A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

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jackal
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A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by jackal »

The preferred route for this 2km dual carriageway east of Colchester was announced in May. It will connect the A120 at a new dumbbell just east of Ardleigh South Services with the A133 at a new roundabout east of the University of Essex campus. It is due to start construction in 2022 and open in 2024 at a price of £70m.

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This is part of the Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community project, which includes a further £41m for bus rapid transit.

https://www.essexhighways.org/highway-s ... ansit.aspx
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by owen b »

Interesting. I see the future proofing for the link which was provided when the A120 bypass was originally built will go unused as the preferred route is on a very different alignment. Looking at the 1:25,000 mapping (or Google satellite view) there is an overbridge in situ and the line of the east facing only on slip north east of Elmstead Market, also a stub for the westbound offslip.
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by Jim606 »

owen b wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:17 Interesting. I see the future proofing for the link which was provided when the A120 bypass was originally built will go unused as the preferred route is on a very different alignment. Looking at the 1:25,000 mapping (or Google satellite view) there is an overbridge in situ and the line of the east facing only on slip north east of Elmstead Market, also a stub for the westbound offslip.
Hi yes, the bridge is still there and looks like it will remain in situ for some time to come. This local news article from 2016 states that the structure might not meet current standards ghost-bridge-from-30-years-ago-could-be ... -and-a133/. The other thing to mention is that it only has west facing 'free-flow slips', the proposed new junction would be full movement east and west.
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by jackal »

I don't think it's anything to do with modern standards. 80s (or older) bridges are routinely reused. Rather the bridge is in completely the wrong place for access to the garden community from the A120 west and A12.

The old plan didn't care about links to the west as it was just meant to bypass the A133 through Elmstead Market and Frating. Or at least that's my guess...
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by Truvelo »

There was another scheme proposed which would have started on the A133 at the magic roundabout in Colchester and followed the railway line to the town centre replacing the existing A134. There was obviously an intention to provide quick access between the centre of Colchester and Harwich back then.
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by BF2142 »

Truvelo wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 16:49 There was another scheme proposed which would have started on the A133 at the magic roundabout in Colchester and followed the railway line to the town centre replacing the existing A134. There was obviously an intention to provide quick access between the centre of Colchester and Harwich back then.
Instead, we got left with narrow, congested surface streets that are among the most polluted in Colchester.
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by jackal »

There is a £21m budget shortfall for this scheme. The council hope to get the money from govt, who would also need to agree to delay the opening date to 2025:

https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/202 ... le-budget/

In somewhat related news, it seems Tendring Council would like the A120/A133 fork to be reconstructed as a full access GSJ. At least that seems to be the gist of it, as the article is not the clearest:

https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/202 ... -overhaul/

They could put in a teardrop on the north side of the existing GSJ, add east-facing slips, and make the bridge bidirectional. It would be similar to this in Plymouth but with better geometry. One issue is that Clacton-Harwich would be much longer than via the existing substandard route via the B1035, which is presumably why the GSJ is limited access in the first place.
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by Mapper89062 »

jackal wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:12 In somewhat related news, it seems Tendring Council would like the A120/A133 fork to be reconstructed as a full access GSJ. At least that seems to be the gist of it, as the article is not the clearest:

https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/202 ... -overhaul/

They could put in a teardrop on the north side of the existing GSJ, add east-facing slips, and make the bridge bidirectional. It would be similar to this in Plymouth but with better geometry. One issue is that Clacton-Harwich would be much longer than via the existing substandard route via the B1035, which is presumably why the GSJ is limited access in the first place.
For little extra cost, you could add full access while keeping the free flow (though unlikely to be considered by the council) by adding a south-facing half-dumbbell at the Harwich Road bridge south of the fork, and use that road to get between the two, joining the A120 at the new roundabout to the east. Although using local roads in that way is generally not a good idea, the road is rural and of reasonably high standard due to being the former A120 and already carries traffic between Harwich and the A133 towards Colchester. I expect we will just get a dumbbell though, especially if Essex County Council think one is good enough to connect the A120 and A12...

However, I agree on the detour - most people will not want to add this much extra distance onto their journey rather than use the B1035 or B1414. Likewise, unless heavy traffic calming is introduced along Harwich Road, using the spur and the A133 to get from Harwich to Elmstead Market is probably not worth it. According to Google Maps, Harwich to Clacton takes about 10 minutes longer going via the A133/B1029/old A120/A120 compared to the B1414.
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by jackal »

I agree the south facing slips on Harwich Road would be a good option. It should be fine as a half diamond with simple priority junctions, which should be cheaper and less disruptive than modifying the existing GSJ.

Really it would have to be sold as a bypass of the B1035 and B1414, with those routes calmed. It would also provide something of a bypass for residential sections of Harwich Road and the B1029, which are currently used to access the A120 east.
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by Chris56000 »

It is possible to get from Clacton to Harwich using the A133 and A120 if you turn off the A133 about ¾ mile before the A133 single–to–dual carriageway roundabout down the lane to Little Bentley and rejoin the A120 by turning right about a mile past the end of the A120 dual section but I don't know how bad Little Bentley is to get through!

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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by jackal »

You can't turn right onto the A120 there as it was LILOed a few years ago. The opposite direction is possible though.
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Re: A120 to A133 Link Road (Tendring/Colchester Border Garden Community)

Post by Fluid Dynamics »

jackal wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 17:58 You can't turn right onto the A120 there as it was LILOed a few years ago. The opposite direction is possible though.
Did that exact movement a couple of weeks ago, but to get on the A133 towards Colchester rather than towards Clacton. Took forever to turn right onto the A133 between Little and Great Bentley due to the volume of traffic. For Clacton traffic adding the extra movements at the A120/A133 junction is quite a long way around. I wonder how many people would still come off at Horsley Cross or Little Bentley?
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