Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

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jervi
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Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by jervi »

I was watching a video on YouTube about Vancouver demolishing a urban motorway due to multiple reasons (other highways not built, ugly, maintenance, doesn't save much time for journeys etc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDPLxaTwjI
and was thinking, what about those viaduct urban (ex)motorway sections built in London. There is only a defined life-span of those viaducts, and maintenance fees keep getting higher. At what point is it time to completely remove the viaducts and give the area some new life?
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by c2R »

Probably not, given the creation of a massive shopping centre just off the Westway, with parking spaces for thousands of vehicles, taxi ranks, and even a dedicated limo parking area....

It's also one of the main routes in to London from the west and incorporates bridges over canals and railways, which would still need to be crossed between the end of the A40 and the inner ring road. Otherwise, what? just crash the A40 straight into a T junction with Wood Lane andl let the traffic find its own way through Shepherd's Bush and Notting Hill?

It would, however, be nicer for the road to be put underground, Limehouse Link style and the bridges removed. ... but that'd be quite expensive...
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Berk »

Did it ever operate at NSL?? Or was that just a hazy memory??
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Chris Bertram »

Berk wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 16:06 Did it ever operate at NSL?? Or was that just a hazy memory??
That feels unlikely - but it *did* formerly have a 50 limit, which seems common for urban motorways of this type.
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Robert Kilcoyne »

Chris Bertram wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 16:18
Berk wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 16:06 Did it ever operate at NSL?? Or was that just a hazy memory??
That feels unlikely - but it *did* formerly have a 50 limit, which seems common for urban motorways of this type.
The background is somewhat blurry, but it was a 50 mph limit:-
https://flickr.com/photos/129093914@N02 ... ist-QUJ7Sd
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Bryn666 »

It was a mix of 50 and 60.

Before it opened the Western Avenue did indeed just end at Wood Lane and even in 1968 this was rubbish.

The bottleneck is now the first set of signals at the end of the Marylebone Flyover on the A501. Sending vast amounts of free flowing traffic here is unworkable - a natural gating effect of keeping the whole Westway as D2 instead of having the D3 bit could be considered.

However, we should be looking at ways to reduce the numbers of drivers heading into the centre of London so that roads like the Westway are freed up for essential journeys and not just someone who can make a journey without a car but feels that public transport is beneath them.
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Berk »

Abolishing peak-time fares might help. Just a thought!! :D

And is that sign on the second gantry a NO sign?? 😏
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by hoagy_ytfc »

Berk wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 23:43 Abolishing peak-time fares might help. Just a thought!!
How would you provide the extra capacity required?
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Berk »

hoagy_ytfc wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 00:13
Berk wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 23:43Abolishing peak-time fares might help. Just a thought!!
How would you provide the extra capacity required?
But this is really a question for the whole of society.

Modal shift should represent a genuine commitment to offering people real, workable alternatives to using private transport, in order to maximise road capacity, and improve air quality in our cities.

In reality, it’s just about restricting, or banning, car use through a variety of methods. The stick bit is the easy bit. The difficult, carrot bit is harder to organise, promote, campaign, and gain funds for.

Even XR, Reclaim the Streets, and other groups don’t unanimously support public transport, if it appears to contradict their wider aims. Building a new railway, or a sustainable, self-contained community on greenbelt land. They won’t have it, even if it supports active travel by design.

Anyway, back to the question. Longer term, we need to facilitate more forms of light rail and park and ride schemes.

But we need much more flexibility in working hours. This has to be a cultural shift, not just deemed to be a public sector privilege. Enough so that business they decide they have no choice but to implement flexible working.

