The study of British and Irish roads - their construction, numbering, history, mapping, past and future official roads proposals and general roads musings.
There is a separate forum for Street Furniture (traffic lights, street lights, road signs etc).
Registered users get access to other forums including discussions about other forms of transport, driving, fantasy roads and wishlists, and roads quizzes.
wrinkly wrote:If and when the whole scheme goes ahead, there will be no access between the local roads and the major routes. But there are precedents now for AP roads suddenly becoming motorways, such as at the end of the M56. Though this will be the first case where the distance between the last choice point and the start of motorway is so large - about 6 miles. Presumably there will have to be appropriate signage at the A14/A5199 junction.
Not really a precedent. When the A5 becomes the M54 in Telford, Non-Motorway Traffic is sent down the B5061 [old A5] at the same point.
Likewise when the A494 becomes the M56- the eastbound driver is offered the A540 or the A5117 for prohibited traffic: at the same point.
As you have said, there will be a six mile gap from the last 'escape' on the A14 at the A5199 J1, to the M6/M1. What happens to prohibited traffic heading west at J1?
There is no precedent for a non-motorway meeting a motorway with no 'escape' in Great Britain: I appreciate that Pathetic Motorways notes a NI example, but that is the point: it is pathetic. So the A14 must become the A14[M] or the M14 from J1 to the M6/M1.
As discussed several times in this forum in the last two years, there's a gap of about 700 yards between the last escape point and the start of motorway status when joining the M56 eastbound at its west end, and a gap of about 200 (or 400?) yards when joining the A1(M) northbound at Blyth. Both are new within the last year or two. I don't see how that's different in principle from a gap of 6 miles.
The greater distance does raise the question of what the ADS will be like at the A5199 junction. Will it have a blue panel for the straight ahead route? But there's no motorway scheme or appropriation scheme for 10km of A14 among the orders listed here.
Looking at the large scale plan, there are several emergency accesses, one of which could in theory be used to escape from the A14-to-M1-north slip road, but you'd have to slow to about 10mph, and I expect it'll be gated.
Looking at this - were going to drop from three lanes to two lanes for the M6 to M1 link southbound. Construction of the new bridge while maintaining the current layout is as far as I can see going to be interesting in its own right...Its awfully close !
Now this junction does need to be replaced - this design seems half hearted due to the fact that its not full flow. Id have said that there may have been scope for the A14 to M1 south being provided even if there was no requirement for M6 to M1 north. Be a significant change in having to 'leave' the M6 to join the M1 when it was always a motorway merge from the M6 down to the M1. Three lanes to three lanes at one time aswell. It will diminish the junction somewhat I think. I wonder at just how they will address the spontaneous motorway at the A14 to M6 transition. It would be worth running the M6 throguh the junction to the next junction on the A14 and have the start end of motorway at that point. Means extending the M6 but see no reason on why this cant be done.
Another way out would be to adapt the A14 to M1 north slips and take off some slips to the shawell road and then upgrade or align a good quality link to the A5 which is close enough to provide some relief to non motorway traffic. This being more than capable to take this traffic requirement.
wrinkly wrote:As discussed several times in this forum in the last two years, there's a gap of about 700 yards between the last escape point and the start of motorway status when joining the M56 eastbound at its west end, and a gap of about 200 (or 400?) yards when joining the A1(M) northbound at Blyth. Both are new within the last year or two. I don't see how that's different in principle from a gap of 6 miles.
And of course, there's the former "spontaneous motorway" at Micklefield, Yorkshire. That's now been removed with the extension of the A1(M) southwards towards Ferrybridge.
Steven
Motorway Historian
Founder Member, SABRE ex-Presidents' Corner
Add your roads knowledge to the SABRE Wiki today!
Have you browsed SABRE Maps recently? Try getting involved!
worcsfan wrote:There is no precedent for a non-motorway meeting a motorway with no 'escape' in Great Britain: I appreciate that Pathetic Motorways notes a NI example, but that is the point: it is pathetic. So the A14 must become the A14[M] or the M14 from J1 to the M6/M1.
M57 J1, which used to end the far side of the roundabout, though the loop ramp sorts it out - only about 50 yards between last diverge and chopsticks now - the other way is non motorway over the roundabout and M62
Blyth, the M57 one and the M56 one all set recent precedent for changes to terminal roundabouts not extending motorway regulations (though the M57 one has more recent precedent for free-flow motorway slips meaning regulations will be changed. If you look, the M56 suddenly starts, when you are on the old bit, and not on the 2008 vintage road.
Quite what this means for Catthorpe, I don't know.
One wonders if there's a handy footpath to Micklefield with - IIRC there isn't going to be such a thing after the works - they will have bridges and such like.
