M1 - M62 Comments

Yes, I think adding new free-flow slips between the western M62 and the southbound M1 would be the obvious next step. If this was done, the west-facing slips from the roundabout, along with the eastern side of the roundabout itself, could be removed, reducing the original junction to something resembling M4-M32. Close enough to a full free-flow junction for me...

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.

They have made the M62 through the junction two lanes each way now with the old inside lane being used a long slip road off the motorway and nice flowing slip back onto the M62 from the roundabout. Still insanely busy though!

There's an important point about the design genius that is the Lofthouse Interchange - although there's a free-flowing link from M1/M621 southbound to M62 westbound, there's only a half-hearted attempt to do the opposite. Northbound M1 traffic from the M62 eastbound has to share the start of the slip-road with the Wakefield/Sheffield/London traffic bound for the roundabout. So at peak times the quickest way north is to forsake this junction by overtaking the long queue of turning traffic and proceed to J30 and use the A642 - and onto the very road that the A1/M1 link was built to by-pass!

I'm the proud owner of The National Trust Book of Bridges which lists this interchange in its gazetteer of UK bridges.

Built in 1966 by S. M. Lovell, the intersection features an "800-foot diameter roundabout carried on four bridges over the two motorways... supported on curved prestressed concrete piers with inclined precast props of crucifom section". So there you go, I always wanted to know that too. It also has a nice little photo, with a deserted M1, a westbound M62 still under construction and ending at this junction, with no eastbound motorway at all (presumably taken shortly after the M1 opening).

I regularly use the Yorkshire link [new M1 section] to and from Manchester area. Off peak it is brilliant, you hardly need to change down and rarely need to brake.

The tunnel section M1(S) to M62(W) is fine but needs speed control lights in or after the tunnel. The the 50mph section under the M1 changes to 'National Speed Limit' giving one just enough time to accelerate to 70mph to join the westbound M62 crawling along at 15mph. Doh!

Austin Madelaine's comments are particularly unjustified.

My father worked as a bridge designer and worked on the M62 when it was being built, and has worked on other road schemes since.

He said of the Stocksbridge bypass that came off an "-A" juction of the M1 that it should have been dual carriageway but that the politicians stopped it - there have been several fatal accidents. I am sure that the same short sightedness for this junction came from the Politicians NOT the designers - designers get "briefs" and not a "free-hand".

What idiot designed this junction! Wherever two motorways meet there should always be a free flowing junction where possible. The M1 and M62 junction has lots of land nearby that could have been used. The M62 where it meets the M6 is a joy to swoop round.