A5036 Princess Way – access to Port of Liverpool

[Bryn666]

Both options are rubbish, particularly the way they've decided to end the bypass option - at a tiny signalised T-junction.

I think that option has been badly designed on purpose to ensure it doesn't get built looking at it.

[Truvelo]

I would like to see the junction diagrams for the discounted options.

[jackal]

'Council wants highways bosses to build tunnel from Switch Island to new port of Liverpool': http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liv ... d-12677016

Or as Chris Grayling will read it, 'Council wants scheme to be cancelled'.

[wrinkly]

Some more fiddling with Switch Island:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/3-mi ... tch-island

A total of £3 million is being invested to improve journeys and safety at one of the North West’s busiest motorway junctions.

Highways England has announced plans for major improvements to Switch Island in Merseyside, where the M57, M58 and 3 A roads all join together.

The scheme is being funded by the government’s £220 million congestion relief programme, which was announced by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling last month.

Construction work at the junction, which is used by over 90,000 vehicles every day, is expected to start next year. The scheme is designed to improve the flow of traffic and enhance safety, following 49 collisions at the junction in the past 2 years.

New traffic lights will be installed at a height of over 5 metres – higher than HGVs and double-decker buses – so that drivers approaching the junction can clearly see when the lights are changing.

Other improvements will include changes to the road layout and lane markings, new barriers between carriageways, coloured high friction surfaces and better signs.

Bruce Parker, Asset Development Manager at Highways England, said:

We’re delighted we’ve been able to secure funding from the government for this scheme, and can now carry out the detailed design and planning work before construction starts next year.

The improvements we’re making at Switch Island will improve journeys and safety at the junction, benefitting the tens of thousands of drivers who travel through it every day.

Jerry McConkey, Transportation and Highway Infrastructure Service Manager at Sefton Council, said:

“We’ve been working with Highways England and Merseyside Police over the last 12 months to investigate the issues at Switch Island and to develop these improvement proposals.

It is great news that Highways England has secured this funding and we will continue working with them to improve the junction and make it safer for everyone using it.

Tony Jones, Chief Inspector of Roads Policing at Merseyside Police, said:

We welcome any improvements to the road infrastructure which assists drivers and makes the network safer for drivers and pedestrians.

Four congestion relief schemes, worth £6.4 million, have already been announced in the North West, with a further £21 million set aside for other schemes in the region, including the Switch Island upgrade.

The four schemes will see improvements made to two junctions where the A595 meets the A66 in Cumbria, at Norcross roundabout on the A585 near Thornton-Cleveleys in Lancashire, and at junction 3 of the M55 near Kirkham in Lancashire.

[jackal]

New traffic lights will be installed at a height of over 5 metres – higher than HGVs and double-decker buses

Grade separation... of traffic lights

[fras]

By the time they have stopped faffing-about on the nth "new" improvement, the moneys spent would no doubt have paid for grade separation. Nothing that is done on this deeply flawd junction will make any improvement at all. It is a matter of mere mathematics. Vehicle flows are in conflict so all the traffic lights do is ration the junction time, and also remove some movement time due to the lights change-over times. Maybe it's time to call in a rocket scientist !!

[mikehindsonevans]

By the time they have stopped faffing-about on the nth "new" improvement, the moneys spent would no doubt have paid for grade separation. Nothing that is done on this deeply flawd junction will make any improvement at all. It is a matter of mere mathematics. Vehicle flows are in conflict so all the traffic lights do is ration the junction time, and also remove some movement time due to the lights change-over times. Maybe it's time to call in a rocket scientist !!

Good heavens! This junction is not far from the city of my birth. I remember, when the M57 southeast from Switch Island opened in the 1970s, my father looking at the "ski-jump" and wondering when the next bit (flying over to the Thornton bypass round the back of Crosby) would be built. We now know - the answer was about 40 years later, and this S2 road is now part of the Port of Liverpool approach road proposal to run through Rimrose Valley..

I think that a comment on CBRD sums the situation up nicely: "In fact it's pretty hard to see what could realistically be done to make things any better. What would help would be to raise the A5036 over on an actual, real flyover and continue it onto the A59/M58, with sliproads dropping down onto the roundabout from there. The view of that flyover at sunset, with flocks of pigs soaring overhead, would be a sight to behold."

Mind you, continuing the M57 about a mile westwards, THEN dropping a roundabout to link up with the "valley" route to Seaforth Container Docks, would reduce the stress on Switch Island. It would free up Dunnings Bridge Road for the shoppers. As an added benefit, the Valley road would provide a two-mile linear lorry park for when the port backs up! Only achievable in the alternative universe of porcine aviation, of course.

