Motorway Widening

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Bryn666
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Motorway Widening

Post by Bryn666 »

Who wants to help me discover when various motorway widening schemes were completed so we can have a chronological list for the Wiki?

I am not including smart motorway schemes in this list. This is for 'traditional' widening either by full rebuild or discontinuous hard shoulders/narrow lanes.

So far I think I have the following... please can people hunt references in Hansard etc to confirm?

M1 - J5-7 - 1977
M1 - J6A-8nb - 1986?
M1 - J23A-J24 - 1990
M1 - J9-10nb - 1993?
M1 - J42-43 - 1999
M1 - J6A-10 - 2007
M1 - J31-32 - 2007?
M2 - J1-4 - 2002
M4 - J5-7 - 1973?
M4 - J24-28 - 1980?
M4 - J4-J5 - 1984?
M4 - J42-43 (upgrade from A48) - 1996
M4 - J21-23 (new alignment) - 1996
M4 - J29-32 - 2008?
M5 - J3-4 - 1975?
M5 - J4-6 - 1989?
M5 - J6-8 - 1993?
M5 - J18-J19 - 1999?
M6 - J29-32 - 1963
M6 - J33-35 - 1965?
M6 - J30-32 - 1995
M6 - J20-21A - 1996
M8 - need details of the various lining changes in Glasgow... ???
M9 - J1-2 - 1995
M20 - J4-8 - 1993
M25 - J8-J13 - 1994?
M25 - J16-23 - 2010?
M25 - J27-30 - 2010?
M27 - J3-4 - 2006?
M40 - J4-5- 1988?
M40 - J1A-3 - 1998
M42 - J7-9 - 2003
M56 - J3-6 - 1994
M58 - J3-6 (upgrade from A506) - 1977
M60 - J7-12 (when M63) - 1987
M60 - J17-18 (when M62) - 1991
M60 - J12-17 (when M62) - 1994
M62 - J28-29 - 1999
M62 - J8-9 - 2002

Have I missed any and can the NI gaps be filled?
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Glom
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by Glom »

How far back are you going? What about M25 J13-16?
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c2R
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by c2R »

I think I added all the links from legislation.gov.uk that exist to individual wiki links pages, but there's a whole lot of non-digitised legislation that isn't available, so yes, probably hansard is the place to look. The problem is that there's hours of history to be researched on there, and it's so easy to get sidetracked!
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by SouthWest Philip »

M4 J7 - 8/9, 1970's?
M25 J6 - 8, 1990's?
M25 J2 - 3, 2007-ish?
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wrinkly
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by wrinkly »

I used to know a lot of these but have forgotten most of them. You should have asked five years ago. It's now a much harder problem than the problem of improving the quality of existing lists of original opening dates of motorways.

I should be able to get dates for a few widenings from my collection of 1980s roads white papers.

Two that strike me as missing from your list are

M62 J21-22 eastbound only 1980s

M62 J25-24 westbound only 1980s

There are some more on the M60.

Two that have been narrowed are the northbound M61 from M65 to M6, and northbound A1(M) from the A194(M) turnoff to the merge of the following incoming slip road.
Last edited by wrinkly on Wed Aug 17, 2016 02:57, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by wrinkly »

c2R wrote:I think I added all the links from legislation.gov.uk that exist to individual wiki links pages, but there's a whole lot of non-digitised legislation that isn't available, so yes, probably hansard is the place to look. The problem is that there's hours of history to be researched on there, and it's so easy to get sidetracked!
And a lot of widenings have no statutory instruments unless you count temporary speed limits/closures.
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c2R
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by c2R »

wrinkly wrote:
c2R wrote:I think I added all the links from legislation.gov.uk that exist to individual wiki links pages, but there's a whole lot of non-digitised legislation that isn't available, so yes, probably hansard is the place to look. The problem is that there's hours of history to be researched on there, and it's so easy to get sidetracked!
And a lot of widenings have no statutory instruments unless you count temporary speed limits/closures.
True, smart motorway schemes have SIs owing to the hard shoulder use and the variable speed limits of course. I've found that some other schemes are on there where sliproads are changed substantially, with minor lengths being de-specialised or specialised - of course, no plans are digitised, which makes it fairly difficult to figure out in some cases what is going on!
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by measterbrook »

Bryn666 wrote:Who wants to help me discover when various motorway widening schemes were completed so we can have a chronological list for the Wiki?

I am not including smart motorway schemes in this list. This is for 'traditional' widening either by full rebuild or discontinuous hard shoulders/narrow lanes.

So far I think I have the following... please can people hunt references in Hansard etc to confirm?

M1 - J5-7 - 1977
M1 - J6A-8nb - 1986?
M1 - J23A-J24 - 1990
M1 - J9-10nb - 1993?
M1 - J42-43 - 1999
M1 - J6A-10 - 2007
M1 - J31-32 - 2007?
M2 - J1-4 - 2002
M4 - J5-7 - 1973?
M4 - J24-28 - 1980?
M4 - J4-J5 - 1984?
M4 - J42-43 (upgrade from A48) - 1996
M4 - J21-23 (new alignment) - 1996
M4 - J29-32 - 2008?
M5 - J3-4 - 1975?
M5 - J4-6 - 1989?
M5 - J6-8 - 1993?
M5 - J18-J19 - 1999?
M6 - J29-32 - 1963
M6 - J33-35 - 1965?
M6 - J30-32 - 1995
M6 - J20-21A - 1996
M8 - need details of the various lining changes in Glasgow... ???
M9 - J1-2 - 1995
M20 - J4-8 - 1993
M25 - J8-J13 - 1994?
M25 - J16-23 - 2010?
M25 - J27-30 - 2010?
M27 - J3-4 - 2006?
M40 - J4-5- 1988?
M40 - J1A-3 - 1998
M42 - J7-9 - 2003
M56 - J3-6 - 1994
M58 - J3-6 (upgrade from A506) - 1977
M60 - J7-12 (when M63) - 1987
M60 - J17-18 (when M62) - 1991
M60 - J12-17 (when M62) - 1994
M62 - J28-29 - 1999
M62 - J8-9 - 2002

