A27 Beddingham improvments

[AJK1982]

http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/projects/3942.aspx

Newsletter 3 has a diagram showing where the bridge wil go. Next to the crossing really.

[AJK1982]

I thought I would drag this thread up again rather than create a new one.

I drove through the roadworks today and thought I would give a progress update.

The new alignment is very visible now, lots of chalk. The bridge retaining walls either side of the railway line look complete, with the ramps up to them about halfway done. The bridge dwarfs the level crossing, especially as the crossing is at the bottom of a valley. The new bridge over the beddingham stream is in place.

Almost all of the widening is taking place to the south of the existing road, especially up Ranscombe Hill. It is very evident that there is (and will be) enough room to the north of that section to have put a D2 in place without cutting further into the hill which contradicts the clap-trap spouted about a D2 being more enviromentally damaging. As Sarah states, the bridge looks like it will be wide enough to be at least S4 if need be. The approches to the roundabouts look pretty wide too. It does look like it wouldn't take much to widen the whole lot to D2 at some later point, but I'm still irritated they haven't done that in the first place.

[Phil]

Just to let people know, the new bridge will be opened to road traffic this weekend, (see http://www.highways.gov.uk/news/newsroo ... eid=155251) although the roadworks themselves are not yet finished. Ironically, despite this the tempory speed restriction will remain for trains because the person responsable for the railway aspects of the project (not NR) "forgot" to sort out the necessary paperwork to lift the speed restriction (20mph) despite his asertions 6 months ago to NR that he would remember.

[Fluid Dynamics]

Went through a couple of days ago and it looks like the improvements are pretty much finished and I would think that the traffic management arrangements will removed pretty soon. When I passed they were surfacing the Beddingham roundabout.

[Lil]

Talking of visual impact, I recently walked the South Downs Way (couple of weeks ago, Winchester to Eastbourne) and by the time I made it to Rodmell/Southease I was expecting I could climb Iford Hill/Beddingham Hill to see the progress.

I couldn't see nor hear a dicky bird so visually it seems quite successful

I've only driven the new bit once and that was December last year, after 5pm in the dark and it was very very misty so I couldn't see barely the car in front let alone the roadworks. A bit scary when you know you're going over a new bridge, that was never there before and you keep going up and up and up and think you're going to go over the edge soon

One thing I have been surprised off is the lack of photos on here of the works. I guess I'll try and work a walk sometime soon into this area and get some.

[AJK1982]

Talking of visual impact, I recently walked the South Downs Way (couple of weeks ago, Winchester to Eastbourne) and by the time I made it to Rodmell/Southease I was expecting I could climb Iford Hill/Beddingham Hill to see the progress.

I couldn't see nor hear a dicky bird so visually it seems quite successful

Which again begs the question if it can be done so well with a wide S2+1 then why not go the whole hog and have a D2? No doubt though that the new road will be an improvement, as I assume it will be NSL and is now 2 lanes for the whole eastbound section, plus the improvements to the roundabouts, and lack of level crossing. I just fear it won't be enough.

I went through there yesterday and was impressed by how much the works had progressed since my last trip through there a few weeks back, must be nearly done now.

The whole A27 from Southerham to Polegate was really busy yesterday, was a 35-40mph crawl at best along that entire stretch, and this was late morning on a Wednesday....

[Fluid Dynamics]

Looks like it is now open - save for the junction improvements at Glynde


http://www.highways.gov.uk/news/pressre ... eid=164782

[Lil]

Overall it has to be an improvement whatever, with hopefully reducing the queues at peak time and eliminating queues from the level crossing altogether. Much better than cars sitting there pumping out exhaust fumes sitting still.

I'll have to get up Mt Caburn sometime and have a listen and see if the road has an intrusion there, no more than before I assume which was virtually none.

[Truvelo]

Both bridges are wide enough to take a D2 with a narrow median so if the stretch from Lewes to Polegate is ever dualled the bridges won't have to be replaced.

[sotonsteve]

I think it's a missed opportunity not only that the new road is not D2, but also that the brdige over the railway does not appear to have been future proofed for D2. Fair enough, if a parallel pedestrian bridge were built alongside you could get an S4 over that bridge, but a D2 would be a very tight squeeze with narrow lanes and a very narrow central reservation I reckon. The A27 along there certainly seems busy enough to warrant a D2; it seems busier than the A36 between Southampton and Salisbury.

The camber of the new road feels a bit drunken in places, and leads me to wonder if it would make people feel ill like the Advanced Passenger Train of the 1970s. And then there's the Beddingham roundabout. What imbecile designed that? I want to slap them. I wonder how many people have crashed on that roundabout, because it's just so severe. You've really got to make sharp and significant turns on the steering wheel to negotiate that roundabout, because the alignment is just so severe. Negotiating it at any more than 15mph creates noticeable g-forces in the car and feels pretty damn unsafe. The design no doubt results in lots of people getting cut up, and I'd hate to negotiate the roundabout in icy conditions. It's just awful.

Southerham to Beddingham improvements, brought to you by the same people who gave you M40 J10.

