Westway Speed Limit - was it ever 70mph?

[Berk]

... not to mention child benefit and tax credits.

[Herned]

... not to mention child benefit and tax credits.

no, not really, that's only about 5% of government expenditure, probably not massively different to the 1970s

[Glenn A]

If you watch the Roger Moore film, The Man Who Haunted Himself, when he's driving out of London at the start, there is a 40 mph limit on the Westway at Ladbroke Grove. Mind you, there is some artistic licence as this turns into the M4 on the edge of London.

[KeithW]

What I can never get my head round is why it was that, in the 60's and 70's when Britain's economy was in a mess and Britain was so bankrupt by the mid 70's we had to ask the IMF for a loan, but we still managed to fund a huge amount of fantastic road schemes compared to the pitiful amount of new build construction today.

(I take into account in the above statement that environmental factors were less of an issue then).

Ian (M5 Driver)

From 1956 or so until 1973 the British economy was steadily growing and unemployment was low , below 5%, When I left school in 1968 I had 5 firm job offers to choose from all as an apprentice not a labourer or flipping burgers and that was in the North East of England.

The economy hit the skids in 1973 with the oil price shock which brought about a stock exchange crash and a devaluation of the pound and a banking crisis. By 1975 the economy had switched from steady growth and low inflation to a recession and high inflation. This is what made the government approach the IMF for a loan and also produced spending cuts including those on road schemes. With the government having to fund rapidly rising welfare payments due to rising unemployment road development programs were scaled back.

At a local level on Teesside one of these was a planned extension of the D2 A174 Parkway from the A19 to the A66 west of Stockton. This remained a rural road until the development of Ingleby Barwick in the 1980s and is now basically a local access road to the new housing estates.

If you go to the motorway chronology maps you will find that from 1973 the size and number of schemes dropped dramatically. What was being built were mainly small sections essentially finishing off major developments.

In the case of the M11 it was open as far as J8 by 1977 construction having started in 1972 but construction on the Northern end and the Cambridge bypass didn't start until 1977.

Improvements to the A1 also slowed down. The much maligned Redhouse to Darrington section opened in the 60's but until around 1980 the road went down into the valley and back up the other side with at grade junctions for Darrington !

[lefthandedspanner]

But then again I would think who willingly lives in London, isn't there purely because of their job, and insists on driving everywhere in the metropolis to be part of a very small club indeed.

What about movement of goods and service providers?

Or horror of horrors, ambulances, the fire brigade, and the police. Or worse still, Royal Mail, BT, and the other utility networks.

All the above (not sure about emergency services) are still expected to pay the C & T charges in London.

And despite what you might think, I’d still class private hire, and hackney cabs as public transport. In theory, they can be shared too.

Well they'll just have to do without. Of course, the congestion charges and road tax will keep on getting jacked up despite the crumbling infrastructure.

[Berk]

What I can never get my head round is why it was that, in the 60's and 70's when Britain's economy was in a mess and Britain was so bankrupt by the mid 70's we had to ask the IMF for a loan, but we still managed to fund a huge amount of fantastic road schemes compared to the pitiful amount of new build construction today.

(I take into account in the above statement that environmental factors were less of an issue then).

Ian (M5 Driver)

From 1956 or so until 1973 the British economy was steadily growing and unemployment was low , below 5%, When I left school in 1968 I had 5 firm job offers to choose from all as an apprentice not a labourer or flipping burgers and that was in the North East of England.

The economy hit the skids in 1973 with the oil price shock which brought about a stock exchange crash and a devaluation of the pound and a banking crisis. By 1975 the economy had switched from steady growth and low inflation to a recession and high inflation. This is what made the government approach the IMF for a loan and also produced spending cuts including those on road schemes. With the government having to fund rapidly rising welfare payments due to rising unemployment road development programs were scaled back.

At a local level on Teesside one of these was a planned extension of the D2 A174 Parkway from the A19 to the A66 west of Stockton. This remained a rural road until the development of Ingleby Barwick in the 1980s and is now basically a local access road to the new housing estates.

If you go to the motorway chronology maps you will find that from 1973 the size and number of schemes dropped dramatically. What was being built were mainly small sections essentially finishing off major developments.

In the case of the M11 it was open as far as J8 by 1977 construction having started in 1972 but construction on the Northern end and the Cambridge bypass didn't start until 1977.

Improvements to the A1 also slowed down. The much maligned Redhouse to Darrington section opened in the 60's but until around 1980 the road went down into the valley and back up the other side with at grade junctions for Darrington !

The bottom line is that schemes which had already been through development, and planning were allowed to continue if construction had already begun.

That’s why you had schemes like Westway, Northern Ireland motorways, Central Motorway East and so on. They were mostly completed by 1975.

The ones which had not been through design, or statutory stages, like the M64, were just cancelled flat. Sometimes they re-emerged later in a different guise, part of the M11 was in fact built as an A12 extension.

[Steven]

The ones which had not been through design, or statutory stages, like the M64, were just cancelled flat. Sometimes they re-emerged later in a different guise, part of the M11 was in fact built as an A12 extension.

