A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by jnty »

A more pertinent question (discussed to death here) is why more dual carriageways aren't special roads.

It seems as if the approach taken in Wales often used special roads or other prohibitions when other schemes in other countries might not have.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by KeithW »

The approach in Wales as of today seems to be not build any new roads and slap lower speed limits on those already there. As for special roads AFAIK the A55 is the only non motorway special road and even then its only part of it. Actually the Scots seem more keen on them than anywhere else. See A720,A1,A87 Skye Bridge, A725 under the M74, A726 near East Kilbride
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by solocle »

jnty wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 12:11 A more pertinent question (discussed to death here) is why more dual carriageways aren't special roads.

It seems as if the approach taken in Wales often used special roads or other prohibitions when other schemes in other countries might not have.
To save the pennies. A prime example is the A30 across Bodmin Moor.
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Detouring to avoid it added about 3 miles to my journey - the A30 was in fact tempting. But without options to bail out, I chose the A39 instead. Had I wanted to go through Bodmin, then any alternative would have been substantially further, and I'd probably just have cycled up the A30. And that's without even mentioning places up there like Jamaica Inn or Temple. If that's a destination, it's A30 or bust.

My plan was to take a back road into Launceston, but it turned out to be gravelly, and downhill, in the dark. So I rerouted on the fly and carried on down the A395, and did a couple of miles on the A30 anyway - but I didn't mind it, it was almost deserted.
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Basically, I prefer to have options. All too often there aren't any easy options to avoid these roads. Then you either suck up the extra miles/hills, or the traffic.

Making these roads special roads without remedial action would take that choice away. Now, if there was a high quality LAR alongside, that would generally be a net benefit!

But that doesn't necessarily happen even with motorway schemes:
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A Roman Special Road.

If I had my way, that section would be returned to A1(AP) status with immediate effect, until such time as a LAR is built. They didn't even put up signs to direct prohibited traffic! How much money does that save? 0.001% of the scheme budget, I imagine...
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by orudge »

I guess the A61 and the assorted local roads from Rainton count as the "LAR". My understanding may be incorrect, but I gather the primary purpose of the LAR is to connect together all the random lanes and properties that were previously connected to a road being upgraded, and not specifically to provide an alternative route for non-motorised users (though it may well offer that benefit too, of course).
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by Steven »

jnty wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 12:11 A more pertinent question (discussed to death here) is why more dual carriageways aren't special roads.

It seems as if the approach taken in Wales often used special roads or other prohibitions when other schemes in other countries might not have.
Because National Highways Agency for England doesn't understand them at all. You talk to people there about them and their benefits, and you can see the "TILT" appear in the eyes, cartoon-style.
solocle wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 13:10 Making these roads special roads without remedial action would take that choice away.
Not necessarily, as this statement forgets how Special Roads actually work legally. There's no reason why a Special Road could not be reserved for, say, Class VII traffic only parallel to another Special Road for, say, Classes I, II and IV traffic. Just because there's only one location in GB that does something similar doesn't mean it's not a good idea to extend that elsewhere.
solocle wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 13:10 But that doesn't necessarily happen even with motorway schemes:

If I had my way, that section would be returned to A1(AP) status with immediate effect, until such time as a LAR is built. They didn't even put up signs to direct prohibited traffic! How much money does that save? 0.001% of the scheme budget, I imagine...
So, what benefits would it bring to allow things like frontage development and people to run utilities down it? How would that help in any way with the issue as described?

Now, if you'd said "it should allow these particular additional classes of traffic", that would make far more sense all round.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by solocle »

Steven wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 13:50
jnty wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 12:11 A more pertinent question (discussed to death here) is why more dual carriageways aren't special roads.

