The study of British and Irish roads - their construction, numbering, history, mapping, past and future official roads proposals and general roads musings.
There is a separate forum for Street Furniture (traffic lights, street lights, road signs etc).
Registered users get access to other forums including discussions about other forms of transport, driving, fantasy roads and wishlists, and roads quizzes.
steve wrote:Have a peep on hunkyash01's site and you will find a decent plan for this link.
Well, it's a well drawn plan - it might not work too well in practice because of the A14/M1 style dual dumbell configuration Probably not altogether that useful, seeing that everything is ready for an actual roundabout to be built....
What would be better would be to leave the roundabout, but also have N/S free flowing slips - otherwise I can see the roundabout becoming overwhelmed very quickly, seeing as it's not 1960 anymore!
I think a modern scheme would have to be motorway rather than A-road standard, with tunneling under the scratchwood, and grade separation of Stirling Corner - it would make the area (particularly the road from Apex Corner to Mill Hill Circus far more pleasant!
But what we're really after is actual plans and things...
steve wrote:Have a peep on hunkyash01's site and you will find a decent plan for this link.
Well, it's a well drawn plan - it might not work too well in practice because of the A14/M1 style dual dumbell configuration Probably not altogether that useful, seeing that everything is ready for an actual roundabout to be built....
What would be better would be to leave the roundabout, but also have N/S free flowing slips - otherwise I can see the roundabout becoming overwhelmed very quickly, seeing as it's not 1960 anymore!
I think a modern scheme would have to be motorway rather than A-road standard, with tunneling under the scratchwood, and grade separation of Stirling Corner - it would make the area (particularly the road from Apex Corner to Mill Hill Circus far more pleasant!
But what we're really after is actual plans and things...
Any plan would have to be a continuation of the A1(M) down to the M1.
I suspect it was plugholed for fear of depositing a whole load of traffic onto the M1 to be dispersed at junctions 1 and 2 however I think this argument is specious because:
1) Junction 2 is a freeflow onto er.. the A1 which means that most of the traffic is the same traffic anyway
2) Traffic that comes down the A1 then takes the A41 still ends up Brent Cross anyway whether it goes via A1/A41 or M1 J3-1
3) As I travel on the railway every day south of Bedford every day it is blindingly obvious that while north of the M25 the M1 motorway running adjacent to the railway is overloaded while south of the M25 the M1 could happily survive as a D2M so there is plenty of capacity for the A1(M) to join at J3
4) The north circular is D3 for several miles each side of the M1 now. I understand that Dear old Ken Livingstone is coming under a lot of flak from locals over his plans to upgrade the missing links - somewhat astoundingly on the grounds that the upgrades do not go far enough and the locals want the full D3 grade separation plans to be reinstated. The main problem is that it would cost about £1 billion and that would pay for an awful lot of public transport or minor road upgrades and it all comes out of the same pot now. Personally I think the North Circular is a national trunk route, as the M1 is and should be nationally funded
.
A303Paul wrote:
4) The north circular is D3 for several miles each side of the M1 now. I understand that Dear old Ken Livingstone is coming under a lot of flak from locals over his plans to upgrade the missing links - somewhat astoundingly on the grounds that the upgrades do not go far enough and the locals want the full D3 grade separation plans to be reinstated. The main problem is that it would cost about £1 billion and that would pay for an awful lot of public transport or minor road upgrades and it all comes out of the same pot now. Personally I think the North Circular is a national trunk route, as the M1 is and should be nationally funded
.
Ken did try to get central government funding when the locals rejected his initial plans for the Bounds Green section of the North Circular and was basically told to get lost by the Treasury. Mind you if even nationally important projects like the A3 Hinhead & A303 Stonehenge upgrades can be shunted onto the "regional schemes" lists (minus the allocated funding of course) then the rejection of extra cash is not a surprise
A303Paul wrote:
4) The north circular is D3 for several miles each side of the M1 now. I understand that Dear old Ken Livingstone is coming under a lot of flak from locals over his plans to upgrade the missing links - somewhat astoundingly on the grounds that the upgrades do not go far enough and the locals want the full D3 grade separation plans to be reinstated. The main problem is that it would cost about £1 billion and that would pay for an awful lot of public transport or minor road upgrades and it all comes out of the same pot now. Personally I think the North Circular is a national trunk route, as the M1 is and should be nationally funded
.
