitants, the effect on the WHS etc.

To me, personally, it seems a disproportionate expenditure for the modest predicted journey benefits and I feel far more could be achieved elsewhere with the money.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by jackal »

RichardA35 wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 11:32 The predicted journey saving with the scheme is most marked on the busy days and saves some 19 minutes (for folks off to their holidays). I'm a bit uncertain how many days we are looking at but this might be as few as 30-40 days of the year but let's say 20% of the year to be generous.
For the people using it for the rest of the year - say 80% of the time - (daily commute or off to the weekend home) the predicted journey saving is 3.5 - 6 minutes.
Thanks, this is useful info. But just to say that the 19 min saving is not just "for folks off to their holidays". It is also for all the HGVs, commuters, etc going about their regular business, but caught up in the holiday traffic. People can't just stop making their deliveries or going to work because it's the summer.
That is one of the key parts of the conundrum to be considered for the large expenditure proposed on the scheme as well as all the other factors - the improvement in the lives of Winterbourne Stoke inhabitants, the effect on the WHS etc.

To me, personally, it seems a disproportionate expenditure for the modest predicted journey benefits and I feel far more could be achieved elsewhere with the money.
I agree, and it seems HE do as well. The scheme is only economical if you add in £1bn heritage benefit, which has been calculated on a revealed preferences basis, i.e., what people would pay to remove the road from the surface. Personally I don't feel able to exactly quantify the value of the heritage benefit - there's a large reasonable range and the proposed tunnel falls within that, as would a longer tunnel.

But the main point for me is that this scheme is the one that's actually proposed, designed, and funded, with various consultations and other statutory processes over the last 8 years behind it. A need for dramatic changes now wouldn't mean a different scheme, it would mean no scheme at all for the foreseeable future. And that will be much worse for the setting of Stonehenge and much more expensive than building the current scheme.

The 2005 scheme was priced at £470m when it was dropped, compared to £1.7bn today; if it's delayed another 15-20 years I would expect it would come back at £5bn-£10bn, which makes todays scheme look fantastic value by comparison.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by solocle »

jackal wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:20
RichardA35 wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 11:32 The predicted journey saving with the scheme is most marked on the busy days and saves some 19 minutes (for folks off to their holidays). I'm a bit uncertain how many days we are looking at but this might be as few as 30-40 days of the year but let's say 20% of the year to be generous.
For the people using it for the rest of the year - say 80% of the time - (daily commute or off to the weekend home) the predicted journey saving is 3.5 - 6 minutes.
Thanks, this is useful info. But just to say that the 19 min saving is not just "for folks off to their holidays". It is also for all the HGVs, commuters, etc going about their regular business, but caught up in the holiday traffic. People can't just stop making their deliveries or going to work because it's the summer.
That is one of the key parts of the conundrum to be considered for the large expenditure proposed on the scheme as well as all the other factors - the improvement in the lives of Winterbourne Stoke inhabitants, the effect on the WHS etc.

To me, personally, it seems a disproportionate expenditure for the modest predicted journey benefits and I feel far more could be achieved elsewhere with the money.
I agree, and it seems HE do as well. The scheme is only economical if you add in £1bn heritage benefit, which has been calculated on a revealed preferences basis, i.e., what people would pay to remove the road from the surface. Personally I don't feel able to exactly quantify the value of the heritage benefit - there's a large reasonable range and the proposed tunnel falls within that, as would a longer tunnel.

But the main point for me is that this scheme is the one that's actually proposed, designed, and funded, with various consultations and other statutory processes over the last 8 years behind it. A need for dramatic changes now wouldn't mean a different scheme, it would mean no scheme at all for the foreseeable future. And in the long run that will be much worse for the setting of Stonehenge and much expensive than building the current scheme.

