Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

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tom66
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by tom66 »

trickstat wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 22:17 Doesn't the M62 pass a fairly short distance south of Halifax?
I think it's quite debatable as to whether that counts as a bypass though. Sure, Halifax doesn't have the major Manchester<->Leeds traffic travelling through it but if you want to avoid it going between, well, any of the local towns, you don't have any options.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by A320Driver »

Reigate (pop. 25,000) M25 doesn’t really count as you would have to travel between J9 and J6 to use it as a ‘Reigate bypass’.

Woking (pop 70,000) although it’s hard to see what purpose a bypass would really serve given the town is bordered by A3, M3, M25.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by Bryn666 »

trickstat wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 22:17
tom66 wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 22:05 I'd have to say Halifax is a contender, population 88k in 2011 census.

The roads through the town are an awful mix of partially upgraded dual-carriageway projects like Burdock Way (that goes nowhere) and some more modern bits like Huddersfield Road, but they are still well-built up sections. Perhaps the only good part is the short section of D2 through Orange St. Roundabout but I think it hardly counts as a bypass given it dissipates onto a 30 mph S2 at one end and the S2 A58 on the other end.

It's ironic given Elland, just up the hill, has a better bypass.
Doesn't the M62 pass a fairly short distance south of Halifax?
Burdock Way/Ovenden Road is one of the most heavily engineered relief roads in an urban area, being on extremely high viaducts and having an elevated section on top of the road it replaced - if this isn't a 'relief road' then nothing is. Prior to its completion in 1973, you'd have to fight your way down to Bull Green, through the town centre, and across North Bridge to stay on the A58. The A629 passed through the middle of a factory to get to the town centre.

The geography makes a proper Halifax bypass impossible.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by wrinkly »

Bryn666 wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 23:46
Burdock Way/Ovenden Road is one of the most heavily engineered relief roads in an urban area, being on extremely high viaducts and having an elevated section on top of the road it replaced - if this isn't a 'relief road' then nothing is. Prior to its completion in 1973, you'd have to fight your way down to Bull Green, through the town centre, and across North Bridge to stay on the A58. The A629 passed through the middle of a factory to get to the town centre.
And it includes provision for further grade separation! I'm quite staggered that anyone should think of giving Halifax as an answer in a thread that asks for a town without a bypass or relief road. It's like naming Blackpool as a town without a tower.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by Chris5156 »

There's a lot of places being suggested in this thread that very obviously do have some sort of bypass or relief road. The question is whether they have one, not whether you think it's any good!
tom66 wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 22:05 I'd have to say Halifax is a contender, population 88k in 2011 census.

The roads through the town are an awful mix of partially upgraded dual-carriageway projects like Burdock Way (that goes nowhere) and some more modern bits like Huddersfield Road, but they are still well-built up sections. Perhaps the only good part is the short section of D2 through Orange St. Roundabout but I think it hardly counts as a bypass given it dissipates onto a 30 mph S2 at one end and the S2 A58 on the other end.

It's ironic given Elland, just up the hill, has a better bypass.
But Burdock way is a purpose built relief road, so it's disqualified. Doesn't matter whether it feeds into a 30mph road at the end. It's still a bypass.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by the cheesecake man »

jervi wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2021 15:30 In Worthing (which for simplicity I'll define as the current day borough boundary), the A27 is still on its original alignment except a small part in the East where it bypasses the village of Sompting, therefore the A27 has not bypassed Worthing, but historically the A27 never went through Worthing so it isn't a purpose built bypass, it is just where the road is.
Nor has it received much online widening or attention either, direct access to properties and side roads are very common on the A27 through Worthing. So its not a through-pass like the A3 in Guildford, or like the A22 in East Grinstead.

It looks like Worthing is the winner! It does seem odd that this bit was left out of the improvements to the rest of the A27.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by Stevie D »

the cheesecake man wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 13:16It looks like Worthing is the winner! It does seem odd that this bit was left out of the improvements to the rest of the A27.
When you look at the natural and human geography, it isn't odd at all.

A by-pass to the north would have to (a) go through the South Downs, which would be very expensive and very destructive, (2) go north of the South Downs, pushing it a long way out from Worthing, making it a very long road, turning due north at Arundel up to Amberley then along to Storrington, Steyning and then coming down to join the A27 at right-angles again at Shoreham, or (iii) demolish a lot of expensive housing through High Salvington and Findon Valley.

