A5150

The A5150 is a short link road in north London. It has just one street name, Colindeep Lane, and it has no junctions with classified roads other than at its end points. The road was originally the western half of the B551 and gained its present number following construction of the M1.

Colindale

I'll begin at the Colindale end, the junction with the A5. The road opposite is an industrial shopping estate, with a Matalan among others. The A5 is, of course, non-primary at this point with the A41 being the classified route that runs pretty much parallel; Colindeep Lane provides the easiest link between them, well certainly the straightest anyway. The A5, though, servers as a shopping area - known as Edgware Road at this point, between The Hyde and Burnt Oak Broadway.

Coming off the A5 you are generally heading East, possibly East-South-East. The road is generally residential, it is one lane each way and no buses go down this road (yet). I've never known there to be any major traffic jams on this road. There are a few mini-roundabouts to encounter on the way, and the roads on the right are also routes through to the A5. There are no through routes though to Colindale Avenue / Aerodrome Road, with the Northern Line among others things getting in the way of that.

As you get closer to the A41 you see Metro Breakers on the right(they sell used parts from scrapped cars) and you can just about see the Police Training College on the left across the Northern Line. The RAF museum isn't far from there either - it's in Grahame Park Road but that is unclassified (and not that straightforward to get from here by road) so won't appear on these pages.

Then the road becomes a dual carriageway with 2 lanes for Eastbound traffic as you cross the Midland Main Line and the M1. The M1 acts as the border between NW9 and NW4 so you are now in Hendon. The central reservation briefly disappears and we reach a trumpet junction on the A41. In the unlikely event that you are going North on the A41 you have a simple slip-lane down (this is partially two-way as it also provides residential access). If you intend to go South you pass under the A41 then go round in a loop, and you are given quite a long slip-lane to "blend in".

Coming from the A41 to the A5150, you get access only from the Northbound carriageway, and you are actually going "ahead" as the A41 bends around to head towards the A1 at Fiveways Corner. In fact, as the speed limit drops from 40mph to 30mph you are going down a hill and they had to put in traffic calming to slow the traffic down (no speed cameras though). The road is a dual-carriageway at this point, of course. Southbound A41 traffic that wishes to go into Colindeep Lane must proceed on to the junction with the A504 and do a U-turn there. I think it is legal to U-turn there - there is a specific right-turn phase. (That traffic light has 4 phases).

Original Author(s): Earl Purple