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We need to talk about Wisley
National Highways are spending a third of a billion pounds rebuilding one of the most congested junctions on the M25. Is it money well spent?
Oxford's Ground Zero
Oxford's Zero Emission Zone is just a trial, but transport policy in Oxford has become the catalyst for pitched battles and drawn in protestors from across the UK. What's happening to this genteel university town?
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It’s been a quiet year for Roads.org.uk, but we will be back to our usual schedule soon.
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Thelwall Viaduct
Thousands of vehicles travel the M6 between the M56 and M62 each day. They all cross the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, and the bridge that carries them is notorious from travel reports nationwide. But what does it actually look like from the ground?
The criticism of the designers of this junction is unfair. It was designed around 60 years ago for half, or less, traffic than now uses it. The designers also assumed that the major turning move M62E to M1S (& v/v) would be reduced by another motorway between M1 J39 & M62 J25. The junction is too close to M1J41 so the compact design used mitigates that. The B6135 runs just to the north of the M62 and the same level as it, and a railway line ran to the east of the M1 & at the same level as it (the designers of the junction, and everyone else, never foresaw the closure of the line & the pits it served); the constraints these features put on possible sliproad alignments, both horizontally and vertically, were severe. Finally, it's not in the middle of nowhere, eg the township of Lofthouse straggles along the A61 just east of the M1 & the main railway line between West Yorkshire and London, Birmingham etc is just to the south.