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.
ScottB5411 wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2019 23:46
I'm amazed I've managed to mention Whitebirk roundabout, associated slips and a sizable amount of reserved land for the M65 in Blackburn before Bryn
*edit
Speaking of which, what's going on with the new build road to nowhere shown on Google at the Burnley Rd roundabout on the line of the original M65 plans? Screenshot attached_IMG_000000_000000.jpg
That's the A678 diversion which is currently being finished and will open this year as Carl Fogarty Way.
Whose idea was it to name a road after a 2014 I’m a Celebrity contestant?
Well he has done other things and at least he's from the town
Bryn Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already. She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
Milton Keynes must have loads. Many of the grid roads have plenty of space for dualling and a couple even become dual carriageway for a short period under a bridge.
Did you know there's more to SABRE than just the Forums? Add your roads knowledge to the SABRE Wiki today!
Have you browsed SABRE Maps recently? Try getting involved!
frediculous_biggs wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2019 17:45
Milton Keynes must have loads. Many of the grid roads have plenty of space for dualling and a couple even become dual carriageway for a short period under a bridge.
Milton Keynes has loads of dual carriageways including the 4 mile long A509 from the M1 to the A5. The problem is that it has 10 roundabouts in that stretch. The D2 stretch of A421 is 8 miles long with no less than 14 roundabouts to negotiate at the end of which it is back to business with boring old S2 to Buckingham. The jewel in the crown is the A5 which is 10 miles long with GSJ's .
Well, it's only on a 'B' road, (a very busy B road, BTW), but where the B5077 Alsager-Crewe Road passes over Valley Brook thia section of road is a real roller coaster, but the bridge, that is many decades old, has been built much wider than the carriageway, indicating an intention to make some re-alignments at some point in the future. Clearly this intention has been lost over the years. However this road really is in dire need of some straightening out. It is actually NSL, but only a lunatic would exceed 45 moh here.
I have lived here in Haslington for 25 years and when we moved in in 1995, Cheshire CC were proposing the Middlewich Bypass. Only now is this getting close to being built !!
frediculous_biggs wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2019 17:45
Milton Keynes must have loads. Many of the grid roads have plenty of space for dualling and a couple even become dual carriageway for a short period under a bridge.
Milton Keynes has loads of dual carriageways including the 4 mile long A509 from the M1 to the A5. The problem is that it has 10 roundabouts in that stretch. The D2 stretch of A421 is 8 miles long with no less than 14 roundabouts to negotiate at the end of which it is back to business with boring old S2 to Buckingham. The jewel in the crown is the A5 which is 10 miles long with GSJ's .
The most optimistic around MK is the D2 A509 to the north where the carriageways flare for a GSJ that was never built. The next stretch towards Olney is S2 which is well engineered until Emberton. Queues of 2 miles or more to get through Olney is normal.
M19 wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2019 00:49
The most optimistic around MK is the D2 A509 to the north where the carriageways flare for a GSJ that was never built. The next stretch towards Olney is S2 which is well engineered until Emberton. Queues of 2 miles or more to get through Olney is normal.
I suspect this is a hangover to one of the great might have been stories of the British road system. There is a GSJ with the A45 at Wellingborough where the A509 was clearly intended to end on the A45.
The old route from Felixstowe and Ipswich to the West Midlands was the A45 from Felixstowe to Cambridge, Northampton and Birmingham The expectation back in the 60s when the M1 was built seems to have been the general line of a new East West Link would broadly follow the A45 to Northampton where it would duplex with the M1 to J17 and the M45. Had this happened the A509 would have become a major link from MK to the new East West highway, quite possibly the M45 would have gone from Felixstowe to Coventry and Birmingham. That idea was really only finally abandoned when the final route selection for the 1990 A14 was approved.
In fact I think the M45 is a good candidate for the most optimistic future proofing. With an AADT of 10k it carries less traffic than most suburban high streets.
The A214 in SW London has a D3 grade-separated section under the A3, which peters out pretty quickly to the north and south. At the northern end there's a roundabout which is large enough you wonder if grade separation was planned there too, except the railway line is in the way.