The 2005 scheme was priced at £470m when it was dropped, compared to £1.7bn today; if it's delayed another 15-20 years I would expect it would come back at £5bn-£10bn, which makes todays scheme look fantastic value by comparison.
My question is why road schemes increase in price so much. Inflation adjustment of £470m give £717m - so where has that extra billion come from?
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by marconaf »

I agree that the amount of this scheme is excesive, not lesst that 2/3 of the cost is purely to remove the road from the scene, something I disagree with.

If an alternative left a “scenic byway” for people to take in the stones that wouldn’t be so bad, but it seems as if the taxpayer is stumping up a billion quid just to sate NT/heritage desires to box it all in and charge what they like to see it. On that basis I agree with posters who say the NT should contribute. They after all will benefit from this extra expense.

I walked to it last week, from Woodhenge (or “concrete henge as my kids called it!”) - off the back of them having seen it from the car as we drove the A303 and wanting to see it closer.

(Hence why I think keeping people passing it is good as it creates interest - my kids have no interest in seeing things that are merely signed or talked about, but a glimpse whets their appetite for more!)

It’s a nice area to walk in, but its really not that stunning. There is in fact farmore impressive scenary just a few miles north on Salisbury Plain where due to terrain you really can see further and the sense of rolling open countryside is much greater.

Stonehenge doesnt even really stand out that much, it seems lower than its backdrop and is small in comparison to the scale of the landscape. Indeed the views east, west and north away from it are nicer in my view

Stonehenge itself is a paved path around it with a queue of traipsing toursits taking photos all kept good 20+ m from it with barriers and security enforcing that. As a result, there’s nothing magical or special about it and again, the backdrop is unremarkable. One is conscious of the A303 of course but not really so.

I personally think it has been massively overstated, it isnt even authentic as you see it.

Perhaps if the managers were to make its surroundings more open, akin to a giant country park where you can roam at will amongst all the historic sites, but they wont - fencing, “stay off the grass” and above all “exit via the gift shop” is the summit of their ambition.

They already try to dissaude you from using the legal footpaths around it (security guard tried to tell me we needed a ticket to use the footpath!), so their intent is clear. Kick everyone out, charge the earth to see a very sanitised place.

So personally I’m ok this will be binned, frustrating for travelling through but at least while crawling there is something to look at and 1 1/2 Bn could do an awful lot to solve issues elsewhere. Plus Stonehenge has been here thousands of years so I doubt it’ll see a need for a rush.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

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marconaf wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:46 They already try to dissaude you from using the legal footpaths around it (security guard tried to tell me we needed a ticket to use the footpath!), so their intent is clear. Kick everyone out, charge the earth to see a very sanitised place.
That wasn't my experience on Saturday morning... Stood around for perhaps 20 minutes (until sunrise), the only thing the security guard said was good morning!
48465D53-A741-4B88-B67F-705E48AA3F0D.jpeg
B744D455-FC98-43CA-B1AE-61DC5F22A95A.jpeg
FBCD1374-7F08-4EE9-8599-4F344C291081.jpeg
(I set off from Canary Wharf at sunset, beeline down the A30 and A303).
Last edited by solocle on Mon Aug 09, 2021 13:23, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by Peter Freeman »

Herned wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 09:27
Peter Freeman wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 09:09 So you're somewhere around Bridgwater? And you averaged 20mph? In a car on the M5?
This was on 23 July. The M5 traffic was bad southbound, but north was OK when I had checked it in the morning. By the time I set off M5 south had turned to red and black on Google Maps for virtually the entire distance from the M4 to Exeter. The knock on ... snip ... went home, it was a lot better southbound, but still nothing like normal, but north was stationary or very slow for a big chunk of the distance.
Having now monitored (from afar, using google maps) M5 congestion for a few days, I have seen some of the congestion you describe. It's actually quite difficult to fathom the reasons for, or even the timing pattern of, the severe events. My surprising conclusion is that the M5, for a considerable distance both north and south of Bristol, is the most congestion prone of the UK rural trunk motorways. Is this because we're currently in the summer holiday season, or always like this?

