A9 dualling

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jackal
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by jackal »

The skew towards the Highlands and surrounding areas in SNP road spending plans is pretty ridiculous:

£6.6bn for the 830,000 population of Highland, Moray, Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, and Perth and Kinross=£7952 per person
£200m for 4,633,000 population of the rest of Scotland=£43 per person

It's shameless pork barrel politics rewarding the SNP's historical northern strongholds while throwing the rest of Scotland under the bus.

Workings:

Here are the road schemes in the Infrastructure Investment Plan for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26:

Road Adaptations Fund Trunk Road Minor Improvement Schemes
Trunk Road Minor Improvement Schemes to address
the impacts of climate change, improve network
efficiency, safety and resilience contributing to a low
carbon economy.
£60m; 2021-2026; SG spend: £60m

A9 Dualling Programme Phased improvements to the existing A9 Perth
to Inverness consisting of eleven sections.
Total spend: £3bn; 2021-2026 SG spend: £328m

A96 Dual carriageway Phased improvements to the existing A96 from
Inverness to Aberdeen (including the Nairn Bypass).
Total spend: £3bn; 2021-2026 SG spend: £3bn

A82 Tarbet to Inverarnan The design, assessment and construction of
improvements to the A82 between Tarbet and Inverarnan.
Total spend: £250m-£500m; 2021-2026 SG spend: £136m

A77 Maybole Bypass The construction of a new off-line bypass
approximately 5km in length to the north
west of the town of Maybole.
Total spend: £46m; 2021-2026 SG spend: £5m

A92/A96 Haudagain
Junction Improvement
Improvements to the A92/A96 Haudagain Roundabout
to reduce congestion and improve journey time
reliability.
Total spend: £50m; 2021-2026 SG spend: £7m

A737 Improvements at Beith The design, assessment and construction of
improvements to 1.8km of the A737 at Beith.
Total spend: £18m; 2021-2026 SG spend: £10m

A801 Improvement project The construction of a new 3.2 kms of the A801
at Avon Gorge (crosses the boundary between Falkirk and West Lothian).
Total spend: £44m; 2021-2026 SG spend: £22m

Additional transport links
alongside City Region Deals
The design, assessment and construction of Grade
Separated Junctions at Laurencekirk, Sheriffhall
Roundabout and Longman Roundabout, along with
a link road between A9 Inshes Junction and A96
Smithton Junction.
Total spend: £250m – £270m; 2021-2026 SG spend: £68m

From what I see there's about £6.6bn of committed schemes ('total spend') in these local authority areas:

Highland
Moray
Aberdeenshire
Argyll and Bute
Perth and Kinross

There's only ~£200m shared between the remaining areas:

Eilean Siar (Western Isles)
Orkney
Shetland
Angus
Clackmannanshire
Dundee City
Falkirk
Fife
Stirling
City of Edinburgh
East Lothian
Midlothian
West Lothian
East Ayrshire
East Dunbartonshire
East Renfrewshire
Glasgow City
Inverclyde
North Ayrshire
North Lanarkshire
Renfrewshire
South Ayrshire
South Lanarkshire
West Dunbartonshire
Dumfries and Galloway
Scottish Borders

Population numbers are mid-2019 estimates.
djw1981
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by djw1981 »

jackal wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 15:13 The skew towards the Highlands and surrounding areas in SNP road spending plans is pretty ridiculous:

£6.6bn for the 830,000 population of Highland, Moray, Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, and Perth and Kinross=£7952 per person
£200m for 4,633,000 population of the rest of Scotland=£43 per person

It's shameless pork barrel politics rewarding the SNP's historical northern strongholds while throwing the rest of Scotland under the bus.
This follows on from

Forth Replacement Crossing £1.35bn (2018 prices)
M8 completion (and M74 widening ) £415m (2012 prices)
M74 completion £700m (2010 prices)
M9 Spur £40m (2007 price)
M80 Completion £320m
So the Central belt has has already had £2.9bn of major infrastructure upgrades in last 10-12 years; the nature of capital spending is that for big projects they need to be sequenced, in this case central belt sequenced first then A9/A96, other roads may then have their spending sequenced thereafter.
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orudge
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by orudge »

If the A96 dualling was to be curtailed, I’d suggest at the very least having freeflowing dual carriageway bypasses of the remaining towns (Elgin and Keith I think, assuming Nairn goes ahead as per the current plans) would be helpful.
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Mikehannah »

I would agree, hit Nairn and Elgin at the wrong time and you can add an hour plus to your journey. Neither is it good for the air quality with that much traffic passing through these town.