It seems as if the approach taken in Wales often used special roads or other prohibitions when other schemes in other countries might not have.
Because National Highways Agency for England doesn't understand them at all. You talk to people there about them and their benefits, and you can see the "TILT" appear in the eyes, cartoon-style.
solocle wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 13:10 Making these roads special roads without remedial action would take that choice away.
Not necessarily, as this statement forgets how Special Roads actually work legally. There's no reason why a Special Road could not be reserved for, say, Class VII traffic only parallel to another Special Road for, say, Classes I, II and IV traffic. Just because there's only one location in GB that does something similar doesn't mean it's not a good idea to extend that elsewhere.
solocle wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 13:10 But that doesn't necessarily happen even with motorway schemes:

If I had my way, that section would be returned to A1(AP) status with immediate effect, until such time as a LAR is built. They didn't even put up signs to direct prohibited traffic! How much money does that save? 0.001% of the scheme budget, I imagine...
So, what benefits would it bring to allow things like frontage development and people to run utilities down it? How would that help in any way with the issue as described?

Now, if you'd said "it should allow additional classes of traffic", that would make far more sense all round.
Thing is, with an existing public highway, I'd say you need provision for all classes of traffic. To separate into two different special roads, you either need a LAR, or you need to reduce the "motorway" section to a single carriageway, to use the other carriageway for prohibited traffic. Both options would require a lot of remedial work.

Also a LAR serves an access purpose, so would probably be better off as an all purpose road, potentially with an access-only restriction for motor vehicles.

The problem with using a special road when all traffic is allowed is if a form of vehicle slips between the different classes. I suspect that's a theoretical objection, but it makes me wary. Plus there's the fact that signage doesn't reflect the actual legal state of the special road - being signed as a set of prohibitions, with the exception of motorways. For instance, there's no indication on the Severn Bridge that Class VIII traffic isn't, in fact, allowed.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by Steven »

solocle wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 14:16
Thing is, with an existing public highway, I'd say you need provision for all classes of traffic. To separate into two different special roads, you either need a LAR, or you need to reduce the "motorway" section to a single carriageway, to use the other carriageway for prohibited traffic. Both options would require a lot of remedial work.
I'm sorry, I'm not clear at all. To which example(s) do you refer here? The entire point of an LAR is that it's all-purpose, and so it's not at all what I'm talking about here which is an additional Special Road for additional classes of traffic for which it would be a benefit, without compromising safety for the additional traffic classes, or capacity or journey times for existing traffic. If you think that it would be a benefit to turn roads into all-purpose, then please could you explain the "benefits" that would create which would include frontage development, gas mains, communications cables...
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by orudge »

solocle wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 13:10 They didn't even put up signs to direct prohibited traffic!
Just trying to pick up on this point, where are there signs missing? On the A168 there's a non-motorway traffic sign here, then on the mainline A1 you're either way up at J65 or down at Darrington.

If you're making your own way up the A168, "The NORTH" is signed at the dumbbell roundabouts along Dishforth Road - obviously that will only take you as far as the motorway onslip though. I'm not aware of many (any?) places where "The NORTH avoiding motorway" (or similar) would be signed - for better or worse, folk avoiding or unable to use motorways would need to be aware of the various minor destinations along their route and follow directions accordingly.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by Bryn666 »

The A1(M) only has an LAR where direct frontage exists that would have been severed during conversion, and the sections that were upgraded were heavily fronted hence why they got converted for safety reasons.

Between J49 and 50 the only direct frontage was the two Rainton Little Chefs which were already mothballed when it was converted to motorway so there was no need for an additional road alongside.

There is no legal or engineering need for a parallel road alongside any motorway otherwise, the whole point is they are reserved corridors. It's a bit like complaining railways don't have roads alongside them?
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by wallmeerkat »

Bryn666 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:45
Between J49 and 50 the only direct frontage was the two Rainton Little Chefs which were already mothballed when it was converted to motorway so there was no need for an additional road alongside.
Funny you say that, one of my criticisms of the A55 was lack of services, Little Chef or their modern equivalent.

