A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

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Chris5156
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by Chris5156 »

wrinkly wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 01:20However there is some conflicting evidence, from an opening booklet for one of the sections, that it would only become M6 as far as J12 (or it may have been J13). This was mentioned in the forums some years ago but I've never yet got round to adding it to the wiki page.
The phrasing of the notices in the Edinburgh Gazette, and the speech from 1991, very firmly suggest otherwise, so it's strange that this might have been published somewhere official.

I wonder if the above was the result of a confusion of ideas about the plan - the Gazette notices mention "the upgraded sections of the Glasgow-Carlisle Trunk Road (A74) lying to the south of where the existing M74 ends at Nether Abington". If you weren't paying attention you might think that was where the renumbering was proposed, rather than just an explanation of where the temporary number A74(M) was proposed.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by wrinkly »

I've found where we discussed the opening booklet. It was put up by cb a1 as long ago as Jan 2013. See link in his post, the third on page 4 (and last) of this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25366&start=60

It's disgusting that I've never written it up for the wiki page. And those docs should surely be here on SABRE, not just Google Docs, if copyright law allows.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by c2R »

I travelled to Cairnryan on Saturday, and the A75 seemed more dangerous than ever. I don't know whether it was all the staycation traffic, but the sheer number of caravans and campervans was definitely higher than usual. Added to the shoppers heading for Dumfries, there was also a significant amount of agricultural traffic, and the usual HGVs trying to get to the boat on their limiters at 56, while at the same time local delivery HGVs sticking to the Scottish 40mph limit, motorbikers out for a jolly, and long distance pedal cyclists as well.

Further improvements to this route really are justified on safety grounds - the AADT numbers alone don't tell the story of the traffic patterns being heavily influenced by the boat times.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by Gav »

https://goo.gl/maps/itTn2LgNrswXNTuY8

weigh station on the A74(M)

complete with M6 sign...
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by wrinkly »

Gav wrote: Sun May 30, 2021 16:26 https://goo.gl/maps/itTn2LgNrswXNTuY8

weigh station on the A74(M)

complete with M6 sign...
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by Glenn A »

Nice idea, but not really feasible as the A75 is relatively quiet for large parts of the day, but the upgrade in the late eighties and early nineties should have had the road dualled from Gretna to Dumfries.
Also with regard to roads in southern Scotland, there was talk of upgrading the A7 in the early nineties and a couple of reports on Border Lookaround suggested by passes of Hawick, Selkirk and Galashiels and dualling of part of the road. However, rather like some spurious headline they had in 1986 of building a tunnel to replace Castle Way in Carlisle and grassing over the road, this was never mentioned again.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by Lockwood »

I thought I saw lane markings for this motorway before, like the A123, CITY C'TRE, ALL VEHS, etc ones?

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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by IAN »

In the autumn statement the chancellor referred to moving forward a joint UK/Scottish study into options for A75(can’t remember exact words he used) Does anyone know what this means? Presumably we’re not talking about an A75(M) or even significant sections of D2!
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

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IAN wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 14:21In the autumn statement the chancellor referred to moving forward a joint UK/Scottish study into options for A75(can’t remember exact words he used) Does anyone know what this means? Presumably we’re not talking about an A75(M) or even significant sections of D2!
I don't think anyone will know what it means until the study happens. The intention is presumably for the Westminster Government to contribute funds to Edinburgh to help pay for upgrades to the A75, on the basis that those upgrades will principally benefit England, and Scotland is unlikely to prioritise them otherwise. The extent of the upgrades will depend on what the desired result is (how much traffic is expected, what sort of journey time or level of reliability is required) and how much money there is to spend. I would expect the outcome will be to provide more overtaking opportunities, either by bursts of dualling or by widening to WS2+1.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by RJDG14 »

