A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

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Patrick Harper
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Patrick Harper »

Rebuilding Wisley as is wouldn't be so bad if the new flyovers could accommodate a D4M M25 underneath. Rebuild J11, widen the J12 overpass and hey presto, you've got a continuous D4M M25 from the M23 to the M4.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by A320Driver »

Paianni wrote:Rebuilding Wisley as is wouldn't be so bad if the new flyovers could accommodate a D4M M25 underneath. Rebuild J11, widen the J12 overpass and hey presto, you've got a continuous D4M M25 from the M23 to the M4.
The proposed scheme provides for D4 through J10 which will help hugely. Agree, the lane drop at J11 is not justified and is only as a result of the way J10-12 was widened back in the mid-90s.

Looking at the consultation brochure, it appears that the scheme isn’t as bad as I had feared (now that the Option 9 with freeflow links has been binned).

I can’t work out why the two NMU bridges on the M25 just north of the junction require replacement though. Maybe it is due to the new slips and a desire to keep D4M the whole length of the taper.

This is going to be hugely disruptive during construction though, requiring many overnight closures!
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jackal
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

Paianni wrote:Rebuilding Wisley as is wouldn't be so bad if the new flyovers could accommodate a D4M M25 underneath. Rebuild J11, widen the J12 overpass and hey presto, you've got a continuous D4M M25 from the M23 to the M4.
This is precisely what is proposed. It is a separate scheme, though apparently being delivered along with this one. Discussion is here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37244&p=889946
guvvaA303 wrote:Looking at the consultation brochure, it appears that the scheme isn’t as bad as I had feared (now that the Option 9 with freeflow links has been binned).
This is the opposite of my sentiment. It's hard to come up with a more pointlessly expensive and disruptive proposal than 'building new bridges to make the roundabout a bit bigger'.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by M4 Cardiff »

Surely this would be a good opportunity to add the south facing slips to Ockham Junction. It does sort of look like all traffic to / from Wisley to Guildford would in future have to go through the villages. And if the Wisley Airfield redevelopment happens, surely access southbound would be needed, unless that is planned as a S38 / S278 for that development.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Chris5156 »

jackal wrote:The consultation opened yesterday: https://highwaysengland.citizenspace.co ... ange-2018/
I've sent my response. I don't think they'll like it. But that's fine, because I don't like their junction design... :twisted:
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sotonsteve
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by sotonsteve »

I wonder how many people actually think a bigger signalised roundabout will bring big improvements over what is already a big signalised roundabout?
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Fluid Dynamics »

To be honest I’ve never found the current roundabout itself a problem. Its the queue on mainline A3 back to Wisley/Oackham that is. So all that will be built is more stacking capacity.

The local road improvements are welcome but not at the cost of the originally proposed free flow, even just freeflowing the A3 northbound to M25 E&W would make a difference.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Bryn666 »

sotonsteve wrote:I wonder how many people actually think a bigger signalised roundabout will bring big improvements over what is already a big signalised roundabout?
Evidently Highways England do!
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

The proposal is essentially to improve Wisley to the point where it closely resembles Simister and Lofthouse, which have similar volumes* served by the proposed arrangement of large roundabout and freeflow left turns - and Lofthouse even has a freeflow right as well! Of course, Simister and Lofthouse are both heavily congested, and the same will be true of Wisley.

I wouldn't be surprised if they'd been told that the freeflow option is a no-no for environmental reasons, so have 'tweaked' the variables in the traffic model to the point that the big rbt 'sort of' works, with no real expectation that this corresponds to reality.

*My estimate of volumes (sum of the AADT on the four arms) has M1/M62 at 240k, M60/M62/M66 at 235k and M25/A3 at 230k.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Herned »

I have sent my underwhelmed response to the consultation and suggested that the money be spent on a more useful scheme than replacing a signalised roundabout with a signalised roundabout.

I did think up this (crudely drawn) cunning plan to solve the issue, I'm sure there are huge problems which I have overlooked, especially building it without gridlocking all of Surrey

Image

Essentially the yellow line is A3 (N) to M25 (E). Once across the M25 the slip road would begin descending, and then cross under the slips the other side of the A3 and then merge with S to E traffic before joining the M25. The link would only be single lane, and would need to descend enough to pass under the other slips in about 140m, so about 1 in 20 which seems fine to me

The blue line would start climbing as soon as it passed under the A3, and then on a new viaduct across the M25 and over the slips at the south side of the roundabout to join the A3.