Yes you can veer off the main road and find a town/premier inn etc. but there is very little directly on the road if you've just got off the ferry 6am in the morning and would like breakfast.
Though on the return journey we did find a lovely pub at Rhos on Sea for dinner (the cafes in the town closed at 5pm on the Sunday, again services would be open).
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by Rillington »

One option might have been to build the A55 from Chester to the A55 special road at Colwyn Bay as a motorway as a continuation of the M53 with the A55 two-lane dual carriageway beginning at the western side of the A55 special road.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by Chris5156 »

Bryn666 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:45There is no legal or engineering need for a parallel road alongside any motorway otherwise, the whole point is they are reserved corridors. It's a bit like complaining railways don't have roads alongside them?
This is true, but with the caveat that, like railways, most motorways were built on greenfield corridors where no right of way previously existed. In the few places an all purpose road was converted to motorway, a right of way was retained alongside. The A1(M) at Dishforth is therefore an edge case: a motorway that once was a public right of way, but which no longer is, and where no right of way now exists that serves the same purpose.

We’ve discussed before how few real use cases there would be for a LAR here, and on balance the cost of providing one might not have been justified. But it is unusual, and strictly speaking, this is a motorway where non-motorway traffic used to have a right of passage that it no longer has.

To continue the railway analogy, railways weren’t built by laying rails on existing public rights of way and then banning road traffic, with one exception I can think of. The approach to Charing Cross station over the Thames was built on Hungerford Bridge which until then had carried a road. The modern bridge is a replacement purpose-built railway bridge, and since ~2000 has been flanked by footbridges, so the public right of way has effectively been restored. But it appears to be the railway equivalent of the A1(M) at Dishforth: a right of way lost to a reserved corridor.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by SouthWest Philip »

The A1(M), of course, has previous form in extinguishing previous rights of way. Online upgrades around jnc 2 and jncs 16-17 also lack a parallel access road.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by Gav »

RJDG14 wrote: Thu Aug 11, 2022 05:15 The A1 between Edinburgh and Dunbar is very similar to this stretch of A55. Given that some of the A1 is A1(M), I find it a little strange that the decision was made to open this section as a non-motorway special road, when it's effectively under motorway regulations and the only thing really distinguishing it from a motorway would be the lack of hard shoulders and some slightly tight junctions. I often consider it as an unofficial stretch of the A1(M) since it's under similar regulations. Most of the signs on the stretch are green, however the "NO" signs in its case are blue (on the A55 they are green).

For some reason most of the UK's non-motorway special roads I can think of seem to be in Scotland.
some where i have an a to z with this section of A1 shown as a motorway in it....
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by KeithW »

solocle wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 14:16 Thing is, with an existing public highway, I'd say you need provision for all classes of traffic. To separate into two different special roads, you either need a LAR, or you need to reduce the "motorway" section to a single carriageway, to use the other carriageway for prohibited traffic. Both options would require a lot of remedial work.
Access to what ?

That has to be one of the bleakest sections of road in England, when it was widened to D3(M) the owner of the services that was here closed up, its now a transport depot. ISTR that the widening would have left the main buildings too close to the road and new petroleum regulations would have required the fuel tanks to be replaced. Pity it was a useful place to stop.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.16136 ... 6656?hl=en

There isnt a single farm or cottage west along Shambles Lane to the A61
To the east along Sleights Lane there are 3 holiday cottages and a clay pigeon shoot that is hardly ever used until you hit Rainton half a mile away.

East along Church Lane there are nothing but fields, its basically just a farm track.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by jnty »

The fact that railways/motorways don't need to have an access route alongside doesn't necessarily mean that isn't a good idea, even assuming no pre existing rights of way are being extinguished which is rarely the case these days. Much work is being done to make the land more permeable than it was before and it stands to reason that doing a bit of extra work to reap the full benefits might be quite good. The comparison to railways is apt: many newbuild/reopened railways incorporate cycle paths nearby or alongside and there was a lot of upset when HS2 cut its associated cycle path network.

