A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

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.

Moderator: Site Management Team

Post Reply
Rubberduck
Member
Posts: 338
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 21:54
Location: Guildford, Surrey

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Rubberduck »

Fluid Dynamics wrote:Awful, so all the money has been spent on the local access improvements at the cost of the improvements to Junction 10.
Which to be fair are needed, but not at the expense of the Wisley interchange itself.
User avatar
Bryn666
Elected Committee Member
Posts: 35755
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2002 20:54
Contact:

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Bryn666 »

Sacrificed at the altar of DMRB I suggest. Rather than aiming for 70mph slip roads, a smaller but still free flowing interchange should have been possible. Instead because huge slip roads were difficult they appear to have decided not to bother.

What a daft approach.
Bryn
Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already.
She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.

Blog - https://showmeasign.online/
X - https://twitter.com/ShowMeASignBryn
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@BrynBuck
User avatar
SouthWest Philip
Member
Posts: 3478
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2002 19:35
Location: Evesham, Worcestershire

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by SouthWest Philip »

Bryn666 wrote:Sacrificed at the altar of DMRB I suggest. Rather than aiming for 70mph slip roads, a smaller but still free flowing interchange should have been possible. Instead because huge slip roads were difficult they appear to have decided not to bother.

What a daft approach.
Indeed. The M25's junctions with the M3 and M11 don't feature 70mph slip roads, but they work well enough. Could something similar be fitted into the footprint of the currently proposed abomination?

To my mind, doing this poor 'upgrade' is basically worse than doing nothing at all.
User avatar
mapboy
Member
Posts: 1111
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2011 08:53
Location: Birmingham

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by mapboy »

Bryn666 wrote:Sacrificed at the altar of DMRB I suggest. Rather than aiming for 70mph slip roads, a smaller but still free flowing interchange should have been possible. Instead because huge slip roads were difficult they appear to have decided not to bother.

What a daft approach.
Clearly the member on these forums who designed the brilliant M42 J6 free-flow proposal wasn't on the design team for this. :|
User avatar
Brenley Corner
Member
Posts: 3853
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2002 19:28
Location: nr. Canterbury, Kent

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Brenley Corner »

Were we genuinely expecting anything else?? We blew the flyover budget for about 20 years at Catthorpe :roll: :lol:
Brenley Corner: congesting traffic since 1963; discussing roads since 2002
User avatar
Truvelo
Member
Posts: 17468
Joined: Wed May 29, 2002 21:10
Location: Staffordshire
Contact:

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Truvelo »

SouthWest Philip wrote:Could something similar be fitted into the footprint of the currently proposed abomination?
The Irish did it with their M50 junctions.
How would you like your grade separations, Sir?
Big and complex.
ais523
Member
Posts: 1139
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2015 19:52
Location: Birmingham

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by ais523 »

After reading through the consultation responses, I've come to the conclusion that none of the proposed options actually works. There must surely be some way to produce reasonable, long-lasting gains for traffic and road safety without destroying the surrounding area. (An interesting statistic: the chosen option is predicted to only have 1/15th of the road safety gains that either of the other two do.)

The idea of a low-speed freeflow (or major-movements-freeflow) interchange mentioned upthread is an interesting one, and might well be the sort of solution this site actually needs.
User avatar
hoagy_ytfc
Member
Posts: 632
Joined: Sun May 23, 2010 00:10

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by hoagy_ytfc »

SouthWest Philip wrote:...doing this poor 'upgrade' is basically worse than doing nothing at all.

How?
User avatar
c2R
SABRE Wiki admin
Posts: 11162
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2002 11:01

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by c2R »

How about, to think outside the box, providing additional free flow sliproads further out - something like this which makes use of the old runway:
a.png
Is there a road improvement project going on near you? Help us to document it on the SABRE Wiki - help is available in the Digest forum.
Have you browsed SABRE Maps recently? Get involved! - see our guide to scanning and stitching maps
A320Driver
Member
Posts: 448
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 19:11
Location: Leatherhead

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by A320Driver »

Your A243 improvement would’ve provided the other 2 freeflow links had Option 9 been selected... :shock: (A Malden Rushett bypass was proposed by Surrey CC back in the mid-1990s too).

I’ve just read the consultation report, interesting to note that 30% of respondents are over age 65; looks like the opinions of those who won’t be around in a few years time are given weight in deciding the outcome.

You’re always going to get a higher proportion of locals responding to consultations, but I have to say this does smack of Nimbyism.