Some slips from the A14-M1 North slips to the local road network would solve the problem of non-motorway traffic and wouldn't be that expensive (cheaper than making several miles of A14 motorway, given all the right of way stuff). A spontaneous motorway is the easiest and cheapest solution for the planners, but not the best for prohibited traffic.
"“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations" Thomas Jefferson
Gav wrote:this design seems half hearted due to the fact that its not full flow.
The current proposals are rethought from an earlier officially preferred route that would have had 4 levels including a roundabout, but IIRC still no connection to the local roads.
worcsfan wrote:Not really a precedent. When the A5 becomes the M54 in Telford, Non-Motorway Traffic is sent down the B5061 [old A5] at the same point.
...
As you have said, there will be a six mile gap from the last 'escape' on the A14 at the A5199 J1, to the M6/M1. What happens to prohibited traffic heading west at J1?
There is no precedent for a non-motorway meeting a motorway with no 'escape' in Great Britain: I appreciate that Pathetic Motorways notes a NI example, but that is the point: it is pathetic. So the A14 must become the A14[M] or the M14 from J1 to the M6/M1.
That's the key difference. At Wellington and numerous other motorway termini, the motorway starts at the point where non-motorway traffic leaves by the sliproad, at Catthorpe there is a road that non-motorway traffic can continue to use but that leads inexorably to a motorway. (The exception is that pedestrians (and therefore cyclists) can legitimately use the road as they can legally retrace their steps to a previous exit.)
It isn't without precedent, though. In fairly trivial form, the recent upgrades to the terminal junctions of the M56 at Dunkirk and the A1(M) at Blyth saw no change to the end point of the motorway but an extension of the mainline through the junction, meaning that in both cases there is a short section (just a few hundred yards) of non-motorway road that leads inexorably to a motorway. A more significant example did exist at Micklefield following the upgrade of the A1(M) around Hook Moor, when the A1 Micklefield by-pass was still an A road for about 3 miles. Of course, with the completion of the Ferrybridge section of the motorway, this anomaly disappeared.
And that's the thing that at Micklefield it was obviously only meant as a temporary situation as the later motorway project was in the planning stages when it was created. AFAIK there has never been any even slightly suggested proposals to upgrade the A14 to motorway in this area so AFAIC it doesn't really count as being the same.
Here's another option: how about they downgrade the M6 westbound between the M1 and the A426 to be a continuation of the A14?? Yep I know that's not going to happen but, hey, it's still an option!
Stevie D wrote:That's the key difference. At Wellington and numerous other motorway termini, the motorway starts at the point where non-motorway traffic leaves by the sliproad, at Catthorpe there is a road that non-motorway traffic can continue to use but that leads inexorably to a motorway. (The exception is that pedestrians (and therefore cyclists) can legitimately use the road as they can legally retrace their steps to a previous exit.)
According to this map, there's a bridleway less than 1/2 mile from the junction for pedestrians and cyclists (not to mention people riding particularly calm horses) to use. For everyone else, there's a big "non-motorway traffic" sign.
ScottB5411 wrote:See futures on Cbrd, funding confirmed towards the end of June so it's more than likely all systems go to quote a quote
Just to clarify - the contributor who sent in that update has asked me to amend it. The funding is not for the whole junction improvement, it is only funding for the viaduct replacement works. The rest of the junction scheme is still on hold until the spending review.
I haven't edited this on CBRD yet but I will do so shortly.
I am of the view it'd make merging onto the M1 much more logical if the new viaduct was just 2 lanes - then, in an unknown future where we still widen roads, you could have a 2+2 merge to make 4 lanes to London...
Of course, the M1 will revert to 3 lanes under the bridge causing the M6 to queue I suspect. Whoops.
Bryn Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already. She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
I'm hoping the M6 will be extended up to the A5199 to give a good quality exit point for non-motorway traffic. It will be interesting to see how traffic is managed during this project due to it being such a major interchange.
Birchington wrote:I'm hoping the M6 will be extended up to the A5199 to give a good quality exit point for non-motorway traffic. It will be interesting to see how traffic is managed during this project due to it being such a major interchange.
The HA site mentions overnight closures, assuming this means of both the M6, M1 & A14 that'll involve some busy divertions. I'm guessing they'll use the M45/A45/A46 route and then M69 for M1 traffic. For east/west traffic on the A14 I'm not sure, around Northampton & Wellingborough?
Went Eastbound through Catthorpe earlier. The speed limit on the M6 drops first to 60 then 50 (which I have never seen before), and the pair of average cameras covers some of both the 60 and 50 sections (which I have also never seen before).
Make poetry history.
Did you know there's more to SABRE than just the Forums?
Help with maps using the new online calibrator.
Add your roads knowledge to the SABRE Wiki.