Ken did try to get central government funding when the locals rejected his initial plans for the Bounds Green section of the North Circular and was basically told to get lost by the Treasury. Mind you if even nationally important projects like the A3 Hinhead & A303 Stonehenge upgrades can be shunted onto the "regional schemes" lists (minus the allocated funding of course) then the rejection of extra cash is not a surprise
Meanwhile while no money is available to upgrade a mile of the A406 the money has been found to upgrade the A8 to M8 and build a D3M urban motorway across the centre of Glasgow.
Similarly while the money to rebuild from scratch and electrify a 5 mile long railway branch line to Larkhall (pop 12,000) near Glasgow Darling claims there is no case for reopening the disused but intact Bedford-Milton-Keynes-Bicester-Oxford Route (pop 500,000) and killed off the plan despite is being one of Prescotts 4 growth (ie massive of houses) areas
What do you expect with Alistair "West Lothian" Darling as Transport secretary - the man who plugholed all of Englands tram schemes due to cost inflation (while they were delayed by the DfT) while the Edinburgh Tram Scheme is going ahead because its grant is index linked. Alistair Darling is MP for a constituency in..er.. Edinburgh.
A303Paul wrote:
Darling claims there is no case for reopening the disused but intact Bedford-Milton-Keynes-Bicester-Oxford Route (pop 500,000) and killed off the plan despite is being one of Prescotts 4 growth (ie massive of houses) areas
Thats far from killed off.... its still doing the rounds and expect it to crop up again in the near future. Milton Keynes is getting re-modelled in 2008 and the council is stumping up a load of cash for it, with the proviso that something is done about the Oxford link.....
If I were the treasury I'd have told Ken to naff off as well - he's got a revenue generating congestion charge in Central London - let's see some of that money spent on the scheme....
c2R wrote:If I were the treasury I'd have told Ken to naff off as well - he's got a revenue generating congestion charge in Central London - let's see some of that money spent on the scheme....
The CC dosent create that much revenue. What you could do is borrow to upgrade that section of the north circular and then charge people £5 a go to use it.
steve wrote:Have a peep on hunkyash01's site and you will find a decent plan for this link.
Well, it's a well drawn plan - it might not work too well in practice because of the A14/M1 style dual dumbell configuration Probably not altogether that useful, seeing that everything is ready for an actual roundabout to be built....
What would be better would be to leave the roundabout, but also have N/S free flowing slips - otherwise I can see the roundabout becoming overwhelmed very quickly, seeing as it's not 1960 anymore!
I think a modern scheme would have to be motorway rather than A-road standard, with tunneling under the scratchwood, and grade separation of Stirling Corner - it would make the area (particularly the road from Apex Corner to Mill Hill Circus far more pleasant!
But what we're really after is actual plans and things...
Agree regarding the roundabout. But I think A-road would be sufficient for a start. I don't think the link road would need to take the A1 designation, and I don't think I would have that layout. Perhaps a simple Y interchange south of Stirling Corner, and retain easy access to the A1-south by TOTSO, as there are plenty of drivers who would not want to be routed towards the M1.
It would also be nice to continue that link road towards Spur Road and Stanmore allowing a larger population to use the M1 south. The new road could then be designated as A410!
I've had a bit of a go at preparing a map of my dream-scheme. It isn't much of a professional job, so I hope you photoshop pros will forgive me
It would start at Stirling Corner as an underpass with minimum flaring of the ramps to the existing roundabout alignment. The A1 SB would continue on a similar alignment to today, but the NB would flare to the west and meet the roundabout. The existing A1 south of here would be renumbered A1410, for want of a better number.
The A1 would veer SW towards Scratchwood Services. Ramps from the Stirling Corner roundabout would enable traffic from the A410 to access to M1 too. As suggested above by c2R, the scheme would require a cut-a tunnel under Scratchwood Open Space to minimise the environmental damage.
I've changed my mind about the route designation. I think the link would preferably take the A1 and be signed (A1) on the M1 between Junction 3 and Junction 2. The A41 would lose it's A1 multiplex from Apex Corner to Three-Ways Corner (which is Junction 2 on the M1 anyway).
The new road would continue as A410 over the Midland Mainline railway as D2 to Spur Road in Edgware meeting the A41, which could now be dualled between here and M1/J4. This would serve the new development that is being constructed on the remains of the Spur Road Estate as well as people from Stanmore wishing to reach the A1 and North Circular.
Access to the services would be from the new A410 alignment and exit from the services would be to the M1 NB offramp.
The roundabout at J3 would either be widened as required for NB traffic to the A1 or a new freeflowing directional Y could be built over it to join the A1 at a later stage.