To those who label both projects as “ pork barrel” I would very much disagree. The original purpose of both projects was Primarily to do with Safety and economic development. Inverness is being held back economically by it’s current road and rail links . With most investment in the central belt and companies deterred from stray much further north than Perth.
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jackal
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by jackal »

djw1981 wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 17:22
jackal wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 15:13 The skew towards the Highlands and surrounding areas in SNP road spending plans is pretty ridiculous:

£6.6bn for the 830,000 population of Highland, Moray, Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, and Perth and Kinross=£7952 per person
£200m for 4,633,000 population of the rest of Scotland=£43 per person

It's shameless pork barrel politics rewarding the SNP's historical northern strongholds while throwing the rest of Scotland under the bus.
This follows on from

Forth Replacement Crossing £1.35bn (2018 prices)
M8 completion (and M74 widening ) £415m (2012 prices)
M74 completion £700m (2010 prices)
M9 Spur £40m (2007 price)
M80 Completion £320m
So the Central belt has has already had £2.9bn of major infrastructure upgrades in last 10-12 years; the nature of capital spending is that for big projects they need to be sequenced, in this case central belt sequenced first then A9/A96, other roads may then have their spending sequenced thereafter.
So the SNP will begrudgingly finish Labour schemes in the Central Belt, but not initiate major new schemes there even though that's where ~80% of the population is?

(Using the definition of the Central Belt as the area between the Highland Boundary Fault and Southern Uplands Fault.)
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Herned »

jackal wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 18:49 So the SNP will begrudgingly finish Labour schemes in the Central Belt, but not initiate major new schemes there even though that's where ~80% of the population is?
What major road schemes/proposals are there in the central belt? Dundee bypass? What else?
clc
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by clc »

Herned wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 21:33
jackal wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 18:49 So the SNP will begrudgingly finish Labour schemes in the Central Belt, but not initiate major new schemes there even though that's where ~80% of the population is?
What major road schemes/proposals are there in the central belt? Dundee bypass? What else?
Dualling and grade separation of the A77 around Ayr.
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by djw1981 »

Most of the current central belt schemes seem to be about intra-regional connections, funded by city region deals (most info gained from Glasgow Motorways recent podcast)

- Yoker-Renfew-Western bypass of Renfrew - Airport (inc new bridges across Clyde and Cart)
- New Pan Lanarkshire orbital heading up from M74 J6 via Ravensacraig, Eurocentral, then east of Chapelhall and joining A73 between Cumbernauld and Airdrie
- Sherrrifhall
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Chris56000 »

Hi!
New Pan Lanarkshire orbital heading up from M74 J6 via Ravensacraig
Admittedly slightly off–topic, but will this proposed mooted scheme account most likely explain why the very old directional signing from the A723 to the M74 North and M74 South hasn't been renewed, on account of more major road layout changes in connection with this proposal?

Chris Williams
djw1981
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by djw1981 »

Chris56000 wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 22:53 Hi!
New Pan Lanarkshire orbital heading up from M74 J6 via Ravensacraig
Admittedly slightly off–topic, but will this proposed mooted scheme account most likely explain why the very old directional signing from the A723 to the M74 North and M74 South hasn't been renewed, on account of more major road layout changes in connection with this proposal?

Chris Williams
I assume so
See http://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/ ... change.png and https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/reg ... -transport
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wrinkly
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by wrinkly »

Except for the most north-easterly bit, nearly all the roads shown in magenta at that first link already exist.
Dunragit
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Dunragit »

jackal wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 15:13 The skew towards the Highlands and surrounding areas in SNP road spending plans is pretty ridiculous:

£6.6bn for the 830,000 population of Highland, Moray, Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, and Perth and Kinross=£7952 per person
£200m for 4,633,000 population of the rest of Scotland=£43 per person

It's shameless pork barrel politics rewarding the SNP's historical northern strongholds while throwing the rest of Scotland under the bus.
The Additional Member System in the Scottish Parliament elections means that the idea of marginal and safe seats doesn't matter as much as it does in elections to the UK Parliament. Therefore there is no real perverse incentive for government, or indeed opposition, spending proposals to be targeted at specific constituencies. If you want a majority government then you actually need to run on a policy platform which is at least acceptable to 50% of the population. Adding 10K votes in marginals at the expense of 50K votes in safe seats is pointless as you will, on average, lose 5x as many seats as you gain.
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Euan
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Euan »

I think that in general it is acceptable to spend more £ per head on transport infrastructure within a large and sparsely populated geographical region where transport and in particular transport over quite long distances will inevitably in a proportional sense be a part of more peoples' everyday lives than in cities or large towns. There will not be as many people who can get to their work or nearest basic services by walking just a few blocks down the road, for example.

