A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by Truvelo »

Bryn666 wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 17:33 Likewise the terminal junction at Aberdulais was changed in shape when the 90s extension was built. You can see there are still unbuilt stubs for slip roads that were realigned because of the railway.
Looking at the original layout the railway didn't interfere with extension northwards.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by Bryn666 »

Truvelo wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 17:57
Bryn666 wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 17:33 Likewise the terminal junction at Aberdulais was changed in shape when the 90s extension was built. You can see there are still unbuilt stubs for slip roads that were realigned because of the railway.
Looking at the original layout the railway didn't interfere with extension northwards.
The original westbound entry slip before the loop exit slip was built would have been very tight and I dare say with substandard visibility caused by a retaining wall.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by mehere »

Hi guys, just a few questions if I may, when is construction due to begin, and is the section near Brecon where you drop down a slip road and you see unfinished dual carriageway heading to the mound over the junction ( I may be miles out - but with my memory I can't think ), also after this will they go any further west toward the coast? .

Also reading about the flat junctions, surely to leave what will be otherwise ( is it?) An uninterrupted Expressway type road ( albeit threaded through tough terrain ) to dump drivers who've maybe done 140km or however long it is to suddenly have to stop, and again as I was saying in another post, once built it will attract more traffic, I gather the motorway down there is a no hoper. So perhaps those GSJ's should be built, as it seems ( from up here in Scotland ) ,

Your Assembly is not up to the task of tackling wales's transport needs , like the BleanuFfestiniog situation, I read that the line originally ran north to south ( top to bottom ), it seems crazy no Welsh ( without needing to nip in and out of England ) , not to mention, countless villages and tourist attractions, a good North South route , in both Road and rail are needed .

Please forgive the length of my post , I guess I'm trying to say that Wales was promised the new Motorway ( Didn't happen no idea where they are with that now), many promised reopenings north and south of railways .

And a north South road that takes probably as long to drive as Glasgow to Inverness .

Imho Wales should get a better funding package, to fix a broken transport network.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by JammyDodge »

mehere wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 01:36 Hi guys, just a few questions if I may, when is construction due to begin, and is the section near Brecon where you drop down a slip road and you see unfinished dual carriageway heading to the mound over the junction ( I may be miles out - but with my memory I can't think ), also after this will they go any further west toward the coast? .
I assume you mean Dowlais Top
From what I could find, the section between Dowlais Top and Hirwaun had site clearance started in October 2020, with major works commencing in Spring 2021 (source: https://gov.wales/a465-section-5-and-6- ... n-overview)
mehere wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 01:36 Also reading about the flat junctions, surely to leave what will be otherwise ( is it?) An uninterrupted Expressway type road ( albeit threaded through tough terrain ) to dump drivers who've maybe done 140km or however long it is to suddenly have to stop, and again as I was saying in another post, once built it will attract more traffic, I gather the motorway down there is a no hoper. So perhaps those GSJ's should be built, as it seems ( from up here in Scotland ) ,
After the sections which are currently under construction, I think the only flat junctions on the Heads of the Valley route will be at Blaengwrach and Resolven, excluding the termini. These will most likely be upgraded in the future, when traffic flows require it
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by Herned »

mehere wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 01:36 Your Assembly is not up to the task of tackling wales's transport needs , like the BleanuFfestiniog situation, I read that the line originally ran north to south ( top to bottom ), it seems crazy no Welsh ( without needing to nip in and out of England ) , not to mention, countless villages and tourist attractions, a good North South route , in both Road and rail are needed .

Please forgive the length of my post , I guess I'm trying to say that Wales was promised the new Motorway ( Didn't happen no idea where they are with that now), many promised reopenings north and south of railways .
The reason Wales doesn't have very good transport links is that historically that hasn't been where the demand is. East-West travel is far more important, hence that is where the best roads are. The volumes on parts of the A470 are negligible, most of mid Wales is very empty so there just isn't the need for travel
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by Bryn666 »

Herned wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 08:08
mehere wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 01:36 Your Assembly is not up to the task of tackling wales's transport needs , like the BleanuFfestiniog situation, I read that the line originally ran north to south ( top to bottom ), it seems crazy no Welsh ( without needing to nip in and out of England ) , not to mention, countless villages and tourist attractions, a good North South route , in both Road and rail are needed .

