Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by c2R »

qwertyK wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 14:09 Why wasn't the A1(M) just extended to meet the new A14 though?
Also - it occured to me on the new A14 there are a lot of speed cameras with signs saying "not in use". This strikes me as being pointless, someone I spoke to on another forum said it was becauise the speed camera orders were made for the A14(M) rather than the A14?
It was going to be, but then they just sort of ran out of time, and it just opened with green signs. I haven't seen any variable speed limit orders for it. I objected to the project team who unofficially agreed that it was a bit of a mess. I can't remember what the woolly excuse was that was used now...
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Vierwielen »

The proof of the lack of plan regarding the A1 and A1(M) must lie in the way in which distances on the driver location signs are allocated. I think that there are for different zero points, unlike the M6 which has a zero point in London.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Chris Bertram »

the cheesecake man wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 13:29
Chris5156 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 00:51 Two different projects, surely. Upgrading the A1 to motorway between the M25 and Newcastle was Government policy for a few years in the 1990s,
... but long enough for junctions on the various bits of A1(M) to be given numbers in a consistent scheme ...
Apart from the sudden jump from 53 to 56 between Scotch Corner and Barton.
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Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Achmelvic »

Chris Bertram wrote:
the cheesecake man wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 13:29
Chris5156 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 00:51 Two different projects, surely. Upgrading the A1 to motorway between the M25 and Newcastle was Government policy for a few years in the 1990s,
... but long enough for junctions on the various bits of A1(M) to be given numbers in a consistent scheme ...
Apart from the sudden jump from 53 to 56 between Scotch Corner and Barton.
Isn’t that’s because the plans changed between when the junction numbers were allocated in the 90s and when Dishforth-Barton opened in the 2010s? It was assumed all the existing larger junctions on the A1 would be kept on a future A1(M)

The two limited access north & south junctions at Catterick became just one full access one in the middle, and the junction for the B6267 was dropped with it being served by the service road (A6055) instead.

Know what they say about making assumptions and making an ass etc
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Chris5156 »

KeithW wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 12:34
Chris5156 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 00:51Two different projects, surely. Upgrading the A1 to motorway between the M25 and Newcastle was Government policy for a few years in the 1990s, while the East Coast Motorway was never a formal proposal at all.
Well neither was really a project, both were supposed to provide a motorway between London and Tyneside. The East Coast Motorway was dreamed up by local politicians and press while Roads For Prosperity was a white paper, an aspiration rather than a plan. The 150 initial schemes in Roads For Prosperity were quickly whittled down. Many were eventually done but some major standouts remain, the A303 dualling for example. As for the A1 90% of the benefits were gained at a low cost just by replacing the roundabouts with GSJ's. That project saved me many hours on the A1. On summer weekends the queue on the A1(M) for the Blyth roundabout could almost tail back to the M18 Interchange
A1(M) between M25 and Newcastle was definitely a project. It did appear in RFP, but was subsequently announced as policy in 1990, as described on PM, and it was under that policy that the Alconbury-Peterborough and Walshford-Dishforth motorway upgrades were started. Numerous other A1(M) schemes, which were not far behind them in terms of design and development work, were in the trunk road preparation pool at the same time: you can find documentary evidence of projects with names like A1(M) Stamford Bypass, A1(M) Peterborough-Stamford, etc. So these were very real projects that were expected to reach construction. But none reached the stage where contracts were let before the 1996 spending review that saw them dropped from the programme.

By comparison the East Coast Motorway was a totally unofficial flight of fancy from a pressure group.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by quantinghome »

Chris5156 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 22:16 A1(M) between M25 and Newcastle was definitely a project. It did appear in RFP, but was subsequently announced as policy in 1990, as described on PM, and it was under that policy that the Alconbury-Peterborough and Walshford-Dishforth motorway upgrades were started. Numerous other A1(M) schemes, which were not far behind them in terms of design and development work, were in the trunk road preparation pool at the same time: you can find documentary evidence of projects with names like A1(M) Stamford Bypass, A1(M) Peterborough-Stamford, etc. So these were very real projects that were expected to reach construction. But none reached the stage where contracts were let before the 1996 spending review that saw them dropped from the programme.

By comparison the East Coast Motorway was a totally unofficial flight of fancy from a pressure group.
Thanks for the link to the 1996 A1 programme of work.

