Congleton "Link Road"

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bikingbunny
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by bikingbunny »

bikingbunny wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 23:39
RickyB_uk wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 13:33 Some snaps from a cycle along the Congleton Link Road yesterday afternoon - organised roughly west to east. Road is NSL throughout - except for a 50mph section with a long 90 degree bend between the A54 and Back Lane.

Looking east at the curve looking at the Chelford Road overpass. Speed limit is 50 here
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Back Lane roundabout - looking West - 50 mph until the A54 junction when going west.
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Back Lane roundabout - looking East - speed limit returns to NSL
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River Dane bridge - looking East
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Giantswood Lane overpass - looking east towards A34 junction
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That curve is awesome whether you are in a car or on a bike. But I can see it becoming an accident black spot in time, especially in the winter time when the sun is low heading from Back lane direction towards the A54 roundabout!

East of the A34 - looking East - with the Bosley Cloud hill visible.
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Love going down over the Dane bridge east bound on a bike..My ambition is to reach 40+, got up to 37 over the weekend and i wasn't really trying, had to be respectful to everyone else who was about. Give me a clear road I'm sure I can do it! :D
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Bryn666
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by Bryn666 »

As new roads go, this one is rather good I have to say. Even the signs are right, with the one exception being a missing A54 label on a single ADS.
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fras
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by fras »

Cue here to be shot at, but anyway........

Link road - single carriageway with a few roundabouts - NSL (60mph) with one short 50 mph section.

A555 New section - dual carriageway with some roundabouts and also traffic light controlled junctions - 50 mph.

Can it be somebody is interpreting the speed limit guidance a bit too narrowly for the A555 ? What would be wrong with 60 mph ?
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Bryn666
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by Bryn666 »

fras wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:32 Cue here to be shot at, but anyway........

Link road - single carriageway with a few roundabouts - NSL (60mph) with one short 50 mph section.

A555 New section - dual carriageway with some roundabouts and also traffic light controlled junctions - 50 mph.

Can it be somebody is interpreting the speed limit guidance a bit too narrowly for the A555 ? What would be wrong with 60 mph ?
The DMRB doesn't like signal junctions on roads with a speed limit higher than 50. Why the limit couldn't have been 60 between signals is anyone's guess, it's not designed for 70 either way but 60 would have been reasonable.
Bryn
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vlad
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by vlad »

Question for people who've been in the area: Is through traffic on the A34 still routed through town, or are drivers directed a different way? Is traffic for Newcastle now requested to take the M6...? :wink:
"If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed." - Sylvia Plath
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Bryn666
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by Bryn666 »

vlad wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 20:05 Question for people who've been in the area: Is through traffic on the A34 still routed through town, or are drivers directed a different way? Is traffic for Newcastle now requested to take the M6...? :wink:
The bypass is really only for the A536, so A34 traffic still is signposted through Congleton.
Bryn
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RickyB_uk
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by RickyB_uk »

Bryn666 wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 20:40
vlad wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 20:05 Question for people who've been in the area: Is through traffic on the A34 still routed through town, or are drivers directed a different way? Is traffic for Newcastle now requested to take the M6...? :wink:
The bypass is really only for the A536, so A34 traffic still is signposted through Congleton.
Coming from the North, Ahead is signposted Congleton A34. Left signposted Macclesfield A536. Right for M6, Nantwich, Sandbach, Holmes Chapel, Business Parks. Newcastle doesn't get a mention.
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AAndy
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by AAndy »

A couple of my videos from monday, one a low angle looking back, the other 60fps 4k.
https://youtu.be/czBUMli4TyU
https://youtu.be/DX89YDNVW5E
fras
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by fras »

Went out today late afternoon in the Merc SLK for a tootle around the lanes; top down too, it was a lovely spring day. Used the new Link Road out and back. My, what a difference that makes to getting past Congleton ! The 50 mph section appears to be the typical "nurse maid" limit on the long curve between the Holmes Chapel and Radnor Park roundabouts, yet most people seem to be able to drive round it a bit faster than this without squealing tyres and signs of distress. FWIW I managed a very easy 60 mph; there you are, a confession of a lunatic motorist !
Can it be the 'Elf and Safety test of an unacceptable risk of something like 1 billion to one of an adverse event in the next 500 years is overcautious ? Only joking !
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by bikingbunny »

vlad wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 20:05 Question for people who've been in the area: Is through traffic on the A34 still routed through town, or are drivers directed a different way? Is traffic for Newcastle now requested to take the M6...? :wink:
For Stoke and Newcastle just follow the A34 as usual. There are NO plans to close the Clayton by-pass to through traffic in the immediate future. But in time I can see them extending the by-pass beyond the Sandbach Road roundabout around to the A34 but that's a long long way off!
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by fras »

Oldies like me remember the A34 as the Southampton to Manchester Trunk Road, but obviously it's no longer that ! Actually the traffic on the A34 between the Potteries and Congleton is surprisingly lighter than one would expect for an old trunk road. I thought it was madness not having the new Link Road start on the A34 to the south of Congleton, but the reality is that it all seems to work and the lowering of traffic in Congleton will help A34 through traffic to actually get through the town.
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wrinkly
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by wrinkly »

fras wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 00:26 Oldies like me remember the A34 as the Southampton to Manchester Trunk Road, but obviously it's no longer that !
You're thinking of Winchester-Preston, which followed the A50 from Kidsgrove to Warrington and then the A49. The A34 has never been trunk north of Kidsgrove (or, to be exact, the A5011 junction at Talke).