Please forgive the length of my post , I guess I'm trying to say that Wales was promised the new Motorway ( Didn't happen no idea where they are with that now), many promised reopenings north and south of railways .
The reason Wales doesn't have very good transport links is that historically that hasn't been where the demand is. East-West travel is far more important, hence that is where the best roads are. The volumes on parts of the A470 are negligible, most of mid Wales is very empty so there just isn't the need for travel
Indeed, there's a reason it's called the Green Desert.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

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I drove the length of the A470 north to south just before the rules started tightening again in the late summer.

I'm slightly torn on this. On the one hand it might be nice to have a better route between North and South Wales but it's mostly not justified on the traffic volumes. It would have to be very much a political decision by the WAG actively to promote North/South cohesion, which would represent a major policy initiative given that South and especially North Wales probably currently have as many economic and social links with the neighbouring parts of England as with each other.

At the moment it works quite well as a tourist route - the variety and quality of scenery is pretty stunning for almost its entire length - but perhaps a modest incremental programme of selective straightening, widening and blackspot elimination might be worthwhile.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by Bryn666 »

roadtester wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 14:47 I drove the length of the A470 north to south just before the rules started tightening again in the late summer.

I'm slightly torn on this. On the one hand it might be nice to have a better route between North and South Wales but it's mostly not justified on the traffic volumes. It would have to be very much a political decision by the WAG actively to promote North/South cohesion, which would represent a major policy initiative given that South and especially North Wales probably currently have as many economic and social links with the neighbouring parts of England as with each other.

At the moment it works quite well as a tourist route - the variety and quality of scenery is pretty stunning for almost its entire length - but perhaps a modest incremental programme of selective straightening, widening and blackspot elimination might be worthwhile.
Bypassing villages would be ideal, but this would infuriate the locals as they do depend on the road being there. There have been a few improvements done to the A470 already and these seem to always slip under the radar.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

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Bryn666 wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 14:50
roadtester wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 14:47 I drove the length of the A470 north to south just before the rules started tightening again in the late summer.

I'm slightly torn on this. On the one hand it might be nice to have a better route between North and South Wales but it's mostly not justified on the traffic volumes. It would have to be very much a political decision by the WAG actively to promote North/South cohesion, which would represent a major policy initiative given that South and especially North Wales probably currently have as many economic and social links with the neighbouring parts of England as with each other.

At the moment it works quite well as a tourist route - the variety and quality of scenery is pretty stunning for almost its entire length - but perhaps a modest incremental programme of selective straightening, widening and blackspot elimination might be worthwhile.
Bypassing villages would be ideal, but this would infuriate the locals as they do depend on the road being there. There have been a few improvements done to the A470 already and these seem to always slip under the radar.
Actually I was surprised to be reminded how good much of it already is.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by DB617 »

The Welsh political mood is very much for exploring a North-South HSX equivalent railway network, rather than use the roads. To be fair, accommodating the kind of N-S traffic they want to encourage, on any of the existing routes, would be traumatically expensive and not in line with Wales' seriousness about reducing road usage.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by mehere »

Thank you all for your kindness and information on the Welsh roads and projects , I must get round to watching those ' fly through ' on the A470, but I really appreciate the help and details as it answers things I've wondered for ages , many thanks and stay safe :-)
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

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DB617 wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 17:18 The Welsh political mood is very much for exploring a North-South HSX equivalent railway network, rather than use the roads. To be fair, accommodating the kind of N-S traffic they want to encourage, on any of the existing routes, would be traumatically expensive and not in line with Wales' seriousness about reducing road usage.
From my view the main transport planning and spending from the WG seems mostly targeted on the South Wales metro scheme to sort out Caerdydd/Cardiff's relatively poor PT infrastructure (compared to similarly sized English cities).