There need to be punitive charges on businesses (e.g. utility charges, “anti-social hours” premiums, and so on) that make it too expensive for business to operate during morning peak periods. The peak period commute has to be broken - and not simply by car drivers.
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by crazyknightsfan »

Robert Kilcoyne wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 16:41
Chris Bertram wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 16:18
Berk wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 16:06 Did it ever operate at NSL?? Or was that just a hazy memory??
That feels unlikely - but it *did* formerly have a 50 limit, which seems common for urban motorways of this type.
The background is somewhat blurry, but it was a 50 mph limit:-
https://flickr.com/photos/129093914@N02 ... ist-QUJ7Sd
Looking at this location on current GSV, aside from the lack of blue signs I see 'Westfield' is signed as a destination. It seems a bit unusual to sign a big box shopping centre as a destination from a Primary Route?
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by M4Simon »

crazyknightsfan wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 02:04 Looking at this location on current GSV, aside from the lack of blue signs I see 'Westfield' is signed as a destination. It seems a bit unusual to sign a big box shopping centre as a destination from a Primary Route?
The Trafford Centre is signed from the M60. Meadowhall from the M1, Bluewater from the A2, Lakeside from the M25. These are major destinations, often visited by people who do not know the area. It makes sense to sign them from primary routes or motorways.

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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by A303Chris »

Berk wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 16:06 Did it ever operate at NSL?? Or was that just a hazy memory??
It was until TFL got involved in 1999, 50 mph from the A40 Western Avenue over the M41 West Link Road, to the eastbound facing slips, 60 mph to the Paddington slips then 50 mph to the Marleybone flyover which was as it is now 30 mph

Back to the original post, its removal would create chaos in West London
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by djw1981 »

Berk wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 01:49
Anyway, back to the question. Longer term, we need to facilitate more forms of light rail and park and ride schemes.

But we need much more flexibility in working hours. This has to be a cultural shift, not just deemed to be a public sector privilege. Enough so that business they decide they have no choice but to implement flexible working.

There need to be punitive charges on businesses (e.g. utility charges, “anti-social hours” premiums, and so on) that make it too expensive for business to operate during morning peak periods. The peak period commute has to be broken - and not simply by car drivers.
IME The frontline public sector is one of the areas were flexi working and home working wont work. The back office functions can, but then so could back office functions for many private employers too. Home working as well with decent internet even call centres could be from home!

The other elephant in the room is personal choice about where we work and live. We will all have a delay of X on our commute which makes us decide to move house or job. For each of us that X will be different. The situation is the complicated with multiple jobs per family, school and family commitments. Compromise will be key. But in a society that has for 40 years been told we can have anything we want, that is a major change in political message.

Truly demand responsive pricing for transport would be interesting though I suspect, impractical.
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by A9NWIL »

Berk wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 01:49
hoagy_ytfc wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 00:13
Berk wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 23:43Abolishing peak-time fares might help. Just a thought!!
How would you provide the extra capacity required?
But this is really a question for the whole of society.

Modal shift should represent a genuine commitment to offering people real, workable alternatives to using private transport, in order to maximise road capacity, and improve air quality in our cities.

In reality, it’s just about restricting, or banning, car use through a variety of methods. The stick bit is the easy bit. The difficult, carrot bit is harder to organise, promote, campaign, and gain funds for.

Even XR, Reclaim the Streets, and other groups don’t unanimously support public transport, if it appears to contradict their wider aims. Building a new railway, or a sustainable, self-contained community on greenbelt land. They won’t have it, even if it supports active travel by design.

Anyway, back to the question. Longer term, we need to facilitate more forms of light rail and park and ride schemes.

But we need much more flexibility in working hours. This has to be a cultural shift, not just deemed to be a public sector privilege. Enough so that business they decide they have no choice but to implement flexible working.

There need to be punitive charges on businesses (e.g. utility charges, “anti-social hours” premiums, and so on) that make it too expensive for business to operate during morning peak periods. The peak period commute has to be broken - and not simply by car drivers.
I think its impossible to break that peak morning commute, people simply dont want to work hours that are too different to 9-5 hours unless there is a valid business need for it eg service sector, medical ect.
This has already been looked at in London due to the masses of people living there and they ended up with a start time between 8-10am and a finish time between 4-6pm anything else and it becomes unsociable hours to work if the job doesnt require it.
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

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djw1981 wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 09:35
IME The frontline public sector is one of the areas were flexi working and home working wont work. The back office functions can, but then so could back office functions for many private employers too. Home working as well with decent internet even call centres could be from home!

