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Derek wrote:So what is the "widening" of the A1 for then if a parallel A14 is to be built?
Derek
Because the Huntingdon southern bypass is to meet the A1 just south of Brampton Hut. North from here, across the Brampton grade separated junction to the start of the A1(M) is currently two lanes. A fourth lane currently is then added at Alconbury.
The plan, as I understand it, is to add a third lane to the A1 from the point where A14 traffic joins it, until the beginning of the A1(M) (where it is already three lanes).
The parallel A14 carriageways would go from south of Brampton Hut to Brampton Hut, where they would change to be east/west aligned, and have the sliproads from the Brampton Hut roundabout join.
echowarning wrote:... This scheme? 25 miles, major junction work at the A1 end, significant rebuild of Girton, plus everything to tie it all in with the by-pass etc, and then major works on the old A14 to reconfigure it etc.
I can easily see that hitting £1.5billion.
I'm also puzzled by the cost. I have a publication by the "A14 Challenge Team" (DfT and some county councils) from after the 2010 spending review when the 2009 scheme was cancelled. It said:
"We need to design a solution that is deliverable, value for money, and at a price the country can afford. That cost will be considerably less than the £1.2bn price tag of the earlier now abandoned scheme."
To remind you, the 2009 scheme was a Los Angeles-style fantasy expressway with parallel access roads on both sides, huge new GSJs everywhere, and a new Girton interchange looking like Spaghetti Junction. Now we have a much reduced scheme (the Girton interchange now has only one new slip road) that costs even more! I don't get it.
I've just filled in my response to the consultation. There is plenty of scope to discuss the tolls - I wrote several thundering paragraphs about that, and tore apart the leaflet's use of the M6 Toll as an example of another road built with toll revenue. It is the prime example why tolling this will cause it to underperform!
Utterly insulting to the population of East Anglia. I am sure I will be far from alone in that I would rather sit in a 10-mile tailback that pay this exorbitant toll.
I also thought we lived in a democracy. Where's the option in the consultation to request the road is built without tolls?
My thoughts on electronic tolling are I think clear in the Dartford Crossing thread, which I will feed into the consultation. But generally tolling in the UK is problematic. When I have used the M6Toll my thoughts have sometimes included 'isn't MEL nice closing the motorway so I can use it' given the low volume of traffic.
France has been downgrading its Routes Nationales to make shunpiking harder which leads me to my final point. I feel this is a 'lets see if this works' toll. Soon short sections charging £1 or £2 for a car will be introduced as per the ROI, where the distance and the toll makes for outsiders shunpiking inconvenient for the money saved, but on a journey of a few hours where you pass three tolls it soon adds up. Its a test for the government, as more cars drop into bands A-D for VED, they are wanting/needing a new source of revenue.
Its something one can see in Australia, NZ and others where traditionally the network had been free at point of use, new infrastructure being tolled. And then it becoming the norm. And then moving to previously free routes.
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I replied yesterday in a similar vein. The other point I had is that HGVs are limited to 50mph on a dual carriageway, whereas on the motorway they can legally travel at 60mph. Irrespective of speed limiter issues, this allows them to use the A12/M25/M1 and travel faster.
Via Google maps, Harwich to Keele (n/b) services is 219mi via the A14/M5, and 226 via M25/M1/M6
Therefore, there is added incentive to divert if there is a tolled A14!
What exactly is going to happen to Huntingdon with the viaduct gone. Will the traffic be routed through the Huntingdon town centre and Godmanchester?
Given that, other than this viaduct, there is still going to be a good quality D2/D2(M) from the A1(M) to the point where the new road joins the existing A14, and the old road will be significantly shorter for traffic coming off the A1(M), will tolling of the new road not result in an awful lot of traffic in Huntington/Godmanchester, much to their detriment? I don't think they have thought this one through very well.
Presumably the old road will become the A604?
PS the £1.5 billion cost seems absurd. The whole M25 only cost £1 billion!
c2R wrote:Via Google maps, Harwich to Keele (n/b) services is 219mi via the A14/M5, and 226 via M25/M1/M6
But a lot of the A14 traffic is Felixstowe bound, rather than Harwich. Same is only 204 miles via A14 and 233 via M25/M1, nearly 30 miles longer, rather than just 7.
The A14/A428/A1/A421/M1 route is also suggested as an alternative - being 219 miles - 15 miles longer than A14 route, although the A428 west of Cambourne is still single carriageway.
c2R wrote:Via Google maps, Harwich to Keele (n/b) services is 219mi via the A14/M5, and 226 via M25/M1/M6
But a lot of the A14 traffic is Felixstowe bound, rather than Harwich. Same is only 204 miles via A14 and 233 via M25/M1, nearly 30 miles longer, rather than just 7.
The A14/A428/A1/A421/M1 route is also suggested as an alternative - being 219 miles - 15 miles longer than A14 route, although the A428 west of Cambourne is still single carriageway.
A14-A428-A1-A14 is also going to be a quite feasible alternative and little if any longer. The resultant jams ought to get the Caxton Gibbet to Black Cat A428 improvement off the ground
If the old A14 is handed over to the Council, I doubt if it will remain a D2. It will become an S2 and the other half will be seperate cycleways and footpaths. Perhaps, another busway like St Ives. Perhaps rbts will replace GSJ's.
A303Paul wrote:
PS the £1.5 billion cost seems absurd. The whole M25 only cost £1 billion!