Otherwise there's no real appetite to do anything with rail North or West of the "Metro" area. The ongoing demands for an "in Wales" N/S rail link are very unlikely to be answered as the suggested idea (re-opening the Aberystwyth - Caerfyrddin/Carmarthen) line is very unlikely to happen as it crosses through a very sparsely populated area and is projected to cost about £1bn with little prospect of ever repaying that investment.

As for roads plans, it does very much depend on how badly the Welsh Labour government needs to keep Mid and North Wales on side during any given timeframe. For example the Dyfi bridge upgrades that are currently scheduled were originally agreed to when Labour needed the votes of the Lib Dems (who had a reasonably strong Mid Wales presence at the time) to pass their budget/finance bill, while other Mid and North Wales schemes were timetabled under the "One Wales" Labour-Plaid coalition.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by rhyds »

Herned wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 08:08 The reason Wales doesn't have very good transport links is that historically that hasn't been where the demand is. East-West travel is far more important, hence that is where the best roads are. The volumes on parts of the A470 are negligible, most of mid Wales is very empty so there just isn't the need for travel
I would argue there's more need to locals to travel (especially by car) due to the emptiness (e.g. from somewhere like Caersws the nearest branch of Currys is 30 miles) and tourism does drive up traffic volumes during the summer. However I will agree that off-peak it is a very quiet place traffic wise.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by Jonathan B4027 »

roadtester wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 14:55 Actually I was surprised to be reminded how good much of it already is.
Indeed, always enjoy the stretch between Dolgellau and Mallwyd. Wish they could do something to the A458 though!
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

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Jonathan B4027 wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:54
roadtester wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 14:55 Actually I was surprised to be reminded how good much of it already is.
Indeed, always enjoy the stretch between Dolgellau and Mallwyd. Wish they could do something to the A458 though!
Problem is of course the A458 goes through the emptiest of empty Sir Drefaldwyn then hits Y Trallwng / Welshpool.

TBH aside from sorting out the crumbling bit at the western end and maybe widening a few bridges there's not a lot else you can really do.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by Herned »

rhyds wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:11 I would argue there's more need to locals to travel (especially by car) due to the emptiness (e.g. from somewhere like Caersws the nearest branch of Currys is 30 miles) and tourism does drive up traffic volumes during the summer. However I will agree that off-peak it is a very quiet place traffic wise.
I'm from Aberystwyth originally and still have family that way so I know all about it! There's a few more places that could do with bypasses and better alignments but realistically that's all that is going to happen.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

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Herned wrote: Fri Dec 04, 2020 09:22
rhyds wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:11 I would argue there's more need to locals to travel (especially by car) due to the emptiness (e.g. from somewhere like Caersws the nearest branch of Currys is 30 miles) and tourism does drive up traffic volumes during the summer. However I will agree that off-peak it is a very quiet place traffic wise.
I'm from Aberystwyth originally and still have family that way so I know all about it! There's a few more places that could do with bypasses and better alignments but realistically that's all that is going to happen.
And TBH that's all that's really required. A few targeted improvements (e.g. A44/A470 bypass at Rheadr, Widening/climbing lanes on the A487 Aberystwyth-Aberteifi section) and decent maintenance and it'll be fine for most of the year. The only sticking point is an Aberystwyth bypass, however from what I can see most traffic queueing to get through Aber every morning and evening is going to/from Aberystwyth itself.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

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rhyds wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:06
DB617 wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 17:18 The Welsh political mood is very much for exploring a North-South HSX equivalent railway network, rather than use the roads. To be fair, accommodating the kind of N-S traffic they want to encourage, on any of the existing routes, would be traumatically expensive and not in line with Wales' seriousness about reducing road usage.
From my view the main transport planning and spending from the WG seems mostly targeted on the South Wales metro scheme to sort out Caerdydd/Cardiff's relatively poor PT infrastructure (compared to similarly sized English cities).

