A1 Western bypass widening

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mbeatts
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by mbeatts »

Vegetation clearance for 4 weeks before starting.
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A303Chris
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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Development Consent for the widening of the A1 from J65 at Birtley to J67 at Coal House was given approval yesterday by the SoS
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roadtester
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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A303Chris wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 09:24 Development Consent for the widening of the A1 from J65 at Birtley to J67 at Coal House was given approval yesterday by the SoS
Article in the New Civil Engineer here, including a fly-through video (although I don't think the latter is new).

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest ... 0-01-2021/
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c2R
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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A303Chris wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 09:24 Development Consent for the widening of the A1 from J65 at Birtley to J67 at Coal House was given approval yesterday by the SoS
Now on legislation.gov.uk https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/202 ... tents/made
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Roadtripper_Ian
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by Roadtripper_Ian »

Thats a lorra lorra lanes! Will put the stupid narrow lanes hell widening to the north to shame
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Mark Hewitt
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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Signage has been in place for this for a while now. But as yet no lane restrictions etc. The stretch is already 50mph but if the widening around Team Valley is anything to go by it'll be 30mph or 40mph once the works are in place.
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jackal
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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This scheme is a bit Ferrero Rocher. If they'd just made it three lanes throughout there wouldn't have been many complaints. But with four lanes between J65 and J66, and between J66 and J67, the northbound lane drop through J66 is something of an annoyance. Northbound you have three consecutive lane drops, so you can't really have any faith in lane 1.

General arrangement: https://infrastructure.planninginspecto ... 0Plans.pdf
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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jackal wrote:This scheme is a bit Ferrero Rocher. If they'd just made it three lanes throughout there wouldn't have been many complaints. But with four lanes between J65 and J66, and between J66 and J67, the northbound lane drop through J66 is something of an annoyance. Northbound you have three consecutive lane drops, so you can't really have any faith in lane 1.

General arrangement: https://infrastructure.planninginspecto ... 0Plans.pdf
Both ways I end up in Lane 2 unless I'm turning off.
thomas417
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by thomas417 »

With 4 lanes 50mph is going to feel slow neither do I see any justification for it given this stretch will have full lane widths, it should be NSL. Moving the 50 limit to the bodged section north of J67 only would be a sensible move.
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jackal
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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They seem to plan on retaining the existing situation south of the railway bridge - 70mph southbound and 50mph northbound. Accordingly southbound gets hard strip while northbound has curbs aka 'urban cross section'. I suppose the junction spacing makes it hard to introduce 70mph northbound, and perhaps it is surprising that it is retained southbound. One of the many cases where the dreaded 60mph might have been a good option.

https://infrastructure.planninginspecto ... er%202.pdf
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Mark Hewitt
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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jackal wrote:They seem to plan on retaining the existing situation south of the railway bridge - 70mph southbound and 50mph northbound. Accordingly southbound gets hard strip while northbound has curbs aka 'urban cross section'. I suppose the junction spacing makes it hard to introduce 70mph northbound, and perhaps it is surprising that it is retained southbound. One of the many cases where the dreaded 60mph might have been a good option.

https://infrastructure.planninginspecto ... er%202.pdf
50mph northbound is sensible regardless. So many accidents happening due to the weaving caused between the A1231 entrance and A167 exit.
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by Mark Hewitt »

Birtley to Coalhouse is causing severe traffic issues on the A1.

Northbound is ok. The problem is Southbound just after the Angel of the North A167 junction.

Used to be the two lane A1 gained a lane at this junction and this continued onto the A1(M). With the exit for the A1231 leaving further up with about half a mile of weaving space.

Now they have it coned off so there is no lane gain, traffic joining has to join the main 2 lanes of A1 on a short merge, the two lanes then continuing as two lanes to the A1(M).