I've had a bit of a go at preparing a map of my dream-scheme. It isn't much of a professional job, so I hope you photoshop pros will forgive me
It would start at Stirling Corner as an underpass with minimum flaring of the ramps to the existing roundabout alignment. The A1 SB would continue on a similar alignment to today, but the NB would flare to the west and meet the roundabout. The existing A1 south of here would be renumbered A1410, for want of a better number.
The A1 would veer SW towards Scratchwood Services. Ramps from the Stirling Corner roundabout would enable traffic from the A410 to access to M1 too. As suggested above by c2R, the scheme would require a cut-a tunnel under Scratchwood Open Space to minimise the environmental damage.
I've changed my mind about the route designation. I think the link would preferably take the A1 and be signed (A1) on the M1 between Junction 3 and Junction 2. The A41 would lose it's A1 multiplex from Apex Corner to Three-Ways Corner (which is Junction 2 on the M1 anyway).
The new road would continue as A410 over the Midland Mainline railway as D2 to Spur Road in Edgware meeting the A41, which could now be dualled between here and M1/J4. This would serve the new development that is being constructed on the remains of the Spur Road Estate as well as people from Stanmore wishing to reach the A1 and North Circular.
Access to the services would be from the new A410 alignment and exit from the services would be to the M1 NB offramp.
The roundabout at J3 would either be widened as required for NB traffic to the A1 or a new freeflowing directional Y could be built over it to join the A1 at a later stage.
you could also call the bypassed bit of the A41 the B4100
In any event, my next project must be to design an improvement for M1-J1 and for the A406/A41 interchange at Brent Cross, to cope with all that additional traffic bypassing Hendon to use the A41 SB or A406 WB.
Here is my attempt at a solution for increased southbound traffic at M1 J1 (if we ever got Scratchwood built as discussed above). My apologies for the poor graphic quality of this "map" but I am rather pressed for time.
A new slip would be built extending the M1 SB off the end of its current stub parallel to the current slip from the A41 WB and over the A41 roundabout and pedestrian paths.
The solution involves diverting the southern end of recently built A41 WB to M1 NB slip into a shallow cutting to the south of its current alignment. The existing alignment would be demolished to enable a gradual ascent of the new M1 SB to A41 WB slip onto a new viaduct to join the A41 WB directly.
Now I just need to deal with the A406 EB / A41 SB...
Basically make M1 J1 a directional T - moving the traffic for the shops off the island making the island into a set of C-D roads will allow this. Traffic for the shops is now from NCR/A41.
Bearing in mind a lot of M1 traffic is for central London (A5 or A41) there is no need to make the C/D roads intersect with the NCR before the NCR/A41 which just allows weaving. Therefore, any M1 traffic wanting to join the NCR has to do so by either the A41 island or A5 island. Not ideal, but given the height of the NCR viaduct then there isn't much of an option to get M1 traffic directly onto it (only to then pull off for A41 or A5).
C, E flat and G go into a bar. The barman says "sorry, we don't serve minors". So E flat walks off, leaving C and G to share an open fifth between them.
Never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Basically make M1 J1 a directional T - moving the traffic for the shops off the island making the island into a set of C-D roads will allow this. Traffic for the shops is now from NCR/A41.
That just dumps traffic off your new flyover onto the A5 rounabout!
"I don't make the rules, ma'am, I just make them up and write them down"
Basically make M1 J1 a directional T - moving the traffic for the shops off the island making the island into a set of C-D roads will allow this. Traffic for the shops is now from NCR/A41.
That just dumps traffic off your new flyover onto the A5 rounabout!
I know, most of the traffic coming down the M1 is City-bound - via A5 and A41 - anyway. Space considerations mean that it's harder to add freeflow C/D to A5 (S) slips or even make extra flyovers/slips to/from the A5 island.
C, E flat and G go into a bar. The barman says "sorry, we don't serve minors". So E flat walks off, leaving C and G to share an open fifth between them.
Never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
And here is an effort at a Scratchwood Link plus A1(M) upgrade from South Mimms to Apex Corner.
To keep away from spontaneous motorway I have had to
- add a bypass from Scratchwood to extend the A410 into the A411 near Stirling Corner
- add the A1081 as a collector road where the M25 took over the alignment of the A6
Stirling Corner was a bit of a fiddle, owing to space considerations and weaving I have had to shift the n/b slips north of the existing island. Other junctions are kept grade separated and local access cut off on the new route.
I have also improved J4 so the ludicrous situation with the A5 not having full access is resolved. Needs a slight diversion of the A41 and adding the junction to dumbells.
C, E flat and G go into a bar. The barman says "sorry, we don't serve minors". So E flat walks off, leaving C and G to share an open fifth between them.
Never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.