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.
owen b wrote:But is it? Let's do the maths : the dualling will cost £3 billion. Let's say the average AADT over the route is 10,000 (seems reasonable based on rileyrob's numbers), that's about 4 million a year, or about 200 million over a 50 year period. £3billion divided by 200 million journeys is £15. So every journey on that stretch of the A9 for the next 50 years will cost £15 just for the cost of the dualling to save 30 minutes per journey. Sorry, but I simply don't think purely on journey saving times it makes economic sense. Would you pay £15 to save 30 minutes every time, on top of the extra fuel costs of going faster?
Well, maybe if the M6 Toll was a bit longer
Last edited by Anonymous on Thu Mar 19, 2015 13:24, edited 1 time in total.
"Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty."
- some extreme-right nutcase
Mark Hewitt wrote:Maybe once they get the A9 out the way they can start looking at other roads in Scotland, as the focus as been solely on the A9 for so long.
Let us hope the local politicians and media in another area don't play the 'most dangerous road in the world' game every time there is any sort of accident on one of their local roads.
owen b wrote:But is it? Let's do the maths : the dualling will cost £3 billion. Let's say the average AADT over the route is 10,000 (seems reasonable based on rileyrob's numbers), that's about 4 million a year, or about 200 million over a 50 year period. £3billion divided by 200 million journeys is £15. So every journey on that stretch of the A9 for the next 50 years will cost £15 just for the cost of the dualling to save 30 minutes per journey. Sorry, but I simply don't think purely on journey saving times it makes economic sense. Would you pay £15 to save 30 minutes every time, on top of the extra fuel costs of going faster?
Well, maybe if the M6 Toll was a bit longer
You mean extend the M6 Toll to Inverness but keep the price the same? That would certainly boost usage levels!
I've also noticed in the last week or so Transport Scotland have uploaded some videos to their Youtube account showing computer visualisations of some of the routes along the A9 along with junction options. They are pretty good, link here:
DOCUMENTARY: Diary of Britain: Shinty Town
On: BBC Alba
Date: Wednesday 17th June 2015 (starting in 4 minutes)
Time: 23:00 to 23:40 (40 minutes long)
Bha an t-sreath A Diary of Britain ag amas air sealladh a thoirt air dòigh-beatha grunn choimhearsnachdan air feadh Bhreatainn tro sheachdain ann an 1978. Tha Shinty Town a' toirt dealbh dhuinn air beatha muinntir Bhail' Ùr an t-Slèibh aig àm nuair a bhathas ag obair a' togail seach-rathad an A9. Tha sinn a' coinneachadh ri cuid den luchd-obrach a bha an sàs anns a' phròiseact agus tha sinn cuideachd a' faighinn a-mach dè mar a tha dol do sgioba iomain a' bhaile. A Diary of Britain filmed a week in the life of fifteen communities throughout the UK during 1978. Shinty Town profiles those living in the Inverness-shire village of Newtonmore during September 1978, at a time when the A9 bypass was being built. We meet some of those working on the bypass and hear the villager's hopes and fears for the development. The programme also profiles the local shinty team.
(Stereo, Repeat, Widescreen, Episode 1)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=7346
paully wrote:On the subject of whether the A9 should be dualled, I usually take about 2 hours on a good day (average speed just over 50mph) between Inveralmond and Inverness, but sometimes it can take 2:30. Averaging 70 all the way this would give a journey time of 1:30 - a saving of half an hour against my "good day" time. Ignoring road safety and low AADT, surely it is a worthwhile investment to reduce the journey time by a quarter on a long-distance route?
But is it? Let's do the maths : the dualling will cost £3 billion. Let's say the average AADT over the route is 10,000 (seems reasonable based on rileyrob's numbers), that's about 4 million a year, or about 200 million over a 50 year period. £3billion divided by 200 million journeys is £15. So every journey on that stretch of the A9 for the next 50 years will cost £15 just for the cost of the dualling to save 30 minutes per journey. Sorry, but I simply don't think purely on journey saving times it makes economic sense. Would you pay £15 to save 30 minutes every time, on top of the extra fuel costs of going faster?
Quite apart from anything else, if you've £3 billion to spend on roads investment in Scotland, wouldn't it be better to spend it somewhere there will be more benefit?
How many lives would be saved? They also have a value.
Vierwielen wrote:
How many lives would be saved? They also have a value.
It's not just about journey time saved either, it's about having a reliable journey time that you know when you're going to get there each time. That can only help economic development, along the entire corridor.
But would that amount of money been spent if it wasn't for the political influence? At least it is getting spent on something that will actually benefit the country rather than on a vanity project like the new borders railway that will only be used by a fraction of the population and never be used to it's capacity, or anywhere near it.
The money for the railway should have been used to dual the A1.
tommym8 wrote:But would that amount of money been spent if it wasn't for the political influence? At least it is getting spent on something that will actually benefit the country rather than on a vanity project like the new borders railway that will only be used by a fraction of the population and never be used to it's capacity, or anywhere near it.