We can dream!
Mike

[jackal]

Mind you, continuing the M57 about a mile westwards, THEN dropping a roundabout to link up with the "valley" route to Seaforth Container Docks, would reduce the stress on Switch Island. It would free up Dunnings Bridge Road for the shoppers. As an added benefit, the Valley road would provide a two-mile linear lorry park for when the port backs up! Only achievable in the alternative universe of porcine aviation, of course.

As mentioned above, this was considered but rejected under the current scheme:

Switch Island - Overpass (M57 to Broom’s Cross Road) - Poor value for money

https://highwaysengland.citizenspace.co ... ableCR.pdf

[Bryn666]

To be fair the replacement of signs and signals is a good idea even if it is annoying that it is yet more tinkering.

There is a gantry sign that is completely unreadable, the current signals have yellow backing boards because six lane approaches using conventional primaries is clearly naff.

To be honest the whole junction is a total SNAFU and the fact it has been allowed to evolve into such a shocking pile of junk is a monument to our chronic inability to design schemes to last.

[Chris5156]

To be fair the replacement of signs and signals is a good idea even if it is annoying that it is yet more tinkering.

I wouldn't argue with that at all, but I think it's fair to say Highways England are indulging in more than a little hyperbole when they claim that £3m of work that is barely one step above maintenance work constitutes "major improvements".

Wrinkly's comment is a fair summary IMV: more fiddling. I can't remember the last time that Switch Island was not being fiddled with or had more fiddling in the pipeline for the near future. But for all the unending work the fundamentals of the junction never change: it's a major interchange where two motorways terminate on three dual carriageways and it's still just an elaborate mess of filter lanes and traffic lights.

To be honest the whole junction is a total SNAFU and the fact it has been allowed to evolve into such a shocking pile of junk is a monument to our chronic inability to design schemes to last.

This is like what I just said, but better.

[Bryn666]

My theory is that whenever there is a spare pot of cash available in the NW it gets spent on Switch Island.

It must be on the way home for one of the budget holders or something...

[jackal]

For the combined cost of all the fiddling over the years (plus interest) they could certainly have grade separated at least one of the major movements. The outcome would be better and it would've been less painful getting there - one lot of works rather than repeated disruption.

[mikehindsonevans]

My theory is that whenever there is a spare pot of cash available in the NW it gets spent on Switch Island.

It must be on the way home for one of the budget holders or something...

Bryn, if that was on YOUR way home, would you consciously screw it up and disrupt your journey home for a year (or longer) every two years? (Tongue firmly in cheek!)

[jackal]

Decision due next month:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liv ... w-13369624

[wrinkly]

They've chosen the route through the country park.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/300- ... d-cheshire

http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/road-p ... ool-access

[Bryn666]

That's absolutely flabbergasting in this day and age. I hope the junctions are designed somewhat better than in the concepts we discussed earlier or they'll destroy a country park for no reason whatsoever.

[jackal]

In traffic terms Option B certainly does make a lot of sense. The main point that I'm not sure has been discussed in this thread is that the A5036 is 40-50k AADT as it approaches Switch Island, but only 20-30k as it approaches the port. So while it's not ideal that the new route rejoins the A5036 at a signalized junction, it does make sense to split local and long distance traffic before it gets to the really busy bit.

The park is largely a landfill reclaimed in the 90s so the route selection is not quite as astonishing as it sounds. Even so, there will be a lot of opposition and I have my doubts that the scheme will actually make it to construction. Only 31% of consultees preferred Option B (44% Option A, 9% rejected, and 16% no preference) so the argument will certainly be made that the consultation result is being ignored. IIRC 31% is pretty similar to the percentage that favoured Option 2 (online GSJs) at Chichester, where of course the scheme was dropped.

Why didn't they go with the seemingly more popular Option A? They may consider it to no longer be an option at all:

The proposed Option A did not solve congestion problems for the same length of time. During the consultation period further development plans for sites along the current A5036 were submitted to Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council which, if approved, would lead to further pressures on the route.

[Bryn666]

I'd have liked a GSJed route, but as you mentioned landfill I can see that bringing many geotechnical issues.

Of course we all know that if this is part of the SRN then it should be the M58...

[Chris5156]

Well that's astonishing, a point that's already been made but which I think bears repeating.

The proposed route seems to be non-stop from Seaforth to the A5758, with local roads crossing it on bridges, so it's a bit of a shame that its junction with the (to-be-dualled) A5758 will be a signalised roundabout. Why are we still building roundabouts with signalisation from scratch?

It comes as no surprise that the plan envisages widening the A5758 and pouring more traffic onto Switch Island while maintaining its disastrous present state as the place where traffic lights and dreams go to die.

[jackal]

GSJs at Broom's Cross and Switch Island (from the M57) were considered but rejected as bad value for money. Maybe that will be reconsidered during scheme development.

It would be much harder to GSJ the junction where the route joins the A5036, but as it will only be a three-way junction and limited access to boot, there are few conflicts and phases.

https://highwaysengland.citizenspace.co ... %20Web.pdf