There wouldn't be much reason to upgrade the road to motorway standard (especially now that the bridge proposals have been scrapped) considering that there were several offline upgrades made just a few years ago (parts of the road between Gretna and Dumfries, and the Dunragit bypass). I think some of the sections west of Dumfries could do with being upgraded to a better WS2 standard similar to most of the stretches built or upgraded in the past 30 years, though. The Springholm and Crocketford stretch should be the highest priority section for upgrading, probably in the form of an offline project that bypasses both villages. There may be some justification for dualling the section from Gretna to just past Dumfries, but even then probably not to a higher standard than what the better stretches of the former A74 were. To the best of my knowledge, these are the sections that are already dualled:

*1 mile at Gretna, not counting the motorway sliproads
*0.8 miles slightly east of Dumfries
*1.3 miles slightly west of Dumfries
*0.2 miles at the junction east of Gatehouse of Fleet
*1.25 miles at Barlae

This comes to only about 4.5 miles of the total 96 mile length. Does the 0.2 mile "dualled" junction east of Gatehouse of Fleet legally count as a dual carriageway in that you could theoretically do 70mph at it (the stretch is at the NSL)? It has two lanes eastbound but only one westbound, and a blue arrow sign in the central reservation at the start but without the wording "dual carriageway". This is what it looks like: https://www.google.com/maps/@54.8625408 ... 384!8i8192

I think that had this bridge been built, there may be challenges building it due to the fact that I believe there is quite a lot of nuclear waste stored under the north channel area of the Irish Sea.
Last edited by RJDG14 on Thu Nov 17, 2022 15:20, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by jackal »

The statement referred to a feasibility study. This idea has been kicking round for at least a year and as I understand it the Scottish govt were opposed. It's unlikely to go anywhere.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by Bryn666 »

Is this not just all tied up with the government's desperate desire to screw over the Northern Ireland Protocol?
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by rileyrob »

I know its not necessarily a fair assessment, but having spent a week near Stranraer in October, we found that the A77 was much, much busier than the A77, and the bends south of Ballantrae were a slow crawl every time. On two of the three occasions that we were headed north past Cairnryan, the ferries were loading, so it seemed unlikely we were getting caught in ferry traffic, or indeed that it was traffic headed for the ferries.

In comparison, the A75 to the west of Gatehouse was a pleasant cruise with minimal traffic, plenty of overtaking opportunities (with or without the S2+1) and only the one section (between Gatehouse and Creetown) where traffic seemed to consistently sit below 55. We only got as far as Castle Douglas the once, but even that seemed pretty quiet.

On this (probably skewed) view of the two routes, I would say that the A77 is more in need of investment than the A75 west of Castle Douglas. I can believe, however, that the road between Dumfries and the 'M74' does need some improvements.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by clc »

I’ve always found the A75 generally quite enjoyable and easy to drive. The A77 on the other hand has too much variation in quality. Sorting out those bends south of Ballantrae should be Transport Scotland’s top priority in the south west of the country.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

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Chris5156 wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 14:44
IAN wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 14:21In the autumn statement the chancellor referred to moving forward a joint UK/Scottish study into options for A75(can’t remember exact words he used) Does anyone know what this means? Presumably we’re not talking about an A75(M) or even significant sections of D2!
I don't think anyone will know what it means until the study happens. The intention is presumably for the Westminster Government to contribute funds to Edinburgh to help pay for upgrades to the A75, on the basis that those upgrades will principally benefit England, and Scotland is unlikely to prioritise them otherwise. The extent of the upgrades will depend on what the desired result is (how much traffic is expected, what sort of journey time or level of reliability is required) and how much money there is to spend. I would expect the outcome will be to provide more overtaking opportunities, either by bursts of dualling or by widening to WS2+1.
I think this hits the nail on the head, it comes to jurisdictional funding. If Belfast and London want it, and Edinburgh does not it won't be done. If London and or Belfast is willing to pony up the folding, then Edinburgh may be more receptive, especially when the maintenance costs will have to come from the Scottish budget in the long term.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by wrinkly »