There is also the matter of consequences - creating a new and attractive route for one mode is usually actively to the detriment of another in aggregate. The Dornoch Firth Bridge substantially shortened the northern A9 but the decision not to bridge the railway also meant that it became an even more unattractive option. It's not like the average motorway traveller is weighing up whether to use the car or the bike in the same way as car v train but it will usually have some effect in aggregate.

So while it isn't necessarily an injustice I think it's fair to say that it might reasonably be called a bit of a shame.

From the SABRE Wiki: Dornoch Firth Bridge :

Like the Cromarty Bridge to the south, the Dornoch Firth Bridge cut a dozen or so miles off the route north when it was opened. At the southern end, an embankment / causeway was built out across Tarlogie Scalps, to the start of the bridge. Approximately 2 miles of new road were built at the northern end of the bridge to connect it with the old road, which was renumbered the A836 to the south and A949 to the north of the Firth. These two roads meet at Bonar Bridge, where the

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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by solocle »

KeithW wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:44
solocle wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 14:16 Thing is, with an existing public highway, I'd say you need provision for all classes of traffic. To separate into two different special roads, you either need a LAR, or you need to reduce the "motorway" section to a single carriageway, to use the other carriageway for prohibited traffic. Both options would require a lot of remedial work.
Access to what ?

That has to be one of the bleakest sections of road in England, when it was widened to D3(M) the owner of the services that was here closed up, its now a transport depot. ISTR that the widening would have left the main buildings too close to the road and new petroleum regulations would have required the fuel tanks to be replaced. Pity it was a useful place to stop.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.16136 ... 6656?hl=en

There isnt a single farm or cottage west along Shambles Lane to the A61
To the east along Sleights Lane there are 3 holiday cottages and a clay pigeon shoot that is hardly ever used until you hit Rainton half a mile away.

East along Church Lane there are nothing but fields, its basically just a farm track.
Because a LAR often serves the purpose of a cycle route very well, even if it doesn't have frontages.

Whereas if I were having a really tough ride (perhaps trying to do the routes of Roman Roads, for instance). Maybe in navigational difficulty.
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Going along the hard shoulder becomes tempting.

In a £200 million motorway scheme, the perhaps £200,000 it would have cost to provide a cycle route using the existing Sleights Lane bridge is literally 0.1%.

0.1%. And that's building a proper cycleway, not just signing the alternative along Sleights Lane.

Oh, and there's no signage stopping people who want to protest this from making this movement. :twisted:
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by Chris Bertram »

You need a sign to prevent you from making that move? I do wonder sometimes ...
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by KeithW »

solocle wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 13:31 Oh, and there's no signage stopping people who want to protest this from making this movement. :twisted:
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Wanting to stay alive and uninjured is quite adequate for me, I have seen enough bodies torn into bits for my lifetime. The first was on the A19 just after the Thirsk bypass opened, we finally found the missing head in a nearby field. Cycling down an unlit dual carriageway after midnight heading the wrong way turned out to be a bad idea, who'd a thunk it.

Just about here as I recall.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.25785 ... 8192?hl=en

Body parts were embedded in the radiator grill of the truck that hit him. It was not pretty. Back in the 1970's I saw all too many such incidents when helping my cousin out in his vehicle recovery business. There was also the headless body in an MG Midget that had run under an HGV.
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Re: A55 Special Road: Was it ever intended to be a motorway?

Post by solocle »

Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 14:05 You need a sign to prevent you from making that move? I do wonder sometimes ...
As a pedestrian that's an entirely legitimate path to take. You can, after all, walk onto a dual carriageway, and you're meant to face traffic. I don't see why walking on the hard shoulder of a motorway would be any more dangerous than, for instance, the A19.

Or, on a bike, why the 2 lane 48k AADF A1 between Dishforth and Baldersby that was legal to use, where you'd often have to cycle in lane 1, would be safer than a 3 lane 58k AADF A1(M) where you have a hard shoulder.
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Illegal, yes.
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