Despite now recognising the congestion that you described, I find that, even at those congestion peaks, google still consistently indicates M4/M5 time to be only a few minutes longer than A303.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by KeithW »

solocle wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:31
jackal wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:20 The 2005 scheme was priced at £470m when it was dropped, compared to £1.7bn today; if it's delayed another 15-20 years I would expect it would come back at £5bn-£10bn, which makes todays scheme look fantastic value by comparison.
My question is why road schemes increase in price so much. Inflation adjustment of £470m give £717m - so where has that extra billion come from?

The requirement to protect the archaeological remains. The 2004 Public Enquiry said this of the plan at the time.
The physical loss of archaeological remains, the changes to the land form in these sections, and the scale of the new highway would adversely affect the authenticity of the site and more than offset the benefits of the proposed tunnel in the central area. The published scheme would represent the largest earthwork ever constructed within the World Heritage Site; a feature that would contribute nothing to the authenticity.
The 2005 proposal partially addressed these concerns with the cost increased from £183 million to £470 million. The costs further increased to £540 million for a deeper bored tunnel In 2006 the government decided the scheme was too expensive and cancelled it. The background too this was the economy was slowing down and real concerns were being felt in the treasury as the massive high risk lending in the US was already unsettling the market. They were right to be concerned as the the collapse of the lending bubble in the US would lead directly to the 2008 banking crisis.

The bottom line was that the tunnel itself was adequate but the lack of landscaping for the approaches and poor protection of the archaeology was not and there was still no preferred route. In February 2006 the options were as follows.
A northern route - which would have a junction with the A360 then go south of Larkhill and rejoin A303 at the Countess roundabout at Amesbury. It would involve a cut-and-cover tunnel.

A southern route - which would have a junction with the A360 then go south of Stonehenge before rejoining the A303.

A cut-and-cover tunnel - like the first tunnel scheme - but closer to the surface than a bored tunnel.

A partial solution - which would include closing the A344 at its junction with the A303 and offer options for the end of the Winterbourne Stoke bypass.
The basic issue was that the Treasury was advising the DfT to cut costs and the low cost scheme they wanted would have been unacceptable to English Heritage, the National Trust etc and so the DfT took the easy way out and just pulled the plug.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by ChrisH »

Peter Freeman wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 13:21
Having now monitored (from afar, using google maps) M5 congestion for a few days, I have seen some of the congestion you describe. It's actually quite difficult to fathom the reasons for, or even the timing pattern of, the severe events. My surprising conclusion is that the M5, for a considerable distance both north and south of Bristol, is the most congestion prone of the UK rural trunk motorways. Is this because we're currently in the summer holiday season, or always like this?

Despite now recognising the congestion that you described, I find that, even at those congestion peaks, google still consistently indicates M4/M5 time to be only a few minutes longer than A303.
The traffic on the M5 can be very bad. It seems to combine a mixture of local and tourist traffic, with large peaks over the weekends and also with any volume of holiday traffic.

I wonder if it has the highest proportion of "irregular" travellers, which probably contributes to the traffic congestion.

Certainly on my recent drive up and down it on two Fridays in June, our average speed was little over 30mph from Tiverton to Bristol.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by marconaf »

solocle wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 13:20
marconaf wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:46 They already try to dissaude you from using the legal footpaths around it (security guard tried to tell me we needed a ticket to use the footpath!), so their intent is clear. Kick everyone out, charge the earth to see a very sanitised place.
That wasn't my experience on Saturday morning... Stood around for perhaps 20 minutes (until sunrise), the only thing the security guard said was good morning!
48465D53-A741-4B88-B67F-705E48AA3F0D.jpegB744D455-FC98-43CA-B1AE-61DC5F22A95A.jpegFBCD1374-7F08-4EE9-8599-4F344C291081.jpeg
(I set off from Canary Wharf at sunset, beeline down the A30 and A303).
Probably not the typical visitor :-) and everywhere looks ace in early AM too!

In daytime it seems a very dead place, just a line of people shuffling round the path, kept well away from the stones and stopping for the odd selfie.

