In message , at 16:24:25 on
Mon, 24 Jun 2019, Recliner remarked:

It's quite clear they simply don't care how much they disrupt the
traffic, for years on end.

That probably wouldn't be a permitted option with the M25 at Heathrow.

I'm sure they'll have pressure to reduce the disruption a little. But
nothing as drastic as your plan has ever happened before. Well, perhaps
since they stuck a platform over Oxford Circus overnight, to rebuild the
ticket hall, when I was a lad.

But in those days they'd re-lay whole major station throats in a matter
of days, not months.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 17:54:39 on Wed, 19 Jun
2019, tim... remarked:

[route for the M25]

The only disruption will come at the end, when the traffic is
diverted to the new route. My guess is that the northbound traffic
will be moved first, with a few weeks of lane 1 closures required
while they connect the new to the old carriageways, then an
overnight closure for the final switch to be made. The same
procedure would then be followed a few months later to divert the
southbound carriageway to the new alignment.

The amount of work you would be expecting them to do "overnight" beggars
belief.

I disagree.

Build the two new carriageways. At each end, cut them off very close to
the edge of northbound lane 1 (there's no hard shoulder, right? if there
is, adjust description accordingly).

Cone off northbound lane 1. Spend a week or two filling in the narrow
gap between the old and new northbounds at each end.

Not sure that you even need a closure to switch over. Simply move all
the cones.

Repeat for the southbound (though this time you're closing lane 4).

Yes, that's what I'm expecting.

I have never in my life seen construction companies do this

For once I agree with Tim.

While it's not quite the M25, the A14 is one of the busiest dual
carriageways in the country.

They've recently finished (ahead of schedule) building the green-fields
bypass round the southwest of Huntingdon, and now just need to splice it
onto the old road towards Cambridge and the M11.

Plenty of opportunity to stagger this, achieve it by some crafty
re-arrangement of bollards etc.

But no. They've closed the road from 9pm yesterday until 5am on Monday.

ps The competition now is to see how long the new road takes to get on
various mapping sites, satnavs etc. Tom Tom's doing the best, fsvo,
with not just the road but as I type a 3.5mile eastbound queue on it
before it's even open. Contractors vehicles, the speculation is.
--
Roland Perry

On 07/12/2019 15:49, Roland Perry wrote:

While it's not quite the M25, the A14 is one of the busiest dual
carriageways in the country.

They've recently finished (ahead of schedule) building the green-fields
bypass round the southwest of Huntingdon, and now just need to splice it
onto the old road towards Cambridge and the M11.

Plenty of opportunity to stagger this, achieve it by some crafty
re-arrangement of bollards etc.

But no. They've closed the road from 9pm yesterday until 5am on Monday.

ps The competition now is to see how long the new road takes to get on
Â*Â* various mapping sites, satnavs etc. Tom Tom's doing the best, fsvo,
Â*Â* with not just the road but as I type a 3.5mile eastbound queue on it
Â*Â* before it's even open. Contractors vehicles, the speculation is.

It's surprising that the new alignment starts east of Fenstanton. Over 7
miles of existing dual carriageway with every junction already grade
separated is partly being removed and partly becoming very quiet.
Admittedly the new alignment is 3+3 where the old one was 2+2, but it
still looks like they had money to burn.

--
Basil Jet recently enjoyed listening to
Various Artists - 1988 - Fast 'N' Bulbous.. A Tribute To Captain Beefheart

In message , at 18:24:11 on Sat, 7 Dec 2019,
Basil Jet remarked:
On 07/12/2019 15:49, Roland Perry wrote:
While it's not quite the M25, the A14 is one of the busiest dual
carriageways in the country.
They've recently finished (ahead of schedule) building the
green-fields bypass round the southwest of Huntingdon, and now just
need to splice it onto the old road towards Cambridge and the M11.
Plenty of opportunity to stagger this, achieve it by some crafty
re-arrangement of bollards etc.
But no. They've closed the road from 9pm yesterday until 5am on
Monday.
ps The competition now is to see how long the new road takes to get
on
** various mapping sites, satnavs etc. Tom Tom's doing the best, fsvo,
** with not just the road but as I type a 3.5mile eastbound queue on it
** before it's even open. Contractors vehicles, the speculation is.