A by-pass to the south is even less likely!

I'm amazed that they managed to by-pass Brighton, but Worthing does look even more challenging but also less necessary as the A27 has never run through the town centre, unlike in Brighton.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by jervi »

Stevie D wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 13:27 I'm amazed that they managed to by-pass Brighton, but Worthing does look even more challenging but also less necessary as the A27 has never run through the town centre, unlike in Brighton.
Most of the proposals for the A27 to become sufficient at Worthing (and to extent Lancing) are either online widening with limited access & Grade separation, or a tunnel, or a combination of offline bypass with tunnelled sections. However the cost of a offline bypass with tunnelled sections was about the same as a completely tunnelled route.
Whatever is eventually chosen is going to be very expensive regardless, I'd guess at about £1.5b to £2b for the 9km of D2.

Plus with the South Downs National Park Authority being strictly anti-road & anti-safety, any surface bypass to the North would be extremely unlikely
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by jabbaboy »

Surely Worthing isn't allowed because of North Street in the centre as short as it is. It's definitely a relief road to take traffic away from the town centre imo.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by jackal »

jabbaboy wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 15:23 Surely Worthing isn't allowed because of North Street in the centre as short as it is. It's definitely a relief road to take traffic away from the town centre imo.
The first serious challenge to Worthing!

But North Street clearly seems to be there on the 1938 one inch (via SABRE maps). Nor was it a relief road as the main route (A259) was down the currently pedestrianised Warwick Street and Chapel Road.

North Street was subsequently widened and became the main route. But widening an existing, probably very old road does not make it a bypass or relief road.

I assume OP is referring to purpose built bypasses or relief roads. If we allowed any road that carried traffic past or through a place to be called a bypass or relief road then there will be no settlements of any size without one.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by Chris Bertram »

Stourport-on-Severn won't be the largest - it's population is about 20,000, but relies on a convoluted one-way system to keep traffic moving through the town, there being no by-pass or relief road. Any such road would have to bridge the Severn, making it expensive anyway.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by tom66 »

Chris5156 wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:53 But Burdock way is a purpose built relief road, so it's disqualified. Doesn't matter whether it feeds into a 30mph road at the end. It's still a bypass.
Personally, I don't consider a bypass functional if it's incomplete. Burdock Way is an incomplete project, it doesn't 'bypass' anything substantial but a tiny section of the town centre. It's evident where plans were made to extend it but they were abandoned. And while it provides some relief to the traffic of Halifax, it also creates major pinch points.

But, this is a personal opinion, is there a legal or engineering definition of a bypass that we are working to?
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by owen b »

tom66 wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 20:23
Chris5156 wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:53 But Burdock way is a purpose built relief road, so it's disqualified. Doesn't matter whether it feeds into a 30mph road at the end. It's still a bypass.
Personally, I don't consider a bypass functional if it's incomplete. Burdock Way is an incomplete project, it doesn't 'bypass' anything substantial but a tiny section of the town centre. It's evident where plans were made to extend it but they were abandoned. And while it provides some relief to the traffic of Halifax, it also creates major pinch points.

But, this is a personal opinion, is there a legal or engineering definition of a bypass that we are working to?
Presumably we're working to the definition provided in the opening post, which is strict and presumably rules out Halifax :
Peter350 wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 23:22 It’s a big question that doesn’t seem to have been asked on here before, but what is the largest settlement without any form of bypass, throughpass or relief road? By that, I mean no purpose-built or physically upgraded road for the purpose of taking traffic away from an existing road anywhere within the settlement.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

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tom66 wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 20:23
Chris5156 wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:53But Burdock way is a purpose built relief road, so it's disqualified. Doesn't matter whether it feeds into a 30mph road at the end. It's still a bypass.
Personally, I don't consider a bypass functional if it's incomplete. Burdock Way is an incomplete project, it doesn't 'bypass' anything substantial but a tiny section of the town centre. It's evident where plans were made to extend it but they were abandoned. And while it provides some relief to the traffic of Halifax, it also creates major pinch points.

But, this is a personal opinion, is there a legal or engineering definition of a bypass that we are working to?
I find this quite odd because I don't see how it's a matter of personal opinion. Burdock Way is a bypass, because it serves to take traffic that would have gone through the town centre and carries it instead along a purpose built road elsewhere. The fact that it doesn't go as far as you'd like, or isn't as good as you'd like, is immaterial.