The same would be done in on the south side of the roundabout, and all the lefts would be separate filter lanes. All done with zero land take and limited closures of either main route, and only two more bridges. The geometry would be pretty much the same as now. So, what have I missed?
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Patrick Harper
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Patrick Harper »

I reckon they're sticking with the signalised roundabout to throttle traffic entering the M25. It's a double-edged sword because they would also be throttling traffic exiting it.

A larger roundabout would probably feel like Bignell's Corner with dedicated exit slips, but Bignell's Corner has a lower AADT than Wisley and still has issues during peak hours, mainly the A1(M) southbound offslip queues backing off onto the mainline.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

Paianni wrote:I reckon they're sticking with the signalised roundabout to throttle traffic entering the M25. It's a double-edged sword because they would also be throttling traffic exiting it.
They are pretty open in all the documentation that they think the freeflow option is better in traffic terms, but unacceptable environmentally speaking.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by A320Driver »

I attended a consultation exhibiton yesterday. Well organised and presented, and eventually managed to speak with both the Atkins project manager and also a HE manager.
I made the point quite strongly that I felt Option 9 was better, but they insisted that there was a strong chance it would not have made it past the Inspector, due to unacceptable land take from SSSIs etc. They felt that the consultation route would definitely work and meet the traffic demand through to 2037. We shall see I guess.

Other notes:
1. The existing roundabout will be retained as there is a cost to demolish.
2. Despite being a local I didn’t appreciate how environmentally sensitive the surrounding area is, HE are being extremely careful to ensure they don’t misjudge the public mood on this.
3. They have heard of, and look at forum sites such as this...
4. After I discussed the Stonehenge and Birdlip projects, there does seem to be a positive vibe that these projects will finally get off the ground this time.

Overall, I was able to be convinced that this isn’t as big waste a of money that I originally thought. HE strongly believe that this ‘works’, otherwise they would not have taken it forward.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Truvelo »

I wonder if it's possible to use the existing roundabout in addition to the new one to provide additional capacity? Maybe arrange it so the two busiest right turns take place on separate roundabouts to minimise any conflicts.
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jackal
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

guvvaA303 wrote:I attended a consultation exhibiton yesterday. Well organised and presented, and eventually managed to speak with both the Atkins project manager and also a HE manager.
I made the point quite strongly that I felt Option 9 was better, but they insisted that there was a strong chance it would not have made it past the Inspector, due to unacceptable land take from SSSIs etc. They felt that the consultation route would definitely work and meet the traffic demand through to 2037. We shall see I guess.

Other notes:
1. The existing roundabout will be retained as there is a cost to demolish.
2. Despite being a local I didn’t appreciate how environmentally sensitive the surrounding area is, HE are being extremely careful to ensure they don’t misjudge the public mood on this.
3. They have heard of, and look at forum sites such as this...
4. After I discussed the Stonehenge and Birdlip projects, there does seem to be a positive vibe that these projects will finally get off the ground this time.

Overall, I was able to be convinced that this isn’t as big waste a of money that I originally thought. HE strongly believe that this ‘works’, otherwise they would not have taken it forward.
I've already said my piece about this laughable scheme, but I'll just add that in the original consultation they admitted the elongated roundabout would be over capacity by 2037 (see the table at pp. 10-11 here). I'd take any revisions to the modelling since HE hitched their wagon to the elongated roundabout with a pinch of salt.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

Looking through some of the rejected options, here's another frustration - an option to provide one freeflow right turn would actually have lower land take than an elongated roundabout with freeflow left turns.
7 - Copy.jpg
14 - Copy.jpg
15 - Copy.jpg
Furthermore, the land take for the proposed scheme is an astonishing 26 hectares! (See here, p. 8.) Even supposing that this accounts for elements excluded from the preliminary drawings above, they could surely have provided one freeflow right turn within such a large land take. So there's not even any real environmental argument for the preferred option.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Johnathan404 »

The project video is live. As ever it's not clear how much you should read into it but it does show blue signs along the A3.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

Couldn't see the video there so here's a direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si6qZyAEX3g

Frustrating to see so much infrastructure for so little effect.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Bryn666 »

I'm sure they'll screw all the signs up just to top off this particular cake of utter disappointment.
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Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Johnathan404 »

To be fair leaving the roundabout just to handle the right turns is a huge improvement, it just doesn't warrant the trumpeting (and funding) that they seem to think it does.
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