Interesting to see that Redhouse-Ferrybridge was in the "Main Programme" in 1996 but has yet to be built, whereas pretty much everything else in that category has been built. I'm guessing that the consequent need to upgrade the Doncaster bypass has been the sticking point.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Chris56000 »

. . .In the "Longer Term" section of the table towards the bottom of the page, the top two schemes "A1(M) Leeming–Scotch Corner" and "A1(M) Dishforth–Leeming" are also of course, open to traffic!

Altho' I can't find definite documentary evidence of this over the years, I suspect the order of construction of the remainder of the A1(M) was intended to be :–

1 :– A1(M) Tuxford–Blyth ;
2 :– A1(M) Peterboro'–Stamford ;
3 :– A1(M) Stamford Bypass ;
4 :– A1(M) Baldock–Alconbury ;
5 :– A1(M) Tuxford–Newark ;
6 :– A1(M) Newark–Stamford.

Schemes 1–3 and 5/6 appear to have bit the dust totally, but No. 4 has had an "A1 East Of England Route Study" undertaken, but there seems to have been little or no progress on this, and I know of no definite report coming out with a final recommendation, the only construction work currently upcoming on the A1 is the A428 Black Cat Junction scheme !

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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Chris5156 »

Chris56000 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:43Altho' I can't find definite documentary evidence of this over the years, I suspect the order of construction of the remainder of the A1(M) was intended to be :–

1 :– A1(M) Tuxford–Blyth ;
2 :– A1(M) Peterboro'–Stamford ;
3 :– A1(M) Stamford Bypass ;
4 :– A1(M) Baldock–Alconbury ;
5 :– A1(M) Tuxford–Newark ;
6 :– A1(M) Newark–Stamford.
Annoyingly, I do recall seeing a list of the stage each project had reached when they were cancelled, but I can't find it now. That would have hinted at a possible order of construction. But your list feels about right to me: Tuxford-Blyth and Peterborough-Stamford would be the lower standard sections and so the highest priority for replacement. By comparison, Tuxford-Newark (for example) is already mostly an offline bypass of the old A1 and has fewer alignment and safety problems.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by WHBM »

JohnnyMo wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 15:10 The section was built under a design finance build & operate contract for 30 years. Traffic projection showed a fair change (high growth prediction) that the D3(M) motorway would be congested after about 25 years requiring a major investment in widening the road. The additional cost of building a D4(M) was minimal and a business decision was made to take the hit at the build stage. I expect some of the additional cost may have been offset against easier traffic management during the build phase when the existing D2 A1 was switched onto the new northbound carriageway as a D2 contraflow.

Actual traffic growth has been near the mid growth prediction so a D3(M) would have been adequate for the contract.
This is the commonly stated justification, but I've never quite seen it. The DBFO quotation would have been for 4-lane carriageways at a given price over the 30 years. Someone at DfT would surely have identified that it was an overkill for an isolated section and if they adjusted the quotation conditions back to a 3-lane carriageway, the price would be reduced. They didn't. It was fed by the A1 as just a D2 (including recently rebuilt sections, such as at Tempsford) at both ends. D3M was just not going to overload.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by M4Simon »

Chris5156 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:55
Chris56000 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:43Altho' I can't find definite documentary evidence of this over the years, I suspect the order of construction of the remainder of the A1(M) was intended to be :–

1 :– A1(M) Tuxford–Blyth ;
2 :– A1(M) Peterboro'–Stamford ;
3 :– A1(M) Stamford Bypass ;
4 :– A1(M) Baldock–Alconbury ;
5 :– A1(M) Tuxford–Newark ;
6 :– A1(M) Newark–Stamford.
Annoyingly, I do recall seeing a list of the stage each project had reached when they were cancelled, but I can't find it now. That would have hinted at a possible order of construction. But your list feels about right to me: Tuxford-Blyth and Peterborough-Stamford would be the lower standard sections and so the highest priority for replacement. By comparison, Tuxford-Newark (for example) is already mostly an offline bypass of the old A1 and has fewer alignment and safety problems.
I recall reading that once the Boroughbridge and Alconbury to Peterborough sections were complete, all other new sections would connect to an existing section of motorway, which the order quoted here would have achieved.

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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by JohnnyMo »

WHBM wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 19:15
JohnnyMo wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 15:10 The section was built under a design finance build & operate contract for 30 years. Traffic projection showed a fair change (high growth prediction) that the D3(M) motorway would be congested after about 25 years requiring a major investment in widening the road. The additional cost of building a D4(M) was minimal and a business decision was made to take the hit at the build stage. I expect some of the additional cost may have been offset against easier traffic management during the build phase when the existing D2 A1 was switched onto the new northbound carriageway as a D2 contraflow.