The money for the railway should have been used to dual the A1.
There isn't much in the way of S2 on the A1 in Scotland left to upgrade. And not much point when DfT ignore the road north of Newcastle.
tommym8 wrote:But would that amount of money been spent if it wasn't for the political influence? At least it is getting spent on something that will actually benefit the country rather than on a vanity project like the new borders railway that will only be used by a fraction of the population and never be used to it's capacity, or anywhere near it.
Is this scheme mostly offline rather than dualling the existing alignment or does it have difficult engineering conditions? The NI A8 expressway scheme was about £14.5m per mile, a £3Bn estimate here is more than twice that amount per mile.
"I intend to always travel a different road"
Ibn Battuta 1304-1368
paully wrote:On the subject of whether the A9 should be dualled, I usually take about 2 hours on a good day (average speed just over 50mph) between Inveralmond and Inverness, but sometimes it can take 2:30. Averaging 70 all the way this would give a journey time of 1:30 - a saving of half an hour against my "good day" time. Ignoring road safety and low AADT, surely it is a worthwhile investment to reduce the journey time by a quarter on a long-distance route?
But is it? Let's do the maths : the dualling will cost £3 billion. Let's say the average AADT over the route is 10,000 (seems reasonable based on rileyrob's numbers), that's about 4 million a year, or about 200 million over a 50 year period. £3billion divided by 200 million journeys is £15. So every journey on that stretch of the A9 for the next 50 years will cost £15 just for the cost of the dualling to save 30 minutes per journey. Sorry, but I simply don't think purely on journey saving times it makes economic sense. Would you pay £15 to save 30 minutes every time, on top of the extra fuel costs of going faster?
Quite apart from anything else, if you've £3 billion to spend on roads investment in Scotland, wouldn't it be better to spend it somewhere there will be more benefit?
How many lives would be saved? They also have a value.
Yes, sure lives have a value. But I was responding specifically to paully's question : Ignoring road safety and low AADT, surely it is a worthwhile investment
In any case, the A9 is a relatively safe road (according to EuroRAP, it's low-medium risk http://www.roadsafetyfoundation.org/med ... e_2014.pdf page 14) and it has relatively low traffic volume, so it seems unlikely to me that the A9 is the best place to spend a vast amount of limited investment funds on safety grounds either.
Bryn666 wrote:It's entirely political to show that the main road to the Highlands is being made into a super route.
Meanwhile the A82 is still a goat track.
The politicians were put under pressure by local Inverness politicians and media putting out the lie that it is the most dangerous road in Scotland (or the UK?) every time there was any sort of serious accident.
Surely the strategy is driven by the STPR? A9 dualling was one of the major road schemes recommended in the STPR, the others being the new Forth Replacement Crossing, dualling between Inverness and Nairn, A82 upgrades, and the Dundee Northern Relief Road. Apart from the latter these are all being progressed.
It's not as if the A9 has been top priority for Holyrood over the last 16 years when you consider the projects which have been built ahead of it such as M80 Stepps to Haggs, M74 Completion, M77, A1 upgrades and Clacks Bridge. And of course there's the three biggies currently under construction.
Bryn666 wrote:It's entirely political to show that the main road to the Highlands is being made into a super route.
Meanwhile the A82 is still a goat track.
The politicians were put under pressure by local Inverness politicians and media putting out the lie that it is the most dangerous road in Scotland (or the UK?) every time there was any sort of serious accident.
Surely having a long distance high quality route up the core of the country is a sensible arrangement?
I agree A82 leaves a lot to be desired but it's hardly a goat track.
There are certainly strategic regions for wanting a high quality route.
One must remember that this route is a very long distance and thus delays due to following slower moving vehicles have a far greater impact on journey times than is the case on shorter routers.
It also has the issue of a lack of suitable alternative routes on many sections meaning that closures can have a disproportionately great impact, and of course some bits don't cope well with the winter weather, leaving communities isolated and cut off.
Roads can, and do impact more than just the vehicles on the road itself.
It is perhaps true that the same can be said for the A82, but the simple reality is that if we cannot do both then we have to pick one and Inverness is far larger (and faster growing) than Fort William and there are far more smaller communities along the line of the A( than the A82.
I do however agree with the comments on the safety claims. The media and political claims of it being a "killer road" are not supported by the evidence.
Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open Thomas Robert Dewar(1864-1930) Take the pledge
michael769 wrote:
It is perhaps true that the same can be said for the A82, but the simple reality is that if we cannot do both then we have to pick one and Inverness is far larger (and faster growing) than Fort William and there are far more smaller communities along the line of the A( than the A82.
I do however agree with the comments on the safety claims. The media and political claims of it being a "killer road" are not supported by the evidence.
The A82 does not just serve Fort William, it serves most of Argyll and the West coast up to Skye, Inner Hebrides and Southern half of the Western Isles as well as traffic to Inverness from the West.