I was one of the 16% who disagreed that HE were right to discard Option 16.
Formerly ‘guvvaA303’
Peter Freeman
Member
Posts: 1390
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2012 07:52
Location: Exits 9 & 10, M1 East, Melbourne, Australia

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by Peter Freeman »

What a ridiculous waste of effort, consultation time and money. If it's not going to be done properly, then, for now, simply add the four free left turns and come back to it later.
User avatar
jackal
Member
Posts: 7549
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 23:33
Location: M6

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

Peter Freeman wrote:If it's not going to be done properly, then, for now, simply add the four free left turns and come back to it later.
I agree but in strategic terms it's probably best simply to communicate that this scheme is totally unacceptable.

'We like the left turns but not the rebuilt roundabout' would probably be wilfully misinterpreted as 'you told us you like the scheme but not how we were rebuilding the roundabout, which we have accommodated by rebuilding the roundabout to a slightly different (but just as expensive, disruptive and futile) design'.
User avatar
A303Chris
Elected Committee Member
Posts: 3587
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 14:01
Location: Reading

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by A303Chris »

c2R wrote:How about, to think outside the box, providing additional free flow sliproads further out - something like this which makes use of the old runway:

a.png
Nice idea, though Wisley runway is earmarked for housing !!!!!
The M25 - The road to nowhere
User avatar
SouthWest Philip
Member
Posts: 3478
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2002 19:35
Location: Evesham, Worcestershire

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by SouthWest Philip »

hoagy_ytfc wrote:
SouthWest Philip wrote:...doing this poor 'upgrade' is basically worse than doing nothing at all.
How?
Much as others have said, the cost and disruption of the proposed scheme doesn't justify the very marginal benefit when set against the other available options. Just an opinion, of course. Although do know the junction well.
User avatar
hoagy_ytfc
Member
Posts: 632
Joined: Sun May 23, 2010 00:10

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by hoagy_ytfc »

SouthWest Philip wrote: the cost and disruption of the proposed scheme doesn't justify the very marginal benefit
What BCR figure did you come up with?
User avatar
MorganFlint M40 A40
Member
Posts: 59
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2014 20:39
Location: Chinnor, Oxfordshire

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by MorganFlint M40 A40 »

I honestly don't see how option 14 will actually improve the journey times here. You're just keeping the roundabout and installing left turn lanes. A massive waste of money and time all for very little
Motorways travelled in 2017:
M1 M2 M3 M4 M6 M6(Toll) M20 M25 M26 M27 M40 M42 M56 A308(M) A404(M)
User avatar
sotonsteve
Member
Posts: 6079
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2005 21:01

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by sotonsteve »

The other point to consider is that if this preferred route actually gets constructed as planned, any future improvement will then be off the cards for at least a couple more decades because the junction will be considered to have been fixed and Highways England won't want to spend more money or admit they made a mistake by introducing another scheme before all current staff have retired.

Let me give another example, the M27 smart motorway. The smart motorway will go from junctions 4 to 11, even though junctions 11 to 12 handles more traffic than much of the length being upgraded to smart motorway. The only reason it is being left out from the smart motorway is because of the crawler lanes project a decade ago; i.e. problem considered fixed. Except it isn't, because being only crawler lanes the motorway still drops to three lanes between the junctions, and the lane drop is a cause of congestion which will only get worse.
tipsynurse
Banned
Posts: 407
Joined: Fri Dec 01, 2017 13:37

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by tipsynurse »

The problem realistically was that J10 is nearly good enough. Designers were told to go away and think of a way to improve it and came back with huge sliproads cutting through swathes of forest which is all very nice but totally overkill for what is actually needed.

With a bit of vision they could have come up with something much better and essentially offline, prioritising the key movements and retaining the roundabout for the rest. But, like if you get a builder round to fix a tap and they recommend replacing the entire bathroom, you suddenly get cold feet for the entire idea and decide you can manage with the tap after all.

If the whole junction wasn't surrounded by forest it might have been different, but requiring lots of money and thousands if trees to be cut down is a guaranteed deal breaker.
User avatar
jackal
Member
Posts: 7549
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 23:33
Location: M6

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

Statutory consultation on the preferred route (the elongated roundabout) starts 12 Feb:

http://roads.highways.gov.uk/projects/m ... terchange/

In the previous consultation only 29% preferred the elongated roundabout, compared to 64% for the freeflow flyover, so it will be interesting to see how much opposition there is.
User avatar
jackal
Member
Posts: 7549
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 23:33
Location: M6

Re: A3/M25 Wisley Upgrade

Post by jackal »

Post Reply