Busiest and quietest stretches of road from each width category

[Ruperts Trooper]

D2M M48 from Chepstow to Magor.
S4 A48 near Castleton, if it is still S4

D2 Old A12 towards Copdock
D2 Old A47 at Walpole Highway
D2 Old A74 at Lesmahagow?
Not sure if these are still dualled though.

S2 A30 west of Sutton Scotney
old A30 east of Sutton Scotney

Google Earth shows the B7078 (old A74) at Lesmahagow "painted" down to D1 in 2017, and reduced to S2 further south.

[SteelCamel]

Quietest S1 is surely going to be impossible to determine - there must be some that never see a car. I'd suggest the road to Fair Isle North Lighthouse - the Northern Lighthouse Board now use helicopters for access, and the little farm traffic in the north end has no reason to go as far as the lighthouse. Most tourists won't bring a car either, as the island is so small and the ferry inconvenient for cars (requiring them to be craned onto the deck).

[skiddaw05]

D2 Old A47 at Walpole Highway

Still D2 and still NSL - all 830m of it. What fun for the local Fenland hothatchers

[DB617]

S4 A48 near Castleton, if it is still S4

Would be interesting to see if this was borne out in the AADT figures. I've always seen the A48 St Mellons-Castleton as an important local route for traffic between western Newport and the St Mellons/Llanrumney area, which is isolated from the M4/A48(M) by the limited access junction at the latter road's terminus. Not to mention the fact that these days, joining the M4 from east Cardiff when you are travelling to Newport is a fool's errand. It's one of those places where the old road appears to have become the bypass for the new road, for those in the know.

[CrazyInWeston]

The Busiest S2 will be interesting,

For a town with pretty much NO through traffic (as its on the coast and to go beyond you would use the M5 to skip the town entirely) The WsM locking road bypass having 32k AADT northbound towards Bristol seems quite high for a dead end town (As non WsM traffic would 99% skip the town entirely, You'd only be in WsM if you'd want to be in WsM)

[Big L]

...a dead end town...

The most accurate description I have ever read of Weston!

There is some through traffic. I sometimes work on site in Sherborne or Templecombe, and go via the A371/A37. Sometimes I take a dive to the left via Cheddar Gorge, Axbridge, Banwell, Locking to get to the M5 to avoid Bristol in the afternoon rush. Prettier and more fun too.

[dprior7770]

Quietest S1 is surely going to be impossible to determine - there must be some that never see a car. I'd suggest the road to Fair Isle North Lighthouse - the Northern Lighthouse Board now use helicopters for access, and the little farm traffic in the north end has no reason to go as far as the lighthouse. Most tourists won't bring a car either, as the island is so small and the ferry inconvenient for cars (requiring them to be craned onto the deck).

Two contenders for quietest adopted S1 - almost certainly possibly the quietest classified roads might be:

• The short stretch of B9088 on Fetlar, west of the northbound unclassified turnoff for the vehicle ferry, running past the derelict Brough Lodge to the old pier which has not been used in years - as a reasonable guess, since 1988 when Brough Lodge was abandoned. The only reason for any vehicles to use it would be to access Brough Lodge, closed to the public and for which Scottish National Heritage funding supposedly enabled restoration to start in 2011, but the Brough Lodge Trust website seems to have been dormant since 2017.

• The B891 on Benbecula, running from the A865 past the few houses at Hacklet and Grimsay down to the pier at Peter Port. As far as I know, this pier has never been used, as the sea access for fishing boats is barriered by rocky outcrops. Once you get past Grimsay there is a good mile and a half of nothing but a ruined house and some (excessively?) well-maintained causeways between the islets. The GSV car did see some signs of life by the pier though - some abandoned trailers and tradesmen's storage it would appear.

Both may end up having more traffic than the lighthouse road on Fair Isle by virtue of the fact that both islands are readily accessible by vehicle ferry.

Busiest S1 - excepting one-way urban streets - could well be the A849 along the southern part of the Isle of Mull from Craignure to Fionnphort, serving Iona. At the height of the summer tourist season (ex-Covid) this road is painfully slow with all the traffic in each direction.

[Rob590]

There must be some very quiet D2s/S4s around docks in parts of the country EG a shade under 5k for the A1053 to Teesport, which for a short stretch is a D2.

[Scratchwood]

Not strictly an S1, but seeing that traffic is only allowed through the centre of Little Hadham in one direction at a time and in single file, the A120 there is effectively an S1, and a really busy one too!

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.8843471 ... 312!8i6656

[trickstat]

Not strictly an S1, but seeing that traffic is only allowed through the centre of Little Hadham in one direction at a time and in single file, the A120 there is effectively an S1, and a really busy one too!

