Hi all,

[I'm writing this in the hope that we are all still alive by the time Demon
gets its news server working again.]

I was in Pentavia Retail Park yesterday, which is on the n/b carriageway of
the Watford Way just south of the bridge over Bunns Lane. I wondered why a
place that size didn't have some sort of road bridge or tunnel to and from
the s/b carriageway. I surmised that the inevitable disruption to the
Watford Way during the construction period wasn't worth it.

Subsequently I was gobsmacked to discover that the abandoned slip from the
M1 to the A41, unused since the M1 ceased terminatiing here in the 1970s
(?), is still there in its entirety. It crosses beneath the Watford Way
immediately south of Bunns Lane and immediately north of the Pentavia Retail
Park. At the A41 end the junction is merely blocked by some concrete slabs
sat on the tarmac. The road surface is in ill-repair, and made me think of
the XTC lyric "The grass is always greener when it bursts up through
concrete".

Since the slip is wide enough for two lanes of traffic, especially where it
goes under Watford Way, there is no obvious reason why it could not have
become Pentavia's access to and from the s/b Watford Way, at minimal cost
and with zero disruption to the Watford Way. The only thing I can think of
is that they are preserving the slip road intact for some reason. That would
explain why the junction with the Watford Way has not been "plainlined" even
though the Watford Way must have had its surface replaced once or twice
since the 1970s. The slip road is too big a piece of land to lie unused in
this expensive part of London without a reason. Has it seen any use since
the M1 was extended?

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes