A13/A1261

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qwertyK
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A13/A1261

Post by qwertyK »

Why wasn't the A13 re-routed on the new A1261 alignment through the East India Tunnel, past Canary Wharf, and/or through the Limehouse Link tunnel? It would make more sense, instead of splitting off until a much lower standard D2 road that is majority at grade.
doebag
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Re: A13/A1261

Post by doebag »

WHBM will confirm or not but the Limehouse Link is not a public road I think.
WHBM
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Re: A13/A1261

Post by WHBM »

It is a public road, managed nowadays by TfL. Operationally it was merged with the DBFO contractor for the section of the A13 outwards from the Limehouse Link to Essex, all under one now from an office on top of the Link tunnel's eastern portal (One may notice their TM and Incident Support contractor has recently changed again).

But the reason the Link is not the A13 (nor signed for Central London) is the substantial contribution from Canary Wharf Management's predecessors, Olympia & York Ltd, who drove the rebuilding of the Docklands area to a major high rise centre. It's a complex legal agreement, and O&Y did not pay directly for the road (as they did previously for elements of the DLR railway), but having done so elsewhere, and as part of a wider package, if the road were reclassified away from being PRIMARILY (the contract term) a route to the Docklands, then these contributions are repayable. Several hundred million. So it's not done as A13. The vast majority of the road's users are regulars and know the way anyway. And of course satnavs can do what they want. It's complicated further by O&Y having gone bankrupt and the ashes being taken over by Canary Wharf Management Ltd, cleverly including the repayment liability :) . These substantial external contributions, by the way, are felt one of the principal reasons why O&Y went bankrupt in the first place. Think of them as a super-deluxe Section 106 agreement. And a lot of public benefit thus came out of the pockets of the Canadian O&Y investors, who lost it all. Nobody wants all that raked up in court again.

You can still see bits of the Canary Wharf primacy in the design. Most obvious are the branch tunnels from midway through the mainline towards Canary Wharf from Central London. In the first design iteration that was as far as the tunnel was going to go; half the mainline tunnel is thus nothing more than an underpass of West Ferry Road. A further late change gives the chicane between the east end of the tunnel mainline and the surface road past Canary Wharf, Aspen Way, which don't quite align. The signals giving access into Aspen Way from Canary Wharf, the only signals between The Highway at Wapping and the M25, were a further O&Y agreement. In passing, I always feel Extremely Grand turning right here out of Canary Wharf onto the road eastbound, the detector having given the call for me the moment I get to the stop line, with six lanes, no less, of through traffic both ways having all been stopped for me, and me the only (as normally) car exiting.

There's a 1995 National Audit Office study into the financing of the road, which is regarded locally as having missed a number of the important contract bits, which are felt an embarrasing commitment to the government :) https://www.nao.org.uk/pubsarchive/wp-c ... e-Link.pdf
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Sunil_of_Yoxley
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Re: A13/A1261

Post by Sunil_of_Yoxley »

WHBM wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 13:03 The signals giving access into Aspen Way from Canary Wharf, the only signals between The Highway at Wapping and the M25, were a further O&Y agreement.
Actually, there's the Renwick Road lights westbound only. But ignoring that, eastbound there are no signals between Canary Wharf and the Sadlers Farm interchange.
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Re: A13/A1261

Post by WHBM »

Sunil_of_Yoxley wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 17:38 Actually, there's the Renwick Road lights westbound only. But ignoring that, eastbound there are no signals between Canary Wharf and the Sadlers Farm interchange.
Which is why I worded it this way round :) . Actually, if you take the mainline at Sadlers Farm round onto the A130 there are no signals and HQDC until you get to Chelmsford. Likewise if you take the slip round onto the A406 and then M11, there are likewise no further signals - the answer to how many signals or Give Ways are there between Canary Wharf and Glasgow Airport is - none.

Hence why it's such a useful inner city place to live.
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Sunil_of_Yoxley
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Re: A13/A1261

Post by Sunil_of_Yoxley »

WHBM wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 19:05
Sunil_of_Yoxley wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 17:38 Actually, there's the Renwick Road lights westbound only. But ignoring that, eastbound there are no signals between Canary Wharf and the Sadlers Farm interchange.
Which is why I worded it this way round :) . Actually, if you take the mainline at Sadlers Farm round onto the A130 there are no signals and HQDC until you get to Chelmsford. Likewise if you take the slip round onto the A406 and then M11, there are likewise no further signals - the answer to how many signals or Give Ways are there between Canary Wharf and Glasgow Airport is - none.

Hence why it's such a useful inner city place to live.
Yebbut coming southbound, you have to negotiate the big Beckton roundabout! (or Redbridge if you want to use the A406 Link Road M11 Link Road!)

My avatar refers to the mainline from Woodford to Tradeston: there are no stop lines or right-hand merges for nearly 430 miles! (I'm NOT a fan of TOTSOs :roll: )
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Re: A13/A1261

Post by WHBM »

Sunil_of_Yoxley wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 19:30 Yebbut coming southbound, you have to negotiate the big Beckton roundabout! (or Redbridge if you want to use the A406 Link Road M11 Link Road!)
Yes, whichever way you come back home there's a delay potential. Redbridge is the worst, but you can judge the queue and just drive past on the A406. Sometimes when I've tried it I reckon I would be home before getting onto the Redbridge roundabout. Furthermore there's a second queueing point going that way at Poplar to get off onto the old A13, and if the Blackwall Tunnel has badly backed up to Bow that's a third one.
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