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.8843471 ... 312!8i6656

At least until they complete the bypass.

[A303Chris]

D2M M48 from Chepstow to Magor.
S4 A48 near Castleton, if it is still S4

I believe it is, Steve. I drove it about a year ago, and it was then.

Google last went down there July 2019 and as you say was 4 lanes

[dprior7770]

A contender for quietest S2 - and it's classified - could well be the B896 on Great Cumbrae, the long way round, anticlockwise from the Ferry Terminal to Millport. There are the grand total of two buildings on the entire route. If you were driving from the ferry to the only real settlement on the island, you'd take the clockwise B896 route, or the B889 through the middle of the island.

It's a holiday island and traffic volumes will likely vary seasonally. Even at the height of summer, you'd be lucky to meet another motorised vehicle anticlockwise before you reach MIllport, although you'll come across many more pedestrians and cycles. Off season, I'd be surprised if this stretch of road gets any motor traffic at all.

The road is relatively narrow, with few centre markings, but there's plenty of room for two vehicles to pass each other (if that ever happens).

[M11(A14(M))]

For D2M would the M45 be one of the quietest?

[SouthWest Philip]

For D2M would the M45 be one of the quietest?

Possibly already mentioned but the M48 through jnc 2 or the northern stub on the M271 might also be contenders?

[ais523]

Something of a vacuous entry, but for completeness: the A38(M) is both the busiest and the quietest S7 (unless there's another S7 somewhere, but I doubt it).

Along similar lines, the M96 is probably the quietest D6+3M (and usually very quiet). (The M6 Toll is briefly at D6+3M width for a short distance when narrowing/widening for the toll plazas, and busier than the M96, but I don't think that counts.)

In general, around junctions may be a good place to look for weird road standards, e.g. the T5+2+3 on the A45 at its junction with the B4101. This may make it quite hard to establish the definitively busiest or quietest road of a given standard.

[danfw194]

The Anglesey section of the A55 (HQD2) is always quiet, and lovely to drive because of it. From memory I think the AADT here is a fraction of what it is much further east on the A55.

[dprior7770]

Bumping another old thread, but this is something I do think about from time to time.

On the Shetland mainland, there is a stretch of adopted S1 north of Stromfirth, leading to the ruined croft at Houllscarpa. Just north is the even more derelict croft of Touby.

There are some houses and farms on the southern stretch of this road, but once you pass the turnoff for Kurkigrath farm, you read a cattle grid, and then there is nothing. An adopted road, in dreadful condition, leads north for another half mile, ending at a turning area.

The Street View car met a sheep farmer's van along that stretch, and the turning area played host to a nearly-completed wooden bench which someone had been working on there!

Other than the farmer, what traffic would that stretch of highway ever see?

While musing about very quiet Scottish island S1 roads, I think of the adopted road on Muck, leading from the pier at Port Mòr, up to the farm at Gallanach. Again, the road is in a terrible condition - grass up the middle and almost taking over the asphalt in places. The public are not allowed to take cars to Muck, so I'm not sure how many vehicles this road ever sees. I do wonder why the roads on Muck and Eigg are adopted, whereas the roads on Rùm and Canna are not adopted?

(Possibly because Rùm is owned by Scottish National Heritage and Canna by the National Trust for Scotland?)

[Micro The Maniac]

Finding the quietest D3 may be difficult since its not often a road gets to an D3 then bypassed on a completely different alignment, nor for a dual carriageway to be built with three lanes instead of two for no good reason.

The A316 before it becomes the M3 might be in with a shout...

And the M3 J1-J2 must be high up the quiet D3M list?

[WHBM]

Finding the quietest D3 may be difficult since its not often a road gets to an D3 then bypassed on a completely different alignment, nor for a dual carriageway to be built with three lanes instead of two for no good reason.

Quietest D3 ?

A1261 West India Dock Road, London E14

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5107764 ... 384!8i8192

... and maybe the only D3 to have been knocked down to 20mph.

[Chris5156]

Finding the quietest D3 may be difficult since its not often a road gets to an D3 then bypassed on a completely different alignment, nor for a dual carriageway to be built with three lanes instead of two for no good reason.

Quietest D3 ?

A1261 West India Dock Road, London E14

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5107764 ... 384!8i8192

... and maybe the only D3 to have been knocked down to 20mph.

A1261 West India Dock Road ~25k AADT
A316 Country Way ~75k AADT
M3 J1-2 ~60k AADT

For quietest D3M I would suggest M180 J4-5, which carries ~35k AADT. Numbers on the A74(M) around Beattock hover around the same mark though, so that may be the winner.