Minimum road widths in England

[Al__S]

I'm interested to know the minimum road width of a single carriageway designed for two vehicles to pass safely, rural road in Northamptonshire. It's Oakley road between Rushton Hall and Corby. It passes a Mick George site incidentally. I read somewhere that it does depend on regular expected traffic, a bus route for instance, and that this affects the minimum width the road designers/engineers should use. ?????

using the not-very-accurate-so-take-it-with-a-pinch-of-salt tool that is google maps measuring tool, this seems to be ~6m wide throughout. Which is tight, with HGVs, but not (as others back up) sub-standard, and even if it was it's not a new road, so there would be no clear duty on anyone to spend considerable money upgrading it

[Berk]

This is a rural road, in every sense. I’ve driven it myself, and it is purely a link between two villages.

It is also plainly a very, very old road.

How could anyone come to a reasonable conclusion that it should be widened?? Where would the money come from?? And where would we stop??

I also think it most unlikely it’s used as a bus route (unless for school buses, maybe).

[FleetlinePhil]

This is a rural road, in every sense. I’ve driven it myself, and it is purely a link between two villages.

It is also plainly a very, very old road.

How could anyone come to a reasonable conclusion that it should be widened?? Where would the money come from?? And where would we stop??

I also think it most unlikely it’s used as a bus route (unless for school buses, maybe).

Not my part of the world obviously, but it appears to be used by Stagecoach service 19 roughly every hour until early evening. I don't know what size of vehicle they use, but it looks considerably better than many roads around the Calder Valley I've driven full-sized buses on! It also appears to have a 7.5 ton limit for goods vehicles.

It also has some odd distances marked - the fingerpost at the Rushton end says 2 miles to Corby, but drive to the junction just before the A6003 roundabout and it now shows 3 miles!

[jgharston]

On unclassified roads all bets are off, I encountered these 2 on holiday this year

This is an interesting drive, especially when the grass hasn't been cut.

[DB617]

School bus routes seem exempt from any reasonable expectation of route planning, where there is no alternative route out of the villages. Llancarfan in Glamorgan is an excellent example where all the kids are bussed to Cowbridge via a couple of miles of S1.

[Vierwielen]

Old Enclosure maps used to say that any newly set out carriageway should be 60 feet wide. Sounds a lot until you realise that this would usually be unsurfaced so you'd need a bit of room if it got rutted or boggy and you had to deviate round the worse bits, or you were going to drive herd animals along it.

So that's why some roads have ridiculously wide verges?

They're "drove roads" - used to walk animals and poultry to market, in some cases over long distances.

The opening scene of Thomas Hardy's book "Mayor of Casterbridge" takes place in about 1830 at the Weydon Priors fair. The town on which Hardy based the fair was Weyhill (a little to the west of Andover). Until the Railway Age, the fair at Weyhill was one of the largest in England - drovers from the West Country would herd their animals to Weyhill where the would be sold to the London merchants.

[AndyB]

The answer, as ever, is that a new build road will comply with this:

Manual for Streets, the national guidance for new roads with vehicle speeds below 37mph (60kph) details various widths on page 79.

4.1 metres is the minimum width for a car to pass a car.
4.8 metres is the minimum width for a car to pass a rigid vehicle.
5.5 metres is the minimum for a rigid vehicle to pass a rigid vehicle.

Although proceeding paragraph 6.5.7 on page 72 states a minimum width for a bus route is 6 metres and this is usually the minimum width if articulated lorries are expected.

However roads with vehicle speeds greater than 37 mph the minimum is 6 metres and recommended is 7.3 metres.

(that said, see an access bridge built over the A2 between Greenisland and Carrickfergus that is built as an S1)

There is no expectation that existing roads will be wide enough for even cars to pass each other without using the verge, gateways etc. If the road is busy enough, it will be widened for safety reasons, but the typical rural unclassified road is S1.5-S1.9 using gateways and wide verges to pass safely while avoiding sheughs rather than the Scottish luxury of metalled passing places.

[Debaser]

Note that the 2.0m/6'6" width as often quoted on the restriction signs may not necessarily be the actual width of the lane;

From Chapter 3 of the Traffic Signs Manual, Regulatory Signs;

5.35 The maximum width permitted, in imperial
units, should be 6 inches less than the narrowest
part of the road, rounded to the nearest 6 inches
downwards. If this narrow part is long and not
straight it might be necessary to increase the
clearance to allow for long vehicle overhang at
bends. If the limit is introduced for environmental
reasons, a width of 6 ft 6 in is frequently used, as
this excludes most lorries.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.95396 ... 312!8i6656

[tom1977]

Design Bulletin 32 suggests 4.8m or 5.5m.

http://regulations.completepicture.co.u ... 201992.pdf

[RichardA35]

Design Bulletin 32 suggests 4.8m or 5.5m.

http://regulations.completepicture.co.u ... 201992.pdf

Indeed so for historic creations but going forward

Manual for Streets (MfS) supersedes Design Bulletin 32 and its companion guide Places, Streets and Movement, which are now withdrawn in England and Wales.

[Bertiebus]

At a guess a practical limit would be somewhere around 6' 6" or 2m, but I don't think there is a legal minimum for an unclassified road.

This is in Wales: https://goo.gl/maps/1CCj29Lye2P2
Even Google's car couldn't negotiate it. (There's a fiercely tight bend on the far side.)

I've never seen a width restriction (OK, not a restriction, a warning) on a triangular sign before looking at that.

Is this common?

[AndyB]

There’s one at Minnowburn Beeches near Edenderry (6’6”) which is enforced by bollards. Non-prescribed sign of course, but the bollards avoid the hassle of a TRO.

[nowster]

Here's a 6′0″ roundel, just spotted on a Doc Martin repeat. https://goo.gl/maps/jq6c5Q3KhyH2

[Vierwielen]

There’s one at Minnowburn Beeches near Edenderry (6’6”) which is enforced by bollards. Non-prescribed sign of course, but the bollards avoid the hassle of a TRO.

There is one in Wokingham as well. As an aside, I saw a 1.85 metre width restriction in Florence!

[Euan]

Any road less than 6ft wide would probably not be suitable at all for general traffic. 6ft itself would for many cars be an incredibly tight squeeze even with the mirrors folded inwards.

[Berk]

Quite a few streets in St Ives are as tight as that...

[Octaviadriver]

A little bit of topic (sorry) as it's minimum road widths in England, but I saw this one in Malta a few years ago at 5'6".