It's surprising that the new alignment starts east of Fenstanton. Over
7 miles of existing dual carriageway with every junction already grade
separated is partly being removed and partly becoming very quiet.
Admittedly the new alignment is 3+3 where the old one was 2+2, but it
still looks like they had money to burn.

The viaduct on the old dual carriageway, over the ECML, is life expired
(and some) and that section is only 2-lane and not practical to widen,
and hugely congested.

So the solution is to bypass the whole sorry mess, and downgrade the old
route to "local", including a diversion down to ground level (the
railway is in a cutting) and back up, to get past the line.

As for money to burn, it started as a toll road, but then got swept up
into a government-funded "shovels ready" project to stimulate the
economy due to the construction jobs created.
--
Roland Perry

"Basil Jet" wrote in message
...
On 07/12/2019 15:49, Roland Perry wrote:

While it's not quite the M25, the A14 is one of the busiest dual
carriageways in the country.

They've recently finished (ahead of schedule) building the green-fields
bypass round the southwest of Huntingdon, and now just need to splice it
onto the old road towards Cambridge and the M11.

Plenty of opportunity to stagger this, achieve it by some crafty
re-arrangement of bollards etc.

But no. They've closed the road from 9pm yesterday until 5am on Monday.

ps The competition now is to see how long the new road takes to get on
various mapping sites, satnavs etc. Tom Tom's doing the best, fsvo,
with not just the road but as I type a 3.5mile eastbound queue on it
before it's even open. Contractors vehicles, the speculation is.

It's surprising that the new alignment starts east of Fenstanton. Over 7
miles of existing dual carriageway with every junction already grade
separated is partly being removed and partly becoming very quiet.

not sure which bit (new or old) you are referring to,

but the original road was totally inadequate, it needed to be at least 3+3
or preferably 4+4.

I think the replacement is to be 3+3 plus a 1+1 local road

And there were too many junctions, too close together, and whilst they were
grade separated they were not all high speed turnouts.

The number of junctions onto the dual carriageway has been reduced with
other roads just joining onto the local road.

Admittedly the new alignment is 3+3 where the old one was 2+2, but it
still looks like they had money to burn.

HMG challenged people to come up with a cheaper solution that would solve
the problem

no-one did

tim

In message , at 19:25:36 on Sat, 7 Dec 2019,
tim... remarked:


"Basil Jet" wrote in message
...
On 07/12/2019 15:49, Roland Perry wrote:

While it's not quite the M25, the A14 is one of the busiest dual
carriageways in the country.

They've recently finished (ahead of schedule) building the
green-fields bypass round the southwest of Huntingdon, and now just
to splice it onto the old road towards Cambridge and the M11.

Plenty of opportunity to stagger this, achieve it by some crafty
re-arrangement of bollards etc.

But no. They've closed the road from 9pm yesterday until 5am on Monday.

ps The competition now is to see how long the new road takes to get on
various mapping sites, satnavs etc. Tom Tom's doing the best, fsvo,
with not just the road but as I type a 3.5mile eastbound queue on it
before it's even open. Contractors vehicles, the speculation is.

It's surprising that the new alignment starts east of Fenstanton.
Over 7 miles of existing dual carriageway with every junction already
grade separated is partly being removed and partly becoming very quiet.

not sure which bit (new or old) you are referring to,

but the original road was totally inadequate, it needed to be at least
3+3 or preferably 4+4.

I think the replacement is to be 3+3 plus a 1+1 local road

And there were too many junctions, too close together, and whilst they
were grade separated they were not all high speed turnouts.