Kinda. Sort of. Maybe.

It's more true to say that the A12 was built within the same approximate corridor as the planned M11 route into London - it really isn't even a watered down version of the M11 plans, which you can say about part (but not all) of the M64/A50.

[Glenn A]

What I can never get my head round is why it was that, in the 60's and 70's when Britain's economy was in a mess and Britain was so bankrupt by the mid 70's we had to ask the IMF for a loan, but we still managed to fund a huge amount of fantastic road schemes compared to the pitiful amount of new build construction today.

(I take into account in the above statement that environmental factors were less of an issue then).

Ian (M5 Driver)

From 1956 or so until 1973 the British economy was steadily growing and unemployment was low , below 5%, When I left school in 1968 I had 5 firm job offers to choose from all as an apprentice not a labourer or flipping burgers and that was in the North East of England.

The economy hit the skids in 1973 with the oil price shock which brought about a stock exchange crash and a devaluation of the pound and a banking crisis. By 1975 the economy had switched from steady growth and low inflation to a recession and high inflation. This is what made the government approach the IMF for a loan and also produced spending cuts including those on road schemes. With the government having to fund rapidly rising welfare payments due to rising unemployment road development programs were scaled back.

At a local level on Teesside one of these was a planned extension of the D2 A174 Parkway from the A19 to the A66 west of Stockton. This remained a rural road until the development of Ingleby Barwick in the 1980s and is now basically a local access road to the new housing estates.

If you go to the motorway chronology maps you will find that from 1973 the size and number of schemes dropped dramatically. What was being built were mainly small sections essentially finishing off major developments.

In the case of the M11 it was open as far as J8 by 1977 construction having started in 1972 but construction on the Northern end and the Cambridge bypass didn't start until 1977.

Improvements to the A1 also slowed down. The much maligned Redhouse to Darrington section opened in the 60's but until around 1980 the road went down into the valley and back up the other side with at grade junctions for Darrington !

The big post war road building scheme became more sporadic as the economy went into a downturn after 1973. I know in the North East, the last of the big schemes such as the A69 upgrade and the Newcastle Central Motorway were given the go ahead just before the 1974-75 recession. Thereafter it's been far smaller schemes and by passes that would have been D2 in the seventies being S2( Haltwhistle and Haydon Bridge come to mind).

[owen b]

The big post war road building scheme became more sporadic as the economy went into a downturn after 1973. I know in the North East, the last of the big schemes such as the A69 upgrade and the Newcastle Central Motorway were given the go ahead just before the 1974-75 recession. Thereafter it's been far smaller schemes and by passes that would have been D2 in the seventies being S2( Haltwhistle and Haydon Bridge come to mind).

There have been quite a few substantial schemes in the North East since then : major upgrades to the A19 and A66 through Teesside (Billingham bypass and Stockton bypass were early 80s), A1 Newcastle bypass (1990ish), Tyne Tunnel second bore, dualling of large chunks of the A66 from Scotch Corner to the Cumbria border.

[KeithW]

There have been quite a few substantial schemes in the North East since then : major upgrades to the A19 and A66 through Teesside (Billingham bypass and Stockton bypass were early 80s), A1 Newcastle bypass (1990ish), Tyne Tunnel second bore, dualling of large chunks of the A66 from Scotch Corner to the Cumbria border.

Most of those however were complete in the early 80's having been approved in the late 70's. There was some improvement on the A19 after 1982 for the Nissan plant but not a lot more. The A1 Western Bypass had become essential as the whole Tyneside area was grinding to a halt as a result of the cancellation of the Newcastle motorway schemes and even then was clearly built on the cheap. The Highways Agency in 1980 initially proposed a link road from the A1(M) to the A69, the A1 route at that time was via the Tyne Tunnel. The rest of the scheme was put forward by the county council. The economic crisis of the late 1970's/1980's meant the scheme was put on hold for several years with work only starting in 1987.

Other schemes were also rather cheap and nasty such as the S2 A66 Darlington bypass. Some towns on the A69 were bypassed and the only extensive dualling on the A66 was over Bowes Moor to Brough which until it was opened was not really an all year road being quite high risk for HGV's in winter. A single jacknifed truck could close it for days as even getting rescue vehicles in was a challenge.

The A19/A66 is the only real bypass for Stockton and Middlesbrough and remains pretty much unchanged since it was built. On Wednesday most of Teesside ground to a halt when a lane had to be closed on the A66 near the Tees flyover for emergency repairs. Traffic is always on a knife edge as planned bypasses such as the Middlesbrough Eastern bypass and Darlington Northern bypass never went ahead. The only other routes into Middlesbrough and on to Redcar, Teessport and Seal Sands are via suburban S2 roads which are unchanged since the 1950's. The only other routes over the Tees are via congested urban roads through Stockton, Middlesbrough and Ingleby Barwick.

Credit where its due the Highways England road repair teams were pretty quick off the mark on Wednesday morning having the road fully reopened by 11 AM.