I found the old Military railway to the north far more interesting to trace, as well as the burial mounds and the cursus (still not convinced its what the sole info board said it was). The Avenue seems to be disregarded yet given that goes somewhere it seems of more interest.

On another note, there were a lot of cars/campers/tents on the N-S track - how did they get there if the access road is cut off now? Seems you could just drive up to it and park on that track. They seemed an eccentric bunch but at least brought some life to the place!
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by Herned »

Peter Freeman wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 13:21 Having now monitored (from afar, using google maps) M5 congestion for a few days, I have seen some of the congestion you describe. It's actually quite difficult to fathom the reasons for, or even the timing pattern of, the severe events. My surprising conclusion is that the M5, for a considerable distance both north and south of Bristol, is the most congestion prone of the UK rural trunk motorways. Is this because we're currently in the summer holiday season, or always like this?

Despite now recognising the congestion that you described, I find that, even at those congestion peaks, google still consistently indicates M4/M5 time to be only a few minutes longer than A303.
It's because it's holiday season, and that's worse this year because of covid restrictions. It's not just the weight of traffic, although that's obviously part of it. There is the volume of caravans, which are often driven slowly, and then get punctures and HE close a lane to protect them. I suspect also there is the uncertainty of holiday traffic being away from their usual routes and not being confident they are going the right way, so slowing down at junctions etc.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by Jim606 »

One of the issues here is the National Trust (NT). NT agreement has been crucial to securing agreement for the scheme to proceed. It must be noted however, that the 3.3km tunnel passes under all the NT's land. None of it is actually obliterated by the new road. As mentioned before, the problem is the western tunnel approach cutting scarring the WHS. The NT to be fair, argued for the original design of green bridge no. 4 to be changed into a full cut and cover 110m long semi-tunnel. This was debated in-depth. The NT's also produced a long and detailed submission in regards to the whole planning application, probably more so than anyone else https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/stoneh ... ehenge.pdf

However, as usual not everyone is happy and various people complained at the NT AGM's amongst other places https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/wp-co ... and-As.pdf
Dr Nick Snashall, NT Archaeologist for the Avebury and Stonehenge WHS said:
“Using 21st-century techniques, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes team have transformed our knowledge of this ancient, precious and very special landscape. Their work has revealed a clutch of previously unsuspected sites and monuments showing how much of the story of this world-famous archaeological treasure house remains to be told.” (Both quotes, Birmingham University website, 10.9.14) The Stonehenge landscape is now under threat from the Government’s desire to expand the A303 to the South West. The Secretary of State for Transport recognizes that the National Trust and English Heritage have expressed support for an A303 bored tunnel of between 2.5 and 2.9km at Stonehenge. Such a tunnel, resulting in at least 1.6km of new dual carriageway being constructed within the WHS, would be far too short to prevent severe an irremediable damage to the WHS landscape.
The western approach cutting is therefore the crux of the whole issue. Provide extra coverage here and the project can go-ahead. It's just the NT aren't going to ask for it this time, it's down to the objectors.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by jackal »

Herned wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 14:56
Peter Freeman wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 13:21 Having now monitored (from afar, using google maps) M5 congestion for a few days, I have seen some of the congestion you describe. It's actually quite difficult to fathom the reasons for, or even the timing pattern of, the severe events. My surprising conclusion is that the M5, for a considerable distance both north and south of Bristol, is the most congestion prone of the UK rural trunk motorways. Is this because we're currently in the summer holiday season, or always like this?

Despite now recognising the congestion that you described, I find that, even at those congestion peaks, google still consistently indicates M4/M5 time to be only a few minutes longer than A303.
It's because it's holiday season, and that's worse this year because of covid restrictions. It's not just the weight of traffic, although that's obviously part of it. There is the volume of caravans, which are often driven slowly, and then get punctures and HE close a lane to protect them. I suspect also there is the uncertainty of holiday traffic being away from their usual routes and not being confident they are going the right way, so slowing down at junctions etc.
Aside from the seasonality a major factor is J15-J16. There are C/D lanes but unusually most of the traffic is on the outercarriageways.