And "grade separated" has nuances. It doesn't really apply to a junction
where the majority of the traffic has to negotiate a roundabout, even if
a minority sails through on an underpass.

The number of junctions onto the dual carriageway has been reduced with
other roads just joining onto the local road.

Admittedly the new alignment is 3+3 where the old one was 2+2, but it
still looks like they had money to burn.

HMG challenged people to come up with a cheaper solution that would
solve the problem

no-one did

tim

--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...

As for money to burn, it started as a toll road, but then got swept up
into a government-funded "shovels ready" project to stimulate the economy
due to the construction jobs created.

And there was me thinking that after the M6T disaster all of the
constriction companies told HMG to "go swivel" when they sounded them out
about taking on the risk of the tolling

tim


--
Roland Perry

In message , at 23:53:02 on Sat, 7 Dec 2019,
tim... remarked:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...

As for money to burn, it started as a toll road, but then got swept
up into a government-funded "shovels ready" project to stimulate the
economy due to the construction jobs created.

And there was me thinking that after the M6T disaster all of the
constriction companies told HMG to "go swivel" when they sounded them
out about taking on the risk of the tolling

The difference with the A14, and why being a toll road was always a
rather dodgy public policy decision, is that it would effectively have a
monopoly on that particular flow, something which could never have been
said about the M6T. Think more like the Dartford Crossing.
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 23:53:02 on Sat, 7 Dec 2019,
tim... remarked:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...

As for money to burn, it started as a toll road, but then got swept up
into a government-funded "shovels ready" project to stimulate the
economy due to the construction jobs created.

And there was me thinking that after the M6T disaster all of the
constriction companies told HMG to "go swivel" when they sounded them out
about taking on the risk of the tolling

The difference with the A14, and why being a toll road was always a rather
dodgy public policy decision, is that it would effectively have a monopoly
on that particular flow, something which could never have been said about
the M6T. Think more like the Dartford Crossing.

AIUI it wasn't suggested as a monopoly as the plan was to have through
traffic tolled, local traffic un-tolled.

And the insurmountable problem with that was "how do you construct it so
that it is fair to local traffic without having a non-negligible volume of
through traffic trying to become local traffic and clogging up the local
route, whilst leaving the through route underused".

tim

On Sat, 7 Dec 2019 15:49:26 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 17:54:39 on Wed, 19 Jun
2019, tim... remarked:

[route for the M25]

The only disruption will come at the end, when the traffic is
diverted to the new route. My guess is that the northbound traffic
will be moved first, with a few weeks of lane 1 closures required
while they connect the new to the old carriageways, then an
overnight closure for the final switch to be made. The same
procedure would then be followed a few months later to divert the
southbound carriageway to the new alignment.

The amount of work you would be expecting them to do "overnight" beggars
belief.

I disagree.

Build the two new carriageways. At each end, cut them off very close to
the edge of northbound lane 1 (there's no hard shoulder, right? if there
is, adjust description accordingly).

Cone off northbound lane 1. Spend a week or two filling in the narrow
gap between the old and new northbounds at each end.

Not sure that you even need a closure to switch over. Simply move all
the cones.

Repeat for the southbound (though this time you're closing lane 4).

Yes, that's what I'm expecting.

I have never in my life seen construction companies do this

For once I agree with Tim.

While it's not quite the M25, the A14 is one of the busiest dual
carriageways in the country.

They've recently finished (ahead of schedule) building the green-fields
bypass round the southwest of Huntingdon, and now just need to splice it
onto the old road towards Cambridge and the M11.

And don't the local residents know it. I have some relatives who live in a
village near there. 2 years ago it was lovely green fields down the road
from their house , now theres a bloody dual carraigeway with all the
accompanying noise and pollution they'll soon have to enjoy to follow on from
all the construction work. All so trucks can save 10 mins on their way from
Felixstow instead of putting the containers on trains where they should be.