There's also the consideration that the unbuilt parts of Burdock Way would not have extended the dual carriageway east or west along the A58. There are unbuilt sections of Burdock Way, which would have added an upper level to the viaduct and a branch running south to the A629 around King Cross, but there were no plans to extend it east or west. (Improvements to the A58 east and west of Halifax town centre might have been considered, but they would have been separate projects.) In terms of functioning as an east-west bypass of the town centre, it is complete.

To turn the question around, if it's not a purpose built bypass or relief road, what is it?
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by Glenn A »

Rob590 wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 21:57 (Not the biggest but a relatively large one:) Winderemere and Bowness are between them about 12,000 and the A roads through town follow their original routes.
No way anywhere on the A591 south of Keswick could be realistically by passed. I'm driving from Whitehaven to Kendal tomorrow to see my sister and I'm doing it the A66/M6/A6 route as this time of year, the A591 is torture.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by owen b »

Glenn A wrote: Wed Jun 09, 2021 20:20
Rob590 wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 21:57 (Not the biggest but a relatively large one:) Winderemere and Bowness are between them about 12,000 and the A roads through town follow their original routes.
No way anywhere on the A591 south of Keswick could be realistically by passed. I'm driving from Whitehaven to Kendal tomorrow to see my sister and I'm doing it the A66/M6/A6 route as this time of year, the A591 is torture.
Hansard says there was a Cumbria county council consultation on a proposed Ambleside bypass in 1992 : https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hans ... -ambleside and there was a SABRE thread entitled "Ambleside Relief Road" here : viewtopic.php?t=7758
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by fras »

The thing is with the question is how far back does one go ? I say this because even towns which nowadays are jammed with traffic had roads built in the horse age to alleviate congestion.
When I saw this thread, I immediately thought of Hereford. Anybody who has driven in and around Hereford as I had to do to sort out my late brother's funeral and estate would think, "this city needs a bypass ! ". Yet the A49 fits the "throughpass" description, I suppose, and has its own bridge over the Wye almost next to the old bridge, but when was all this built as it seem to have been there for ever !
Funnily enough, Hereford had a railway bypass ! This eventually ended up as just a spur to serve Bulmers, and where the cider company's owner kept his King class locomotive !

Edit
The A49 bridge opened in 1967, so clearly Hereford is off the list ! It's quite hard to find places with no modern (20th/21st Century) bypass or relief roads. I was thinking of Kidderminster, but this has an inner half-ring road. This is, of course, useless for through traffic, and the "bypass" is a signposted series of streets. Again, I've been along this many times !

Final edit
What about Great Malvern, population 29,626 (2020)
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by Glenn A »

Rob590 wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 21:57 (Not the biggest but a relatively large one:) Winderemere and Bowness are between them about 12,000 and the A roads through town follow their original routes.
I was driving from Kendal to Keswick yesterday and the road passes through every settlement like it would have done 50 years ago. By passing all these settlements would be very expensive and politically impossible due to the National Park. However, the ban on lorries above 7.5 tons has made some improvement to communities like Ambleside.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by Chris Bertram »

Glenn A wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 17:29
Rob590 wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 21:57 (Not the biggest but a relatively large one:) Winderemere and Bowness are between them about 12,000 and the A roads through town follow their original routes.
I was driving from Kendal to Keswick yesterday and the road passes through every settlement like it would have done 50 years ago. By passing all these settlements would be very expensive and politically impossible due to the National Park. However, the ban on lorries above 7.5 tons has made some improvement to communities like Ambleside.
They're not banned from reaching Ambleside, are they? IIRC there's a ban from going over Dunmail Raise, therefore ruling it out as a through route to Keswick.
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Re: Largest settlement without any sort of bypass or relief road

Post by Isleworth1961 »

fras wrote: Wed Jun 09, 2021 22:10 Funnily enough, Hereford had a railway bypass ! This eventually ended up as just a spur to serve Bulmers, and where the cider company's owner kept his King class locomotive !
Bulmers didn't own King George V - it is part of the National Collection. Bulmers were just looking after it in a safe location, but they did do a lot of work on it to get it back into running order. However, Bulmers did own the Pullman coaches that were used when KGV went on the main line.
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