"If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed." - Sylvia Plath
vlad wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2019 18:52
The A214 in SW London has a D3 grade-separated section under the A3, which peters out pretty quickly to the north and south. At the northern end there's a roundabout which is large enough you wonder if grade separation was planned there too, except the railway line is in the way.
The diagram on this https://www.roads.org.uk/ringways/ringw ... worth-link page shows the layout, and from the text the flyover would have gone above the railway, which would have been quite something if it had ever been built!
alice wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2019 11:12
A good example local to me is Boundary Road and the Boundary Roundabout. Both built on the assumption that the Wallisdown by-pass would eventually get built, they now look completely overblown.
Boundary Road: https://goo.gl/maps/VhkKSG9godgqXvoA7
is a very strange road. It was clearly built with intentions to expand, hence the wide pavements and service road. The southern part is completely separated from all side roads, with a huge pedestrian bridge across...all on an urban 30mph S2. The road itself is usually pretty quiet, as other routes are more convenient for most journeys
Then we get to the roundabout: https://goo.gl/maps/1LaiuFc3RrX5E2o66
Built for two lanes all around, it ended up with huge hatched off sections for many years. When the new link road into the university got built, some parts did get turned back into lanes but it's still far too grand for the roads it serves.
In fact, the original Boundary Road (and even earlier, the county boundary of course) went along the line of the service road. When you got to the end of the (current) Boundary Road onto the roundabout, the fist property on your left-hand side was actually no.2 Wallisdown Road, not Talbot Avenue. That reflected the fact that the original join between the two roads.
The current Boundary Road was, as you say, built in around 1986/7 and the A347 was rerouted from the main shopping centre of Wimborne Road in Winton/Moordown onto Boundary Road and Redhill Avenue. Whitelegg Way was built at around the same time.
I had never before considered that Boundary Road was built with further developments in mind but it looks so much more obvious now that you have pointed it out!
(PS Have you noticed that the advance signs to the roundabout from Wallisdown Road and Talbot Avenue, replaced in the last few years to show the new uni road, refer to Boundary Road as the A357, not A347?)
The A57 around Barton has quite a few pieces of future proofing including this unbuilt railway overbridge https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4702258 ... 312!8i6656 and signalised side roads intended for 'Port Salford' which has never got off the ground. I know Peel have been talking about 'Port Salford' since around 2005 ish but nothing has come to fruition.
How about The Croydon Underpass and The Croydon Flyover? Both are huge pieces of infrastructure- the flyover actually moreso - but yet they don't even connect to oneanother, except by a woefully under capacity roundabout. And both sort of peter out of existence, resulting in traffic just using them to queue for the inevitable single carriageway ends at the north and west.
c2R wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 10:09
How about The Croydon Underpass and The Croydon Flyover? Both are huge pieces of infrastructure- the flyover actually moreso - but yet they don't even connect to oneanother, except by a woefully under capacity roundabout. And both sort of peter out of existence, resulting in traffic just using them to queue for the inevitable single carriageway ends at the north and west.
Chris M of course wrote a feature on the Croydon Ring Road and the flyover and underpass were never even planned to connect properly to one another...
Bryn Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already. She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
I cannot help thinking that this thread has entirely the wrong name - surely optimistic future proofing would be providing an S2 for a major through route and being surprised later that it's woefully inadequate?
What I would call pessimistic future proofing: the M2 between J4 and J5, built with room for a third lane because they thought it wouldn't be wide enough.
AndyB wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 12:45
I cannot help thinking that this thread has entirely the wrong name - surely optimistic future proofing would be providing an S2 for a major through route and being surprised later that it's woefully inadequate?
What I would call pessimistic future proofing: the M2 between J4 and J5, built with room for a third lane because they thought it wouldn't be wide enough.
I believe in the last thread we had on this subject we called such roads overspecified and the D4M A1(M) at Peterborough was the poster boy.
AndyB wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 12:45
I cannot help thinking that this thread has entirely the wrong name - surely optimistic future proofing would be providing an S2 for a major through route and being surprised later that it's woefully inadequate?
There would be no contest for that - the York Northern bypass!