The other elephant in the room is personal choice about where we work and live. We will all have a delay of X on our commute which makes us decide to move house or job. For each of us that X will be different. The situation is the complicated with multiple jobs per family, school and family commitments. Compromise will be key. But in a society that has for 40 years been told we can have anything we want, that is a major change in political message.

Truly demand responsive pricing for transport would be interesting though I suspect, impractical.
The public sector needs to be able to deal with people who need face to face meetings or at least telephone calls. my 75 year old neighbour has never owned a computer and since our council has moved just about everything on line I have to do it for him.

As for home working the company I worked for has had around 50% of staff working from home but there are those for whom this wont work. I had a colleague with 3 young children and he had all sorts of distractions.

Back to the westway demolition would be impractical and expensive but one option that has been adopted in New York is turn an railroad into a linear park and there is now discussion about doing this with a freeway in Brooklyn.
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Herned »

Berk wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 01:49 But we need much more flexibility in working hours. This has to be a cultural shift, not just deemed to be a public sector privilege. Enough so that business they decide they have no choice but to implement flexible working.

There need to be punitive charges on businesses (e.g. utility charges, “anti-social hours” premiums, and so on) that make it too expensive for business to operate during morning peak periods. The peak period commute has to be broken - and not simply by car drivers.
Businesses trade with each other, and therefore need to be trading at similar times. Changing the entire way society works seems a pretty remote possibility.

However, there does seem to be a big change in attitudes towards remote working, even though the technology hasn't radically improved recently. My own employer is seriously considering having some teams who permanently work remotely, which was unthinkable even a few years ago. This is driven by the realisation that they will not need so much prime office space if they do so. The company does a lot of management consultancy and I am aware that this is happening elsewhere as well.

Obviously there are lots of jobs which that doesn't apply to, but all those who communicate via phone and email (even in the same room!), can probably be done remotely. Numbers on the trains are already showing this, there has been a big decline in season tickets recently
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Jeni »

Not yet.

Improve the alternatives for non motorists first then tear the damn thing down
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by Chris5156 »

Berk wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 23:43Abolishing peak-time fares might help. Just a thought!! :D
Some of the worst congestion on the Westway is during the day at weekends, when people who wouldn't dream of commuting into central London by car decide to drive in because there's no congestion charge and parking is either cheaper or free.

In any case - those who drive in to work in Central London on a weekday are already paying £11.50 congestion charge daily, many of them will pay £12.50 ULEZ charge daily, and all-day parking during office hours in London is in the region of £30 a day. These are not people who are driving because a peak hour tube fare is £2 more expensive than off-peak.
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

Post by KeithW »

Herned wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 10:46
However, there does seem to be a big change in attitudes towards remote working, even though the technology hasn't radically improved recently. My own employer is seriously considering having some teams who permanently work remotely, which was unthinkable even a few years ago. This is driven by the realisation that they will not need so much prime office space if they do so. The company does a lot of management consultancy and I am aware that this is happening elsewhere as well.

Obviously there are lots of jobs which that doesn't apply to, but all those who communicate via phone and email (even in the same room!), can probably be done remotely. Numbers on the trains are already showing this, there has been a big decline in season tickets recently
One thing that has changed in the last decade is the rollout of high speed FTTC internet connectivity. I worked for an IT company and were were all effectively working remotely even when in the office. My development team consisted of my self in Cambridge, two programmers in Pakistan, one in India, one in Calgary and one in Boston MA. The availability of fast networks made real time high res video conferencing a cinch.

Our Cambridge office closed and we all just worked from home with the company paying for the high speed line , a laptop and large (36") 2560x1080 screen. It saved them a bundle and my commute went from 20 miles each way to a walk from kitchen to home office (Bedroom 3). The only downside was moving the junk from the spare bedroom to the garage and tip. This was made possible by high speed internet reaching most Cambridgeshire villages in 2010.
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Re: Is it time to remove the old A40(M) Westway?

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KeithW wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 14:09The only downside was moving the junk from the spare bedroom to the garage and tip. This was made possible by high speed internet reaching most Cambridgeshire villages in 2010.
That's amazing. You took junk from your spare bedroom to the tip by high speed internet? :laugh:
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