M
Matt B
Guest
[email protected] wrote:
> On 4 Sep, 17:09, Matt B <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Adrian Godwin wrote:
>>> But I'm not so stupid that I want to fix it with more tarmac - that's
>>> been tried for years,
>> In the century, or so, since the motor vehicle has come to prominence
>> how much dedicated network have we built to support it - about 2000
>> miles! The same as the Romans managed 2000 years ago! One-tenth of
>> that that the railway engineers managed!
>
> Route miles, or "lane" miles? Taking London to Birmingham to be 100
> miles (it's a bit more actually), a single track road provides 100
> route miles and 100 lane miles. Single carriageway - one lane in each
> direction - is 200 lane miles. Were Roman roads wide enough for
> passing? Think so, but I'm not sure, but assuming yes, this would be
> 200 lane miles for them. London to Birmingham can be done on the M1/M6
> or M40 which are both a minimum of 6 lanes (3 in each direction), so
> this route has a minimum of 1200 lane miles, 6 times what the Romans
> had.
All sound points, and I accept your logic, but...
> Apply this to our motorway network and I think you'll get rather more
> than 2000 miles, and it's a much better measure of capacity.
.... all the lanes are going between the same places and on the same
route though. Even a minor incident on one of the lanes causes havoc
for _all_ of the lanes. With this "backbone" type stategy, the bcakbone
is the bottleneck. Better to have two two-lane (each way) motorways,
than one four-lane one, even if their routes are parallel. Better still
to have two two-lane motorways taking complementary routes.
> Add to
> that long stretches of 70 mph dual carriageway such as the A9 in
> Scotland which while not technically dedicated was built solely for
> motorised transport and is barely used by anything else and you'll get
> a bigger number still.
They tend to be compromised though, with at-grade roundabouts and
junctions, and the odd tractor, combine harvester or even bicycle race
or time trial.
>>> it doesn't work and never will.
>> We have never tried it. We provide networks to solve other
>> communication problems, so why not for motor vehicles?
>
> It's been tried in LA, a city that came in to existence with the motor
> car. Look at a map and you'll see masses of freeways, but they still
> clog up, and they were (I believe) one of the first with multi-
> occupancy lanes (i.e. min. number of people in the car). Motoring
> taxes are lower, petrol is cheap, and they still have road rage.
One city, yes. I'm talking about a inter, rather than intra, city, a
national network, to improve times, and journey consistency, between
towns and cities, and to take heavy, long-distance traffic off of our
historic public road network, to allow it to be used once again by the
communities it was build by, and for.
I want motor traffic to be able to travel from Ipswich to London,
Birmingham, or Hull, or from Southampton to Dover, Birmingham, or
Cardiff, or from Holyhead to Birmingham, Dover, or Cardiff, from Stoke
to Sheffield or Nottingham, from King's Lynn to Nottingham or
Northampton, without leaving the motorway. I want the M25 to be used as
originally envisaged, to circle London to the required entrance route,
not as the only available route for _all_ routes between anywhere on the
M1, M40, M4, M3, M23, M26, M2, M11, and somewhere else on another one of
those - it's crazy. What about motorways serving anywhere west of
Exeter, or anywhere east of Cambridge, or practically anywhere in Wales
or off the Glasgow-Edinburgh-Perth axis in Scotland, or the major towns
in the triangle between Birmingham, London, and Bristol. We need to
have a choice of motorway routes, especially between major centres,
similar to that provided by the M6 and M6T, to allow diversions in case
of accidents, etc., without the classic several-hour hold-ups we often
suffer due to a relatively minor incident.
Take a look at the motorway map of Belgium and the Netherlands, or large
parts of Germany to see progress in this respect.
--
Matt B
> On 4 Sep, 17:09, Matt B <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Adrian Godwin wrote:
>>> But I'm not so stupid that I want to fix it with more tarmac - that's
>>> been tried for years,
>> In the century, or so, since the motor vehicle has come to prominence
>> how much dedicated network have we built to support it - about 2000
>> miles! The same as the Romans managed 2000 years ago! One-tenth of
>> that that the railway engineers managed!
>
> Route miles, or "lane" miles? Taking London to Birmingham to be 100
> miles (it's a bit more actually), a single track road provides 100
> route miles and 100 lane miles. Single carriageway - one lane in each
> direction - is 200 lane miles. Were Roman roads wide enough for
> passing? Think so, but I'm not sure, but assuming yes, this would be
> 200 lane miles for them. London to Birmingham can be done on the M1/M6
> or M40 which are both a minimum of 6 lanes (3 in each direction), so
> this route has a minimum of 1200 lane miles, 6 times what the Romans
> had.
All sound points, and I accept your logic, but...
> Apply this to our motorway network and I think you'll get rather more
> than 2000 miles, and it's a much better measure of capacity.
.... all the lanes are going between the same places and on the same
route though. Even a minor incident on one of the lanes causes havoc
for _all_ of the lanes. With this "backbone" type stategy, the bcakbone
is the bottleneck. Better to have two two-lane (each way) motorways,
than one four-lane one, even if their routes are parallel. Better still
to have two two-lane motorways taking complementary routes.
> Add to
> that long stretches of 70 mph dual carriageway such as the A9 in
> Scotland which while not technically dedicated was built solely for
> motorised transport and is barely used by anything else and you'll get
> a bigger number still.
They tend to be compromised though, with at-grade roundabouts and
junctions, and the odd tractor, combine harvester or even bicycle race
or time trial.
>>> it doesn't work and never will.
>> We have never tried it. We provide networks to solve other
>> communication problems, so why not for motor vehicles?
>
> It's been tried in LA, a city that came in to existence with the motor
> car. Look at a map and you'll see masses of freeways, but they still
> clog up, and they were (I believe) one of the first with multi-
> occupancy lanes (i.e. min. number of people in the car). Motoring
> taxes are lower, petrol is cheap, and they still have road rage.
One city, yes. I'm talking about a inter, rather than intra, city, a
national network, to improve times, and journey consistency, between
towns and cities, and to take heavy, long-distance traffic off of our
historic public road network, to allow it to be used once again by the
communities it was build by, and for.
I want motor traffic to be able to travel from Ipswich to London,
Birmingham, or Hull, or from Southampton to Dover, Birmingham, or
Cardiff, or from Holyhead to Birmingham, Dover, or Cardiff, from Stoke
to Sheffield or Nottingham, from King's Lynn to Nottingham or
Northampton, without leaving the motorway. I want the M25 to be used as
originally envisaged, to circle London to the required entrance route,
not as the only available route for _all_ routes between anywhere on the
M1, M40, M4, M3, M23, M26, M2, M11, and somewhere else on another one of
those - it's crazy. What about motorways serving anywhere west of
Exeter, or anywhere east of Cambridge, or practically anywhere in Wales
or off the Glasgow-Edinburgh-Perth axis in Scotland, or the major towns
in the triangle between Birmingham, London, and Bristol. We need to
have a choice of motorway routes, especially between major centres,
similar to that provided by the M6 and M6T, to allow diversions in case
of accidents, etc., without the classic several-hour hold-ups we often
suffer due to a relatively minor incident.
Take a look at the motorway map of Belgium and the Netherlands, or large
parts of Germany to see progress in this respect.
--
Matt B
