M1 Junction 3 - Scratchwood Link to A1

[Patrick Harper]

There's only one chance of local support, which is the possibility of connecting the link up to Elstree Hill South (adjacent to Centennial Park and close to the A41) to form a kind of Elstree Southern Bypass. There's a good area of suburbia south-east of Watford, Bushey especially, that would benefit from such a scheme, but it would be controversial in Elstree for sure, and the difficulty of having three separate highways authorities being involved in a project.

[Bryn666]

Politics and money!

(Note any link would be 100% within the London Borough of Barnet and would thus be the responsibility of TfL to fund)

TfL are broke (and will be for many years to come thanks to Covid-19, the delays to finishing Crossrail and the withdrawal of the operational grant from the DfT*) so can't afford to build new roads.

TfL are anti-car because of the air pollution and congestion they bring. Almost anything which increases traffic throughput (with the notable exception of East London river crossings) goes against that ethos. Congestion along the current A1 / A41 should be eased by having less people drive into the GLA full stop - not moving the problem onward to Cricklewood / Finchley / etc. at the end of the M1.


* NO other Country ANYWHERE ELSE in Europe expects the Transport authority of its capital city to fund day to day running solely from fare receipts / property deals / congestion charge receipts.

In a money no object world, it would be beneficial for TfL (but not Highways England) if they could link the A1 directly onto the M1 because:

i) it's quieter than the A41/A1, which run through a dense urban area and are unpleasant
ii) it allows for the redesign of the above between the missing J3 and Brent Cross (A1 to A1 strategic traffic obviously leaves the M1 at J2 as current) to make them more people orientated in line with the Healthy Streets policy, wider footways, cycle provision, better pedestrian crossings, etc.
iii) it provides TfL with an eventual excuse to remove the A41 flyover at Brent Cross if that starts falling to bits (it already looks ready to fall down)

The big problems is if the M1 takes this role on:

i) Staples Corner will become unbearable because there'll be a lot of right turns off the M1 towards Wembley
ii) it also makes the A41 route into central London somewhat of a dogleg, which is not good for stop-start and emissions problems
iii) expect the A1/A406 junction complex to be worse too as traffic won't be using the A41 as a middle option
iv) Highways England inherit a load of traffic issues and they won't want to fix them because they're a "London problem"

In terms of losing Scratchwood open space, it's actually the golf course that is mostly affected - which immediately puts any road project into direct conflict with wealthy interests that can kill it dead. Highways England aren't afraid to stick a road proposal through a bog standard country park (see the A5036 rubbish), because only the plebs enjoy those and don't have connections.

[JackieRoads]

If the M10 (upgrade of A1/A1(M) from Hook Moor to Bignells Corner) is used, I would suggest having that junction redesigned, which I will post in the fantasy maps thread to avoid going OFF-TOPIC.

[crowntown100]

I was just browsing the internet, exploring the BGS records as I enjoy maps and I haven't look at it recently, and happened to stumble upon this:

http://scans.bgs.ac.uk/sobi_scans/boreh ... 19082.html

It appears to show the plan for the Sterling Corner Link. I expect someone has found it before, but I thought it was interesting as it is more detailed than what is currently available on the Wiki.