Have I missed any and can the NI gaps be filled?
M27 J11-12 (part) not really a widening but a "crawler" lane added on the uphill stretches. About 2006.
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rileyrob
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by rileyrob »

Crawler lanes on the M5 at Clevedon (NB), Portishead (SB) and Cribbs were all added between 2005 and 2010 I think, although I cannot be sure. Pretty sure they worked south to north, so Clevedon first and Cribbs last.

The Avonmouth Bridge section took several years all in and started a little earlier than 1999, perhaps as early as 96 when the M49 / Second Severn Crossing was opened. It may well have been 99 before it was completely opened though.

I remember the M5 being widened when I was a kid travelling up to see family in the Solihull area. Prior to the opening of the M42 in 1987, we used to go via Evesham, but I think that as soon as the M42 opened (give or take) the works on the M5 were in place. An opening date of 1989 is quite plausible though, it seemed to take years.
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by M4Simon »

M1 J9-10 northbound commenced on site in March 1993. The 4th lane opened to traffic immediately before Christmas (either 23rd or 24th December), though the scheme wasn't fully completed until around March 1994.

M4 J4-4B was under construction in 1985, but I think J4B-5 was built by the same contractor (Amey Construction) and at about the same time as M1 J9-10 N'bound making that around 1993.

M5 J4A to 6 (possibly 7) was widened sometime between 1987 and 1990 as others have stated.

M4 J24-28 was about 1979 to 1980.

Cheers,

Simon
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by orudge »

M9 J1-J1A D4M - 2013
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wrinkly
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by wrinkly »

Bryn666 wrote: M6 - J29-32 - 1963
M6 - J33-35 - 1965?
I think these are too early. At the time of the opening of J32-33 in January 1965, work had not yet started on the Preston bypass third lane (29-32). The Lancaster third lane (33-35) came after that - 1967 has been mentioned for it on here.
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by WHBM »

M4 - J4-J5 - 1984?
Later than that, I would say around 1989. I remember driving through the works one evening then.

M25 through J25 (A10 Enfield) was widened from 2 lanes to 3, including through the tunnel with very extended exit lanes (since merged into the ALR), around maybe 2008.

M25 eastbound crawler lane up from J26 towards Epping Forest went in around 2000. Recently it has been absorbed into the J23-27 ALR, so there is now no extra provision up the hill (but there is a hard shoulder !)

M11 northbound from junction 4, the very start where the slip roads from the A406 eastbound and westbound merge, previously 2 lanes for the first mile, one from each direction, was widened out to 3 lanes around - oh - 2005.
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by M4Simon »

WHBM wrote:
M4 - J4-J5 - 1984?
Later than that, I would say around 1989. I remember driving through the works one evening then.
See my post above - done in two sections - Heathrow to M25 in about 1984/5 (I remember going on a coach trip to Germany in 1985 and the work was under construction then) and M25 to J5 in around 1993.

UK Motorway Archive lists M4 J5-7 as being widened in 1971:
UK Motorway Archive wrote:Widening to dual three-lane was completed in October 1971 by Amey Asphalt with the Eastern Road Construction Unit (Bucks Sub-Unit) as the Engineer.
My guess is that this went as far west as J8, in order to tie up with the opening of J8/9 to J18 in late 1971.
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by M4Simon »

M4 Newport Bypass: UK Motorway archive lists the following:

Newport by-pass widening (J24 to J28)
Construction started: May 1978 & April 1980
Construction completed: April 1980 & Autumn 1981.

This ties up with my recollection that it was done in two stages: west of the tunnels, and east of the tunnels. I don't recall which part was completed first.

Simon
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by c2R »

This site has some M25 widening dates - although I do recall that through J25 one carriageway of the M25 was widened to three lanes a year or so before the opposite direction was widened...

http://www.engineering-timelines.com/sc ... sp?id=1451
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by roadtester »

Just looking at Bryn's list the following question occurs to me - have any AX(M)s ever been widened?

I can't think of an example immediately myself (it's late!) - any ideas anyone?
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by c2R »

roadtester wrote:Just looking at Bryn's list the following question occurs to me - have any AX(M)s ever been widened?

I can't think of an example immediately myself (it's late!) - any ideas anyone?
I'm sure climbing lanes were added to the A1(M) from Barton to Newcastle, which is a form of widening...
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by roadtester »

c2R wrote:
roadtester wrote:Just looking at Bryn's list the following question occurs to me - have any AX(M)s ever been widened?

I can't think of an example immediately myself (it's late!) - any ideas anyone?
I'm sure climbing lanes were added to the A1(M) from Barton to Newcastle, which is a form of widening...
Junction 6-8 down in Hertfordshire is being widened but only via hard-shoulder running, it appears, so I'm not sure if that counts...

http://www.hertfordshirelep.com/news/a1 ... dened.aspx
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Re: Motorway Widening

Post by wrinkly »

If the A18(M) was originally D2M then it must have been widened when it became M180 - though as it didn't remain an Ax(M) it might not count.
Last edited by wrinkly on Thu Aug 18, 2016 02:41, edited 2 times in total.
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