Actual traffic growth has been near the mid growth prediction so a D3(M) would have been adequate for the contract.
This is the commonly stated justification, but I've never quite seen it. The DBFO quotation would have been for 4-lane carriageways at a given price over the 30 years. Someone at DfT would surely have identified that it was an overkill for an isolated section and if they adjusted the quotation conditions back to a 3-lane carriageway, the price would be reduced. They didn't. It was fed by the A1 as just a D2 (including recently rebuilt sections, such as at Tempsford) at both ends. D3M was just not going to overload.
There was also the A14 feeding into this. So on a DBFO contract what does the operation phase consist of ?
I assume the DfT said here are the traffic forecasts 'DBFO' a motorway who is the cheapest ?
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Chris5156 »

WHBM wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 19:15
JohnnyMo wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 15:10 The section was built under a design finance build & operate contract for 30 years. Traffic projection showed a fair change (high growth prediction) that the D3(M) motorway would be congested after about 25 years requiring a major investment in widening the road. The additional cost of building a D4(M) was minimal and a business decision was made to take the hit at the build stage. I expect some of the additional cost may have been offset against easier traffic management during the build phase when the existing D2 A1 was switched onto the new northbound carriageway as a D2 contraflow.

Actual traffic growth has been near the mid growth prediction so a D3(M) would have been adequate for the contract.
This is the commonly stated justification, but I've never quite seen it. The DBFO quotation would have been for 4-lane carriageways at a given price over the 30 years. Someone at DfT would surely have identified that it was an overkill for an isolated section and if they adjusted the quotation conditions back to a 3-lane carriageway, the price would be reduced. They didn't. It was fed by the A1 as just a D2 (including recently rebuilt sections, such as at Tempsford) at both ends. D3M was just not going to overload.
There may have been an expectation of exceptional traffic growth. It was fed only by D2, albeit effectively two of them joining at each end once you consider the A14 and the tendrils of the Peterborough Parkways. It remains so today. But at the time it was designed it was seriously expected that, within the life of the DBFO contract, it would be part of a D3M route attracting much more strategic traffic and generating much more economic activity on the A1 corridor. In that scenario presumably the D4M length was justified, even if only just.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Rogndave »

I'm surprised that no-one has yet mentioned the Mawhinney factor in this context. Brian Mawhinney was Sec of State for Transport from July 94 to July 95, which would surely have been a critical period in finalising the specification for the Alconbury-Peterborough section. Dr. M was also MP for Peterborough, while his good friend, John Major, as well as serving as PM, was MP for Huntingdon, including Alconbury.

Having had some contact with Brian Mawhinney in a different context, I can vouch for him holding strong and unbending views on pretty well every subject. In relation to the A1(M), I feel sure that he would have taken a straightforward view, that there were four lanes heading into the section northbound from the A1 and A14, and four lanes heading in southbound from the A1 and A1139 - therefore this stretch had to be a four lane motorway, particularly in view of Peterborough' continuing growth. Anything less would have meant selling Peterborough short, a cardinal sin in Dr M's eyes.

I don't know but strongly suspect that he will have been the person who insisted on four lanes. It would have been a very brave and rather foolhardy action for his civil servants to have responded with a straight "no". Perhaps they humoured him hoping that he would have been moved on before the DBFO contract came to be finalised. At any rate the Norman Cross-Peterborough section was limited to three lanes only, so they may have had a minor degree of success in paring things down.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by KeithW »

Chris56000 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:43 . . .In the "Longer Term" section of the table towards the bottom of the page, the top two schemes "A1(M) Leeming–Scotch Corner" and "A1(M) Dishforth–Leeming" are also of course, open to traffic!

Altho' I can't find definite documentary evidence of this over the years, I suspect the order of construction of the remainder of the A1(M) was intended to be :–

1 :– A1(M) Tuxford–Blyth ;
2 :– A1(M) Peterboro'–Stamford ;
3 :– A1(M) Stamford Bypass ;
4 :– A1(M) Baldock–Alconbury ;
5 :– A1(M) Tuxford–Newark ;
6 :– A1(M) Newark–Stamford.