The disparity in the road spending highlighted upthread is quite stark even with this taken into account, but as others have said I think this has pretty much come about merely by chance as we have only recently seen a wave of major infrastructure projects in the central belt such as plugging the gaps in the motorway network which remained for decades.
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Dunragit
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Dunragit »

It's worth noting that the more densely populated areas of Scotland are going to see a shift in infrastructure spending from roads to public transport. If anything, total road capacity will drop as schemes go about removing the worst aspects of urban trunk roads and traffic space is moved over to active and public transport. It will be interesting to see whether the push for schemes like the Glasgow Metro will result in some less required road schemes being delayed or deferred.
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Nwallace »

Euan wrote: Sat Feb 20, 2021 22:41 I think that in general it is acceptable to spend more £ per head on transport infrastructure within a large and sparsely populated geographical region where transport and in particular transport over quite long distances will inevitably in a proportional sense be a part of more peoples' everyday lives than in cities or large towns. There will not be as many people who can get to their work or nearest basic services by walking just a few blocks down the road, for example.

The disparity in the road spending highlighted upthread is quite stark even with this taken into account, but as others have said I think this has pretty much come about merely by chance as we have only recently seen a wave of major infrastructure projects in the central belt such as plugging the gaps in the motorway network which remained for decades.
It's worth remembering that a fair whack of roads in Rural Scotland were built with ERDF funding simply because a population centric model to spending has generally been applied in the UK; that model is partly responsible for depopulation of rural areas and over population in urban areas.

If the higher population areas are not subsidising the lower population rural areas, then the country is broken.

There's also a 10 billion pound tourist industry, significant food and drink industry (whisky bottles and salmon don't count in the census) that is dependent on good transport links.
Using population alone to target infrastructure is majorly flawed.

Oddly enough the later railway promoters knew this targeting tourists and goods traffic while providing a service that also opened up access to services for people in rural areas.
And sticking with the railways, Scotrail are currently running a Rannoch -> Fort William service for the few people that depend on it to access services, totally uneconomical but socially critical.


As for why things are happening like this, I'd say that Labour's insistence that the A9 would never be dualled and central belt focus is largely to blame, and is part of their downfall.
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Mikehannah »

Consider Labour have been out of power for 13 plus years. How do they have any say in infrastructure spending?
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by HandShandy »

That's the made orders published for the Tomatin to Moy section. It's out for tender.

https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/bid ... g-section/

Contracts look to be awarded in the summer with it starting construction next year.

Not the busiest section and it already has a 2+1 length within it to break up convoys but it's nice for those at the Inverness end to have these bits of dual carriageway joined up.
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by A9Dan »

HandShandy wrote: Fri Feb 26, 2021 16:10 Contracts look to be awarded in the summer with it starting construction next year.
Unfortunately not:
it is expected that the contract will be awarded in the second half of 2022
I therefore would not expect to see anything starting on the ground until 2023.
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by HandShandy »

A9Dan wrote: Fri Feb 26, 2021 16:28
HandShandy wrote: Fri Feb 26, 2021 16:10 Contracts look to be awarded in the summer with it starting construction next year.
Unfortunately not:
it is expected that the contract will be awarded in the second half of 2022
I therefore would not expect to see anything starting on the ground until 2023.
https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/new ... ed-229474/

Well this article quotes contradicts Transport Scotland's timescales, outlining that it's to start next year. I suppose if we include advance works then it's technically "correct"

I did think a tender process of 6 months or so was a bit quick.
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Re: A9 dualling

Post by Glen »

I think what they mean is they'll have selected a list of preferred bidders by the summer who'll enter a dialogue process to undertake detailed designs to submit a tender by next year.

The way these processes seem to work means as soon as the contract is awarded the contractors are ready to start as quickly as they can get staff onto the job, so there probably will be shovels in the ground before the end of 2022.
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