A650

Route

The A650 runs through much of the West Yorkshire conurbation.

Section 1: Keighley – Bradford

The road begins just north of Keighley, as a primary route, at a roundabout where the A629 Aire Valley Road heads towards Skipton. We head east on Hard Ings Road on a 40 mph D2 for a bit, before we arrive at a large roundabout. At this roundabout, the old course of the A650 goes off to the left, numbered as the B6265. This B road is pretty quiet these days and can be followed all the way to the far side of Bingley. Anyway, we digress… At the roundabout, the A650 continues as a 40 mph D2 opened about 15 years ago now. We encounter another roundabout pretty shortly afterwards, going straight on were we become a NSL.

The original road contained a measured mile, which is still signposted, and when this road opened, it had a measured mile too. It's a good opportunity to test your milometer and also to put your foot down. We reach another roundabout, which until recently was the end of the dual carriageway. At this point all traffic had to rejoin the S2 A650, and then queued its way through Bingley, but that's all changed now.

Finally 15 years after being constructed, those unused entry and exit stubs that existed at this roundabout that were begging for a road to be built so that they could be used, got one. I present to you, the award winning Bingley Relief Road.

Bingley Relief Road

It carries on from this roundabout, as an NSL D2 for about the first ¾ mile alongside the railway line, before it becomes a 50 limit road as we wind our way round the back of the town centre. We are well hidden from the town centre, but at times only about 50 yards away from it. We cross the River Aire on a viaduct and come to an end at a large roundabout where the original road meets us from the right. The difference that this road has made to journeys from one side of Bingley to the other is immense. Queues lasting 30 minutes were pretty normal, and the same journey can now take a shade over two minutes.

Anyway, we turn left at the roundabout, becoming a 40 mph S2 and as we head towards Saltaire we then become an entirely justified 30 mph limit road. We continue towards Shipley, which we pass close to. The road becomes a 40 mph limit again as we pass Shipley, heading towards Bradford on Manningham Lane. As we cross the A6177 Outer Ring Road, we lose our primary designation that we will regain on the far side of the city.

We reach the Bradford Inner Ring Road, A6181 and lose our A650 designation for about ¼ mile as we head down to join the Aire Valley Road again. We turn onto the Aire Valley Road that takes the A650 number for itself. This road was built about 15 years ago to alleviate heavy traffic in Bradford City Centre and is a Dual Carriageway with anything between two and five lanes in each direction. The road is partly built on the site of Arnold Laver's old timber mill that burnt down rather spectacularly in 1984. Anyway we cross the A658 and then the A647 before we leave the centre of Bradford.

Section 2: Bradford – Wakefield

We fork left off the Inner Ring, and begin to climb out of the bowl that the city sits in, on a D3. We carry straight on at a number of roundabouts, and pass underneath the Outer Ring, A6177 at a GSJ. At this point we regain our primary status. Shortly after this the road becomes an S2 with a 30 limit, which it remains for the next two miles as we pass through a large number of traffic lights, local road junctions and retail park junctions. Even during supposedly quiet times of the day, this is a very busy section of road.

A651 junction in Tong

The A651 forks right down towards Birkenshaw, but we keep straight on as we make our way towards the M62. We become a 40MPH limit road for a short while before we arrive at a roundabout that marks one end of the Drighlington Bypass.

At this point the original line of the A650 goes straight on through the village, numbered as the B6135. However we turn towards the right, lose the 40 and become a wide NSL S2. It meets the A58 at a roundabout and then the B6125 at a staggered junction. After that, traffic from the original road joins in from the left and we arrive at the Gildersome Interchange (M62 J27), a dumbbell-fork hybrid where we meet the M62, A62 and A621 at the northern roundabout. Before the bypass was built, the A650 arrived at this roundabout just next to where it meets it now.

At the other side of the roundabout, the road continues as a 40 mph non-primary S2 as it goes over the M621 and passes close to the town of Morley, crossing the A643 at The Angel crossroads, and the B6123 at a staggered traffic-light junction. The road becomes a D2 again, just before we cross over the M62 and immediately after that we arrive at Tingley roundabout, (M62 J28).

In order to save A650 traffic having to travel around ¾ of the roundabout, we have a road that cuts across the bottom of this roundabout, so we do that (westbound traffic uses the roundabout normally) and head away up a slight hill. We continue on an S2 now as we pass by East Ardsley and then arrive at Junction 41 of the M1. We meet it at a roundabout, and at the other side we become an NSL D2 (now primary again) for the final run into Wakefield. Prior to the motorway being built, the A650 continued just north of its present line, before crossing the present line and then heading south of it; there's now a GSJ onto the old road.

A couple of roundabouts interrupt our journey, before we arrive at another roundabout where the A61 arrives from Leeds. We continue straight on, on our final stretch of D2, before we say goodbye to the A61 to the left. We then continue into the city centre via Wentworth Street, Bond Street, and Bell Street, the route ending on Westgate – the A642 – after a one-way run along Burton Street and Drury Lane (northbound from Westgate the connection is via Mulberry Way).

History

Riddlesden Bypass was section 2 of the Airedale Improvement Scheme. The 2 mile D2 dual carriageway and 0.2 mile S2 spur between Victoria Park, Keighley and Crossflatts was completed in October 1988 (per the Trunk Roads, England, into the 1990's Report). Outturn works cost was £14 million. The Crossflatts spur became the B6265 spur when the A650 Bingley relief road opened in 2003.

Links

legislation.gov.uk

• The A650 Trunk Road (Aireville Road to Hard Ings Roundabout) (Detrunking) Order 2007 - Detrunking of the final section of the route following the 1998 consultation A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England