Schemes 1–3 and 5/6 appear to have bit the dust totally, but No. 4 has had an "A1 East Of England Route Study" undertaken, but there seems to have been little or no progress on this, and I know of no definite report coming out with a final recommendation, the only construction work currently upcoming on the A1 is the A428 Black Cat Junction scheme !

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Between 1993 and 1996 the Government of John Major began to cut public spending to reduce public borrowing and the roads program took a big hit. The existing projects went ahead but the pipeline of new schemes was cut back. The majority was small and after Twyford Down Motorway was a bad word. This was when the planned Motorway upgrade for the A1 from Baldock to Alconbury was cancelled.

Between 1993 and 1997 the Public Sector Borrowing requirement was cut from over 7% of GDP to zero but the new mileage added was around 1200 as the committed schemes were completed. The prevailing belief of the day was that new roads just generated more traffic.

When the Blair government came in it got worse. Under Tony Blair the mileage of new roads built was just 434 in 10 years.

They started as they meant to go on.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/prescott-axes-road-schemes-1252757.html wrote: John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, has overturned a series of big road-building decisions made by the transport minister Gavin Strang in one of the first big rows of the Blair Cabinet.

Ministers were summoned to a crisis meeting at Dorneywood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's country retreat, a week ago to review a series of road building decisions made by Mr Strang. At first, 11 of the 12 schemes were expected to go ahead, with only the Salisbury by-pass being cancelled as a sop to environmentalists.

Following Mr Prescott's intervention, the results of which are due to be announced tomorrow, about half are expected to be either cancelled or moved back into a roads revi
Prescott also said
"I will have failed if in five years time there are not...far fewer journeys by car. It's a tall order but I urge you to hold me to it."
It didnt happen.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by WHBM »

KeithW wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 21:45 The prevailing belief of the day was that new roads just generated more traffic.
No, that was Daily Express journalist writing. Some of us were more professional, even then, and knew the numbers of traffic demand, where growth could be seen to be levelling off in some areas, though not all (a continuing surprise was the rise in middle-distance commuting as people moved away from and eventually almost stopped changing houses when they changed jobs/locations over such distances, itself due to multiple factors).

The Alconbury-Peterborough new section is not going to generate additional demand on its own, there is a key anchor node at one end but no real mainstream destination at the south.

The first computer model I did of journey attraction between different areas was actually done on 80-column punched cards ! I think I wrote about this here before.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Glenn A »

There is this myth that new roads automatically generate more traffic and new road building is bad. I doubt anyone would want to travel on the nasty 1960s era A1 in North Yorkshire, with its endless hazards, vehicles like tractors travelling at 20 mph as it was an all access road, and at grade junctions. I was watching a You Tube video of the section from Leeming Bar to Scotch Corner made in 2014 and the D2 section is dreadful( now suppose someone pulled out of a lay by without looking, look at that farm right up against the carriageway, etc). The new D3M has addressed all these issues and the extra lane makes the road flow a lot better.
Also I reckon car ownership is unlikely to grow much more now due to economic issues and the lack of parking in some areas.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by trickstat »

Glenn A wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 16:08 There is this myth that new roads automatically generate more traffic and new road building is bad. I doubt anyone would want to travel on the nasty 1960s era A1 in North Yorkshire, with its endless hazards, vehicles like tractors travelling at 20 mph as it was an all access road, and at grade junctions. I was watching a You Tube video of the section from Leeming Bar to Scotch Corner made in 2014 and the D2 section is dreadful( now suppose someone pulled out of a lay by without looking, look at that farm right up against the carriageway, etc). The new D3M has addressed all these issues and the extra lane makes the road flow a lot better.
Also I reckon car ownership is unlikely to grow much more now due to economic issues and the lack of parking in some areas.
Also increased WFH will probably have some impact. For example, a couple who decided they needed 2 cars because their commutes were in different directions might opt to only have 1 by staggering the days they go in to their workplaces or perhaps occasionally getting a bus or whatever on days when both are going in. Of course, economic factors may form part of these decisions too.
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Re: Was the A1(M) outside of Peterborough meant to be part of something bigger?

Post by Bryn666 »

The roads themselves don't generate traffic, but if some idiot comes along and approves a business park, 2,000 houses, an Amazon shed, before long your shiny new road is rammed solid.

This is basically what's happened with the M65 - the roads it was built to relieve have now been overdeveloped and are busier now than they were in 1997. Well done council planners.
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