This is causing large tailbacks sometimes as far as Lobley Hill.
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by Glenn A »

Mark Hewitt wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 18:35
jackal wrote:They seem to plan on retaining the existing situation south of the railway bridge - 70mph southbound and 50mph northbound. Accordingly southbound gets hard strip while northbound has curbs aka 'urban cross section'. I suppose the junction spacing makes it hard to introduce 70mph northbound, and perhaps it is surprising that it is retained southbound. One of the many cases where the dreaded 60mph might have been a good option.

https://infrastructure.planninginspecto ... er%202.pdf
50mph northbound is sensible regardless. So many accidents happening due to the weaving caused between the A1231 entrance and A167 exit.
I agree, the 50 mph limit makes sense on such a busy road and having driven on the western by pass last month, 70 mph is too fast and leads to accidents as there are so many junctions and ones like the A1231/A167 where the traffic has to weave.
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JammyDodge
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by JammyDodge »

Progress is looking good
Final signage is going in on the verges and gantry signage mounts are going up
Some final lane markings and surfacing have also been completed

I didn't realise that it was 4 lanes between the A167-B6324 and B6324-A69

Looks like it might be ready to open fully by the end of August
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Mark Hewitt
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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JammyDodge wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 07:51 Progress is looking good
Final signage is going in on the verges and gantry signage mounts are going up
Some final lane markings and surfacing have also been completed

I didn't realise that it was 4 lanes between the A167-B6324 and B6324-A69

Looks like it might be ready to open fully by the end of August
I was just thinking that it seems like forever since the works started on Eighton Lodge roundabout. Surprised they are due to be finished that fast.

On the subject of speed limits, there's an argument n/b for the 50 limit to start around the exit of Washington Services, as you often come around the corner there to slow / stationary traffic. The problem is the exit to the A194(M) which doesn't make sense for traffic to slow to 50 for that.
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JammyDodge
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

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Mark Hewitt wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 09:00
JammyDodge wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 07:51 Progress is looking good
Final signage is going in on the verges and gantry signage mounts are going up
Some final lane markings and surfacing have also been completed

I didn't realise that it was 4 lanes between the A167-B6324 and B6324-A69

Looks like it might be ready to open fully by the end of August
I was just thinking that it seems like forever since the works started on Eighton Lodge roundabout. Surprised they are due to be finished that fast.

On the subject of speed limits, there's an argument n/b for the 50 limit to start around the exit of Washington Services, as you often come around the corner there to slow / stationary traffic. The problem is the exit to the A194(M) which doesn't make sense for traffic to slow to 50 for that.
The bit I was on about is the Newcastle Western Bypass
I think the Coal House section is a year behind the western? probably due to requiring bridge widening
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Mark Hewitt
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by Mark Hewitt »

JammyDodge wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 09:59
The bit I was on about is the Newcastle Western Bypass
I think the Coal House section is a year behind the western? probably due to requiring bridge widening
Oh I see, then that makes sense. I had almost forgotten about that it seems to have been going forever. Good to see it nearly finished, I assume it'll remain at 50mph after the works are lifted?

And yes I think Coal House will take a while as afaik the bridge over the ECML does need to be replaced, the site works at Coal House and at Eighton Lodge are huge.
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Bryn666
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by Bryn666 »

I hope they do a better job of the signs on this than they did on the previous widening scheme.
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JammyDodge
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Re: A1 Western bypass widening

Post by JammyDodge »

Bryn666 wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 10:12 I hope they do a better job of the signs on this than they did on the previous widening scheme.
So far it seems ok, to the untrained eye
Southbound is pretty decent from my perspective. Although there is one weirdly small sign here, but it also seems to be as it was before
Northbound is a mixed bag. J74-75 and J75-76 isn't great for gantry signage from my point of view. It goes like this:
First
First.png
(10.98 KiB) Not downloaded yet
Second
2nd.png
considering there are 4 lanes between these junctions, I don't enjoy having the Lane specific signage near to the diverge. For some reason, southbound isn't like this. Having the Lane specific signage on both gantries
The rest seems ok
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