Why is most of the traffic on the outercarriageways? Because only M5-M5 traffic is on the mainline, whereas you have both local traffic and M4-M5 traffic on the outercarriageways. M4-M5 serves functions much like a continuous motorway and has very high turning volumes, but it has to weave across local traffic in a ridiculously tight 400m space, with predictable results.

Throw in the adjacent J17 (for Cribbs Causeway, Bristol's main shopping centre) and M4 J19 (the main access to Bristol) and you have a real mess.

In the RIS pipeline there is a "Severn Resilience Package" that is "Developing a package of possible improvements to sections of the M4, M5 and M32 motorways on the eastern side of the Severn Crossings near Bristol to tackle current and future congestion levels following the 2018 removal of the tolls to cross the Severn bridges". Hopefully this will introduce the braiding that is desperately needed to free up the M4-M5 movements, but I'm not holding my breath. There's also a separate scheme to convert the hard shoulder running sections of the M4 and M5 around Bristol to ALR, which is a good idea but won't make much difference by itself.
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by Peter Freeman »

Peter Freeman wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 13:21 Despite now recognising the congestion that you described, I find that, even at those congestion peaks, google still consistently indicates M4/M5 time to be only a few minutes longer than A303.
Apologies for self-quoting, but I must add that it's obvious that this will be the case. The respective travel-times follow each other up and down, because the traffic volumes and congestion do too. Traffic on M4/M5 goes up, so the travel time goes up; simultaneously, traffic on A303 goes up, so its travel time goes up. Travel time difference stays the same. Only a change in the route-split ratio (driver choice) would defeat this constant characteristic.
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solocle
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by solocle »

marconaf wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 14:15
solocle wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 13:20
marconaf wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:46 They already try to dissaude you from using the legal footpaths around it (security guard tried to tell me we needed a ticket to use the footpath!), so their intent is clear. Kick everyone out, charge the earth to see a very sanitised place.
That wasn't my experience on Saturday morning... Stood around for perhaps 20 minutes (until sunrise), the only thing the security guard said was good morning!
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(I set off from Canary Wharf at sunset, beeline down the A30 and A303).
Probably not the typical visitor :-) and everywhere looks ace in early AM too!

In daytime it seems a very dead place, just a line of people shuffling round the path, kept well away from the stones and stopping for the odd selfie.

I found the old Military railway to the north far more interesting to trace, as well as the burial mounds and the cursus (still not convinced its what the sole info board said it was). The Avenue seems to be disregarded yet given that goes somewhere it seems of more interest.

On another note, there were a lot of cars/campers/tents on the N-S track - how did they get there if the access road is cut off now? Seems you could just drive up to it and park on that track. They seemed an eccentric bunch but at least brought some life to the place!
Oh yep, those chaps were there! But I only encountered two folks who'd walked up to see the sunrise, and they didn't strike me as the happy campers.
The track is a byway, although with TROs at certain times of the year, I believe.
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RichardA35
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Re: Stonehenge - The bored tunnel option

Post by RichardA35 »

jackal wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:20 Thanks, this is useful info. But just to say that the 19 min saving is not just "for folks off to their holidays". It is also for all the HGVs, commuters, etc going about their regular business, but caught up in the holiday traffic. People can't just stop making their deliveries or going to work because it's the summer.
I do agree, although those who use the route year round will probably have an an alternative route worked out for the busy days or be prepared to endure the congestion.
jackal wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:20The 2005 scheme was priced at £470m when it was dropped, compared to £1.7bn today; if it's delayed another 15-20 years I would expect it would come back at £5bn-£10bn, which makes todays scheme look fantastic value by comparison.
The 2005 scheme was rather hamstrung by its procurement where the target was set before any ground investigation was carried out and, if it had gone to construction, the contractor would have been losing money from day one. The driver was therefore to cover this off and raise the target through change as AIUI the discovered ground conditions were so far from those that could have been expected.
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