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The dualling of the A4440 southern link road in Worcester is underway. Phase 1 and 2 (The A38 roundabout and partial dualling east of there) have already been completed. Phase 3 is in progress, which involves dualling from the end of phase 2 up to the A44 at Whittington. This will involve somehow widening both the railway bridge and farm bridge which are in this section.
Phase 4 is still having it's business case being prepared is dualling between the A38 and A449 including the Carrington Bridge over the River Severn which is currently a massive bottleneck. They are certainly doing it in order of easiest to hardest!
Don't have any photos to share at the moment, I only ever pass it at night! It's a much needed scheme that is many years overdue.
Carrington Bridge is one of two road crossings of the River Severn and its flood plain in Worcestershire. It was constructed in 1985 as part of the Worcester Southern Bypass, the A4440. On the eastern side of the bridge is a roundabout with the A38, while a short distance to the west is a roundabout with the A449.
Due to the proximity to the roundabout, combined with the sheer volume of traffic on the S2 A4440, traffic can be found regularly at a standstill
That road used to make commuting to Worcester hell. I'd leave Frome at 06.30 in order to get to Worcester for a 09.30 class. The last hour or so of the journey used to be spent sitting in a queue for every section of the A4440 between the M5 and the A449; the road only ever freed up that A449 roundabout. The whole thing would also be clogged up for the evening commute from about 15.00-19.00 as well, so I'd have to face it no matter what time I left work.
Towards the end of the time I was using it, they came up with this insane piece of S2+1 where there had previously been S2W. It's crazy because traffic uses to lane 1 to queue for the left-turn and straight on at the next roundabout; the small amount of traffic using lane 2 is either turning right into a residential area, or doing a loop-the-loop to turn left onto Norton Road. I couldn't believe that they put a solid+broken line rather than double whites to keep the traffic coming the opposite way at bay. Even at night, I can't imagine that any oncoming traffic* would use the solid+broken to overtake, because it would involve doing so on a long blind curve.
*Other than Truvelo, perhaps!
EDIT: This is dreadful too. To got straight on, you have to use lane 2 of three, but people trying to jump the queue would sometimes use lane 3 on the approach and then dive into lane 2 on the roundabout.
The dualling is nice to see but the real problem lies with the junctions. GSJing the A38 roundabout would be a start, doing the others would make a vast difference. Resurrecting the ambitious 1960s proposals would be fantastic
And yes, I have overtaken on the single lane side of the crawler lane, but that was the existing crawler lane heading from Whittington not the new one.
How would you like your grade separations, Sir? Big and complex.
Truvelo wrote:GSJing the A38 roundabout would be a start, doing the others would make a vast difference.
The physics of GSJing the A38 roundabout are mind boggling, due to the proximity of the River Severn! Once fully dualled I think the junction won't be as bad - the roundabout has been significantly increased in size. (cue a Truvelo map)
Truvelo wrote:No, it stops at the river. The roundabouts west of there would simply have flyovers above them.
Frankly anything would be an improvement. I used to think it was nuts to have a normal S2 section of road in the middle of it all, between A38 and A449.
And dualling the last piece west of the A449 would have stopped people flashing at me when I used the very wide width of the road to make perfectly safe overtaking manoeuvres, the cheeky so-and-soes.
Owain wrote:And dualling the last piece west of the A449
Ironically, west of the A449 is the only bit of the A4440 that is future proofed for D2, look at the bridges in GSV.
That last piece - which is largely empty - comes as one hell of a relief after the bumper-to-bumper near-gridlock of the previous sections. During the last couple of years I used it, there were temporary "Police Speed Check" signs on it, but I never saw them there.
I see the work continues apace between Norton and Whittington, though there seems to be an interesting bottleneck developing under the railway bridge. This can't be permanent, surely...?
Last edited by Steven on Mon Oct 17, 2016 17:15, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:Merged into existing thread
chaseracer wrote:I see the work continues apace between Norton and Whittington, though there seems to be an interesting bottleneck developing under the railway bridge. This can't be permanent, surely...?
It's going to be an interesting situation - D2 either side of the bridge with S2+1 (presumably) for a few hundred yards underneath it.
Cynical me thinks they'll wait to see how things pan out before deciding if they should go ahead with widening through the bridge. It may be that traffic copes well with that setup (and I suspect it might be ok), in which case they may decide to save the money,
chaseracer wrote:I see the work continues apace between Norton and Whittington, though there seems to be an interesting bottleneck developing under the railway bridge. This can't be permanent, surely...?
It's going to be an interesting situation - D2 either side of the bridge with S2+1 (presumably) for a few hundred yards underneath it.
Cynical me thinks they'll wait to see how things pan out before deciding if they should go ahead with widening through the bridge. It may be that traffic copes well with that setup (and I suspect it might be ok), in which case they may decide to save the money,
Surely by leaving the bridge as a single carriageway and only 2 lanes, maybe three, it sets at nought all the time and expense of the dualling, because the capacity of the road is governed by the most restrictive section, which is, of course, the bridge.
fras wrote:
Surely by leaving the bridge as a single carriageway and only 2 lanes, maybe three, it sets at nought all the time and expense of the dualling, because the capacity of the road is governed by the most restrictive section, which is, of course, the bridge.
The main issue here is queuing for the roundabouts, by enlarging the roundabouts and having 2 through lanes on each, they are massively increasing capacity through the junctions.
Heading downhill, where the bridge is and will potentially be a single lane, largely has it's capacity already constrained by a single lane of traffic coming off the roundabout using a bypass lane (traffic coming out of Worcester and turning right is fairly light in the grand scheme of things), thus I suspect won't actually cause too many problems if the bridge was left in place as is. The length of D2 prior to the bridge will be long enough for traffic to 'sort itself out' prior to merging into a single lane, before being able to split again to queue and pass through the next roundabout.
There aren't many places where a single lane link between two D2 sections could work, however this may just work.
It's all theory anyway, as the plan is to rebuild the bridge and dual under it.
Southern Link Road planned improvements (Phase Details) (2).jpg Image from Worcester News
The dualling of the A4440 southern link road in Worcester is underway. Phase 1 and 2 (The A38 roundabout and partial dualling east of there) have already been completed. Phase 3 is in progress, which involves dualling from the end of phase 2 up to the A44 at Whittington. This will involve somehow widening both the railway bridge and farm bridge which are in this section.
Phase 4 is still having it's business case being prepared is dualling between the A38 and A449 including the Carrington Bridge over the River Severn which is currently a massive bottleneck. They are certainly doing it in order of easiest to hardest!
Don't have any photos to share at the moment, I only ever pass it at night! It's a much needed scheme that is many years overdue.
I drove through the roundabout that was under phase 2 earlier this year at night and as it didnt have good signage I ended up going the wrong way! I ended up looping back on myself!
Carrington Bridge is one of two road crossings of the River Severn and its flood plain in Worcestershire. It was constructed in 1985 as part of the Worcester Southern Bypass, the A4440. On the eastern side of the bridge is a roundabout with the A38, while a short distance to the west is a roundabout with the A449.
Due to the proximity to the roundabout, combined with the sheer volume of traffic on the S2 A4440, traffic can be found regularly at a standstill
The river isn't a problem. It just means additional bridges are required alongside the existing one.
How about the A4440 not meeting the A38 directly and just flying over it, then at the next roundabout there could be a road back to the A38 roundabout? Could you do another map like that?
