On
busy A-roads roundabouts and traffic lights will be stripped out – to
cut delays and transform them into ‘mile-a-minute expressways’.
Details,
included in a strategy by the Highways Agency presented to Parliament,
also include new slip roads to make the roads flow and banning slow
moving vehicles such as tractors and bicycles.
There
are up to 18 A-roads that are likely to be transformed in the first
tranche with seven more to follow. The strategy document says: ‘Our
ambition for the next 25 years is to revolutionise our roads.
’Our
busiest A-Roads will become expressways, providing improved standards
of performance, with technology to manage traffic and mile-a-minute
speeds.
‘Users
of motorways know they can expect a broadly consistent standard from
the whole of their road, and that this ensures they have a safe,
free-moving journey.’
But
it notes: ‘The same is not true of A-roads, where piecemeal upgrades
have often resulted in inconsistency and substandard stretches of the
road that are often less safe and a regular cause of congestion.
‘By
2040, we want to have transformed the most important of these routes
into expressways: A-roads that can be relied upon to be as well-designed
as motorways and which are able to offer the same standard of journey
to users.’
These will be ‘largely or entirely dual carriageway roads’ that are ‘safe, well-built and resilient to delay.
They will be built so that ‘traffic on the main road can pass over or under roundabouts without stopping’.
The strategy document seen by the Daily Mail says: ‘An expressway will be able to provide a high-quality journey to its users.
‘Most expressways should be able to offer mile a minute journeys throughout the day, particularly outside of urban areas.’
The
Highways Agency has presented the Road Investment Strategy to
Parliament ahead of it being transformed on April 1 into the new private
sector roads operator called Highways England.
WHERE THE CHANGES WILL HAPPEN
The
first group of nine expressways is expected to include the A303 and
A30 from the junction with the M3 in Hampshire to Exeter.
The
A1 north of Newcastle, which motorists have long campaigned to be made
into a motorway, is another, as is the A14 from Huntingdon to
Cambridgeshire.
These will also link with up to 400 miles of ‘smart motorways’ where hard shoulders are used at peak times to reduce jams.
A
dual carriageway is planned for ‘the entire A303 from the M3 to the M5
at Taunton’, as well as building a tunnel as the road passes
Stonehenge.
There will also be a new bypass on the A27 at Arundel together with improvements at Worthing and Lancing in West Sussex.
Also
featuring will be construction of the Mottram Moor link road together
with overtaking and safety improvements and duelling the A61 to improve
Trans-Pennine connectivity.
A
range of duelling and junction improvement schemes on the A47/A12
corridor supporting growth at Peterborough, Norwich, Great Yarmouth and
Lowestoft is also planned.
Read Full story