Incidentally the M6 shadows that former trunk road fairly closely between Birmingham and Preston. The M6 spends the great majority of its length shadowing just two trunk roads.
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vlad
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by vlad »

bikingbunny wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 23:45
vlad wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 20:05 Question for people who've been in the area: Is through traffic on the A34 still routed through town, or are drivers directed a different way? Is traffic for Newcastle now requested to take the M6...? :wink:
For Stoke and Newcastle just follow the A34 as usual. There are NO plans to close the Clayton by-pass to through traffic in the immediate future.
Given that traffic will always need to pass through the centre of Congleton (even if it's just so people from Buglawton can go to Tesco) I can't see anyone even considering closing the Clayton bypass. It's chaotic enough already (although maybe the new road has changed that)!
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Barkstar
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by Barkstar »

Stevie D wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 21:02 What I wouldn't give right now for a voodoo doll of the person who designed those roundabouts 😡
I drove down the A34 to Congleton for the first time in an age and I'm with Stevie on this one. The RA where the A34 crosses the link road appears to have been designed by someone who's only seen motor cars in pictures. The entries are two lane but unmarked, to stick to the 'correct' line involves quite violent manoeuvres and the exits are two lane with lane two disappearing in two car lengths. I can see bully boy in his big Audi thinking he can jump the car in front on the RA. Very very poor.
To the south of the scheme on Padgbury Lane a mini RA has appeared. I can only guess this is to slow the anticipated extra traffic before it gets to the A34 T-junction give way because the other leg of it accesses a dead end with about 40 houses.
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Debaser
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by Debaser »

Barkstar wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 09:02 The RA where the A34 crosses the link road appears to have been designed by someone who's only seen motor cars in pictures. The entries are two lane but unmarked, to stick to the 'correct' line involves quite violent manoeuvres and the exits are two lane with lane two disappearing in two car lengths. I can see bully boy in his big Audi thinking he can jump the car in front on the RA. Very very poor.
Pretty much standard DMRB design thesedays. It's paranoid about maintaining flow and that a vehicle might break down adjacent a splitter island thereby impeding flow, hence the requirement for space enough for two lanes, no matter how short and, as you say, tempting for drivers of certain makes to make an 'injudicious manoeuvre'.
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by Bryn666 »

Debaser wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:11
Barkstar wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 09:02 The RA where the A34 crosses the link road appears to have been designed by someone who's only seen motor cars in pictures. The entries are two lane but unmarked, to stick to the 'correct' line involves quite violent manoeuvres and the exits are two lane with lane two disappearing in two car lengths. I can see bully boy in his big Audi thinking he can jump the car in front on the RA. Very very poor.
Pretty much standard DMRB design thesedays. It's paranoid about maintaining flow and that a vehicle might break down adjacent a splitter island thereby impeding flow, hence the requirement for space enough for two lanes, no matter how short and, as you say, tempting for drivers of certain makes to make an 'injudicious manoeuvre'.
It's another reason why DMRB is... well I think I've made it clear by now.

Small roundabouts lack the capacity the writers of the DMRB think they have, hence why we have entry path overlap and all the other cack other countries do not have.

As with railways, we invent a concept and then ruin it through neglect whilst the rest of the world refines the concept.
Bryn
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She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.

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Debaser
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by Debaser »

Bryn666 wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:26
Debaser wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:11
Barkstar wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 09:02 The RA where the A34 crosses the link road appears to have been designed by someone who's only seen motor cars in pictures. The entries are two lane but unmarked, to stick to the 'correct' line involves quite violent manoeuvres and the exits are two lane with lane two disappearing in two car lengths. I can see bully boy in his big Audi thinking he can jump the car in front on the RA. Very very poor.
Pretty much standard DMRB design thesedays. It's paranoid about maintaining flow and that a vehicle might break down adjacent a splitter island thereby impeding flow, hence the requirement for space enough for two lanes, no matter how short and, as you say, tempting for drivers of certain makes to make an 'injudicious manoeuvre'.
It's another reason why DMRB is... well I think I've made it clear by now.

Small roundabouts lack the capacity the writers of the DMRB think they have, hence why we have entry path overlap and all the other cack other countries do not have.

As with railways, we invent a concept and then ruin it through neglect whilst the rest of the world refines the concept.
If TRL were still in the 'research for the greater good' rather than 'research for the money' business it would be an interesting exercise for them to do an international comparison of roundabout designs, comparing safety and capacity. Maybe they could even have reassessed not-so-good-old ARCADY based on data that's less than 50 years old? Presumably we'll have to wait for the likes of CROW or SWOV to do something instead.
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poshbakerloo
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by poshbakerloo »

Anyone else love the road.... But HATE the roundabouts!? They are so cramped with some of the small merge lanes, you have to slow down to a snails pace to actually drive around the circle and stay in lane!
brummie_rob
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by brummie_rob »

Great piece of road but yes the markings could do with changing maybe. Even when the M6 has had closures the last few weeks, traffic on the bypass or in Congleton has been flowing. Compare that to days gone past and it would grind to a halt like most of the other Cheshire villages.
fras
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Re: Congleton "Link Road"

Post by fras »

Well, I have to say, I do prefer to have the Link Road rather than not, but as said, the roundabouts are not the best of designs. However we must now make do with them for the next 50 years !
It's now pleasant to drive through Congleton, which one still has to do to get to the Buxton road. I still think omitting a link to the A34 from the south was an error, but I suppose funds were limited. How soon will it all be clogged up with housing developments along the route ! The GSV camera has yet to visit the Link Road.
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