They have to buy into the prime farm land and that's not cheap.
Also the shi*storm that will happen during A14 widening near Cambridge. They will have to work out of hours or face tailbacks going into hours.
RickyB_uk wrote:
The A14/A428/A1/A421/M1 route is also suggested as an alternative - being 219 miles - 15 miles longer than A14 route, although the A428 west of Cambourne is still single carriageway.
I would so ove that option. A428 between St Neots and Caxton Gibbet is a pain to drive on.
A303Paul wrote:What exactly is going to happen to Huntingdon with the viaduct gone. Will the traffic be routed through the Huntingdon town centre and Godmanchester?
Given that, other than this viaduct, there is still going to be a good quality D2/D2(M) from the A1(M) to the point where the new road joins the existing A14, and the old road will be significantly shorter for traffic coming off the A1(M), will tolling of the new road not result in an awful lot of traffic in Huntington/Godmanchester, much to their detriment? I don't think they have thought this one through very well.
Presumably the old road will become the A604?
PS the £1.5 billion cost seems absurd. The whole M25 only cost £1 billion!
AGREED!
transport infrastructure in this country is a joke. In france, spain, italy, etc they are not afraid of building vast viaducts between mountains, yet whenever anything in britain is built, it is tiny, poky, always completed late and vastly more expensive than anywhere else in western europe!!
I mean the Millau Vidauct was built for £250m, so how the hell is a Huntingdon bypass going to cost £1.5bn?!!!!
the construction industry are clearly all on the fiddle.
Welcome to rip-off and incompetent Britain!
SteveA30 wrote:If the old A14 is handed over to the Council, I doubt if it will remain a D2. It will become an S2 and the other half will be seperate cycleways and footpaths. Perhaps, another busway like St Ives. Perhaps rbts will replace GSJ's.
I'd be surprised if they'd make even that much effort, to be honest. Probably just make it a D1 with some paint to reduce maintenance. They've been rather burnt by the busway and the legal disputes which has left them with a sizeable bill.
Even if they did turn it into a cycleway and/or footpath, it isn't going to get much use unless it links up with a decent route to Bar Hill and Cambridge, and then even not much: the existing routes along the busway and the road through Girton, Oakington and Longstanton are already pretty fast for cyclists, don't involve paralleling a busy main road, and go nearer the bigger villages en route.
I'm sure that where sections of dualled trunk road have been reduced to single carriageway on being bypassed, the cost of conversion has been borne by the trunk road authority before handing over to the local authority.
So attached are they to pushing this scheme, rather than improving the existing carriageway I think they are pulling figures out of thin are to justify the new road. They said on look east last night it would cost "£200 million" alone to replace the overpass for the existing A14 above the railway at Huntingdon. This seems absurd to me. The bridge is a total length of about 180m, stretching from the South and North car parks either side of Brampton road. Such a sum just doesn't sound legitimate to me. I know most of the costs of motorway construction are bridges and tunneling, but the A428, along with several miles of dual carriageway included a number of bridges, including this one, itself over 100 metres long: http://goo.gl/maps/CcecK that whole project only cost £55m. Even a typically more expensive cut and cover tunnel on the A505 of 230m along with a flover for baldock access east of the tunnel and another bridge west and 4 miles of dual carriageway cost only £35m... http://www.cbrd.co.uk/futures/a505-baldock-bypass/
The more I read about this, the more it stinks. This and High speed rail are are disgraceful rip off for taxpayers that both must be riddled with fraud and backhanders. I bet the true figure for replacing the bridge is nearer 20million, not 200.
Joe_Flyover wrote:So attached are they to pushing this scheme, rather than improving the existing carriageway I think they are pulling figures out of thin are to justify the new road. They said on look east last night it would cost "£200 million" alone to replace the overpass for the existing A14 above the railway at Huntingdon. This seems absurd to me. The bridge is a total length of about 180m, stretching from the South and North car parks either side of Brampton road. Such a sum just doesn't sound legitimate to me.
Just how would you propose to replace the bridge while the traffic is kept flowing? You will soon come up with a scheme to build a new one to the side transfer traffic and slide into position. This is broadly similar to the replacement of the viaduct west of Oxford that built a new deck to the side and caused disruption with a 40 limit for about two years. Building in a greenfield is simple and cheap. Building with traffic around and on top of you is difficult and expensive.
The figures quoted will also be an outturn cost including inflation until the scheme is finished.
RichardA35 wrote:Just how would you propose to replace the bridge while the traffic is kept flowing? You will soon come up with a scheme to build a new one to the side transfer traffic and slide into position. This is broadly similar to the replacement of the viaduct west of Oxford that built a new deck to the side and caused disruption with a 40 limit for about two years. Building in a greenfield is simple and cheap. Building with traffic around and on top of you is difficult and expensive.
I wouldn't keep the traffic flowing. I would close it for two years and used the money saved on bridge construction to D2 the A428 between Caxton Gibbet and Black Cat first to act as a diversionary route.
The figures quoted will also be an outturn cost including inflation until the scheme is finished.
In which case the government may have revealed rather more about future inflation in the UK than they intended to.
Does anyone know exactly which part of the A14 through Huntingdon will be closed. It looks like only a very short bit with the road slewed to terminate on Brampton road either side of the railway and traffic needing to do a right left over Brampton Road railway bridge, I can see that working out well, not!