[wrinkly]

I think it's a missed opportunity not only that the new road is not D2, but also that the brdige over the railway does not appear to have been future proofed for D2.

Read the Inspector's report and you'll see that if it had been future-proofed, it might not have got approved.

[sotonsteve]

I think it's a missed opportunity not only that the new road is not D2, but also that the brdige over the railway does not appear to have been future proofed for D2.

Read the Inspector's report and you'll see that if it had been future-proofed, it might not have got approved.

Short sighted, but then again, it'll probably take them 100 years to dual as far as Polegate anyway

[jackal]

Read the Inspector's report and you'll see that if it had been future-proofed, it might not have got approved.

It is future proofed for a compact dual carriageway - which is to say, a dual carriageway with a concrete reserve. Indeed, the inspector rejected the A27 Action Group's bizarre suggestion that the cycle way should be provided as a separate bridge, just so a future upgrade to dual carriageway would be impossible.

ESCC make a couple of good points:

4.5 The traffic flows currently obtaining on this section of A27 of 30,200 AADT point to a two lane all-purpose dual carriageway in terms of the appropriate standards.

4.10 Not only would a WS2 or a WS2+1 carriageway potentially be
substandard at the outset, to have to widen to a full dual standard carriageway at a later date may result in substantial additional costs in terms of capital and operational costs.

So in other words, we're looking at a new Ilminster bypass.

The report also contains a slightly weird response to the suggestion of dualling:

7.81 The comparative economic performance of the proposed Scheme, a dual carriageway (D2AP) and a WS2 are set out in HA/18, Table 2.2. The D2AP would have a marginally better BCR but would be significantly more expensive than the WS2 or WS2+1.

This seems like a pretty ridiculous example of double counting designed to reach the desired conclusion - i.e. our own measure of value doesn't support our watered down scheme, so we'll count the vector of value which does support it (cost) a second time and only count the vector of value (benefit) that does not support it once.

The purest in me is disappointed that the inspector went along with the HA's rationalizations, but the pragmatist knows that even the scheme as it stands is a major improvement, and it's actually a step towards D2 anyway (albeit an expensive one).

[AJK1982]

The Cycle-lane/footpath seems overly wide to me, with large verges on either side of it. Dualing would need few earthworks now I would think. Dualing and keeping the footpath may take more, but has anyone actually ever witnessed a pedestrian/cyclist on the new footpath since it has been built? It seems silly that any project for motorized vehicles looks at the number of them using a road, yet noone seems to survey the current number of pedestrians/cyclists using a route before building new ped/cycle facilities.

[Lil]

As a very keen walker I would point out the the A27 bridge does provide an excellent way of crossing the railway line that was previously only crossable downstream at Southease and sometimes the old bridge there is closed causing a very long detour into Lewes, and that path is the South Downs Way, a major bridleway in Britain so to me, it's very worthwhile. And a lot of people will also agree as this summer the bridge at Southease was closed for a number of weeks causing a long detour of over 5 miles.

As such, whilst you might not see someone usually, there might be times where lots of people use the bridge.

[AJK1982]

As a very keen walker I would point out the the A27 bridge does provide an excellent way of crossing the railway line that was previously only crossable downstream at Southease and sometimes the old bridge there is closed causing a very long detour into Lewes, and that path is the South Downs Way, a major bridleway in Britain so to me, it's very worthwhile. And a lot of people will also agree as this summer the bridge at Southease was closed for a number of weeks causing a long detour of over 5 miles.

As such, whilst you might not see someone usually, there might be times where lots of people use the bridge.

Fair enough, the path may get more use in the summer months. I still feel that more generally there is a need for some sort of survey to take place when considering the construction of new pedestrian and cylist facilities. That way money can be targetted better. For example, improvements to the surface of the well-used Downs Link cyclepath between Shoreham and Steyning would be really useful, and would take the braver cyclists, who would prefer not to arrive at work caked in mud, off of the parallel A283. As I had no car at the time I considered cycling from Lancing to Steyning when I trained at the school there, but the route was so awful I gave up with the idea on my trial attempt. Conversely new pedestrian crossings have popped up in a variety of locations and get little use.

[jackal]

The Cycle-lane/footpath seems overly wide to me, with large verges on either side of it. Dualing would need few earthworks now I would think. Dualing and keeping the footpath may take more, but has anyone actually ever witnessed a pedestrian/cyclist on the new footpath since it has been built? It seems silly that any project for motorized vehicles looks at the number of them using a road, yet noone seems to survey the current number of pedestrians/cyclists using a route before building new ped/cycle facilities.

I don't see how a survey would have much impact. With a new project like this there is a need to provide pedestrian and cycle facilities regardless of usage (or at least, the perception of such a need). Whether 1 person a day or 100 a day cycle/walk the route is something of an irrelevance since the path will have to be provided anyway, and to a similar standard, since even the minimum standard for such facilities is usually well under capacity.

In this particular case, I suspect the width of the path and the verges will be to make future dualling easy. They're not there to increase pedestrian/cycle capacity, as there's obviously no need for that. If the gold plating is, as I suspect, not really for the benefit of cyclists/pedestrians, the numbers of these users is again somewhat irrelevant.