What the Chancellor said was
We will also drive growth across the UK by working with the Scottish Government on the feasibility study for the A75, supporting the Advanced Technology Research Centre in Wales, and funding a trade and investment event in Northern Ireland next year.
The wording in the document on the Treasury website is
5.67 Options to improve the A75 - The government is reconfirming its commitment to
work with the SG on options to improve the A75, in line with the findings from the Union
Connectivity Review. The government has offered development funding to support this, subject
to a business case from SG.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

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wrinkly wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 22:18 What the Chancellor said was
We will also drive growth across the UK by working with the Scottish Government on the feasibility study for the A75, supporting the Advanced Technology Research Centre in Wales, and funding a trade and investment event in Northern Ireland next year.
The wording in the document on the Treasury website is
5.67 Options to improve the A75 - The government is reconfirming its commitment to
work with the SG on options to improve the A75, in line with the findings from the Union
Connectivity Review. The government has offered development funding to support this, subject
to a business case from SG.
That really confirms it, Edinburgh has said 'you want it, you pay for a large part of it. Oh, and we still have the veto'
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by Glenn A »

I would imagine improvements would be by passes of the last two settlements not by passed, straightening out the bends on unimproved sections and improving junctions.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by Osthagen »

RJDG14 wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2021 13:57 What I understand the least would be why the Scottish stretch of the Coventry - Glasgow route (all 3 roads combined) has 2 numbers - it's the M74 from Glasgow to Abington and the A74(M) from Abington to Gretna, yet the two route number variants share the same junction numbering scheme. The A74(M) is also an anomaly under the Scottish numbering system, whereby a motorway will generally supersede an A road, with the A road being downgraded to a B road and the motorway taking on the A road's number in the form of M(number).
Junction numbers are interesting on the 74. There's no doubt that plans existed for it to become part of the M6 once the motorway from Glasgow to Carlisle was continuous. Signs containing the designation 'M6' patched over by 'A74(M)' appear all along the route but even on the disguised M6 signs, the junction numbers (which follow the M74 system) do not appear to have been patched on. Take this sign on the A701 approaching A74(M) J15, the 'A74(M)' patch for the SB slip has come off revealing 'The SOUTH, Carlisle, M6', but the JNo appears to have never been patched, always appearing as 'J15'.
Side note: The part of the sign pointing northbound appears to simply say 'A74(M)' without any patch at all.

The lack of M6-system junction numbers on A74(M) signage may have been an attempt by some with more nationalist sympathies in the Scottish Office to sabotage the M6 decision, which is highly likely to have been controversial (yet 'English' road numbers like A1 and A68 having lengthy sections through the Borders aren't?).

A possible exception to all of this is, this flag sign pointing to the NB slip at J16. It appears to have the junction number patched on. It may be covering an M6-system junction number (if so, then presumably J52), but I have a feeling that parts of the A74(M) may have had no junction numbers when they first opened (IIRC, a lot of Ax(M) roads didn't); the patch therefore could well represent the later addition of a JNo.

As for the numbering of A74(M), most A-road m'way upgrades are usually given Mx designations with the number of whatever A-road they take the place of. Nontheless, Ax(M) roads do exist in Scotland, normally as short bypass or spur sections, and seeing as the A74(M) consisted mostly of disjointed bypasses separated from each other and from the M74 by lengthy sections of vanilla A74, this number was probably seen as suitable at the time.
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Re: A75 "Motorway" Upgrade

Post by orudge »

Osthagen wrote: Tue Apr 25, 2023 12:39 A possible exception to all of this is, this flag sign pointing to the NB slip at J16. It appears to have the junction number patched on. It may be covering an M6-system junction number (if so, then presumably J52), but I have a feeling that parts of the A74(M) may have had no junction numbers when they first opened (IIRC, a lot of Ax(M) roads didn't); the patch therefore could well represent the later addition of a JNo.
This J15 flag sign also has a patch covering both the junction number and the road number. It would be interesting to know what's under it!
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