Otherwise there's no real appetite to do anything with rail North or West of the "Metro" area. The ongoing demands for an "in Wales" N/S rail link are very unlikely to be answered as the suggested idea (re-opening the Aberystwyth - Caerfyrddin/Carmarthen) line is very unlikely to happen as it crosses through a very sparsely populated area and is projected to cost about £1bn with little prospect of ever repaying that investment.

As for roads plans, it does very much depend on how badly the Welsh Labour government needs to keep Mid and North Wales on side during any given timeframe. For example the Dyfi bridge upgrades that are currently scheduled were originally agreed to when Labour needed the votes of the Lib Dems (who had a reasonably strong Mid Wales presence at the time) to pass their budget/finance bill, while other Mid and North Wales schemes were timetabled under the "One Wales" Labour-Plaid coalition.
I think there's a certain logic to fixing public transport in Cardiff and the Valleys in terms of choosing the measures that are most likely to benefit the largest number of people, and addressing an obvious deficit compared with similar UK conurbations, but it can also very easily be presented as neglecting rural Wales.

I think the elephant in the room for Welsh transport policy remains the M4 at Newport. Deciding not to go ahead with the most recent scheme hasn't solved the problem which will come back again and again, unless the WAG gets lucky and permanent structural change in the economy brings stable or declining traffic levels in the long run. So I still think that a lot of money will have to be spent on this at some stage, bleeding cash from other priorities.

That said, I think a lot of the Welsh infrastructure is very good. The A55 is fairly decent by any standards and the upgraded Heads of the Valleys will also bear comparison with pretty much anything else when it's done.

I think the links between the end of the M4 and Fishguard/Pembroke Dock should be a priority - although that issue might also go away if ferry traffic falls away after Brexit.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

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Yes, Cardiff and the Valleys PT needs sorting, however that is not at the exclusion of everywhere else. Lets not forget that for years the Conwy Valley line has seen its services suspended for "operational reasons" every time Cardiff needed extra units for rugby games.

As for the M4, it is very much a head-in-the-sand proposition to say that adding a few railway stations and the SW Metro is going to help when the M4 is the connection between the whole of South Wales and markets east. You're not going to shift freight to the railways and even if you got shot of all the commuter/local traffic you're not going to get a long life out of the 60s designed infrastructure as it ages.

As for the A55, it does need its snags and niggles sorted out. To be fair the WG are getting rid of the flat roundabouts but the real issue is the Menai crossings. The Britannia bridge was never designed to have a D2 hooked in to each side and is really showing its limitations, especially when it comes to sidewinds. The A465 is also looking good, aside from the designed in SPECs which is a bit of an engineering cop-out in my opinion.

As for Abergwaun/Fishguard, TBH it would be a waste of budget to upgrade its connections much. The port itself is tiny and doesn't seem to handle much traffic. Pembroke Dock might be different (never sailed from there) but even if you D2'd the A40 and A477 I doubt you'd get as much traffic as the other crossings do. Better to spend that budget sorting the flat junctions on the A48 to Caerfyrddin.
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Re: A465 Heads Of The Valleys Dualling; Dowlais Top To Hirwaun

Post by Herned »

rhyds wrote: Fri Dec 04, 2020 11:19
Herned wrote: Fri Dec 04, 2020 09:22
And TBH that's all that's really required. A few targeted improvements (e.g. A44/A470 bypass at Rheadr, Widening/climbing lanes on the A487 Aberystwyth-Aberteifi section) and decent maintenance and it'll be fine for most of the year. The only sticking point is an Aberystwyth bypass, however from what I can see most traffic queueing to get through Aber every morning and evening is going to/from Aberystwyth itself.
Aberystwyth does have an avoiding route which is no worse than the roads either side, although I can imagine the roundabout by Morrisons is a pain at peak times... any idea whether anything more is planned for the route south of Llandysul? The road north is all done now, but south of there is terrible
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