Where is it?
The point where a recently built and vitally important east-west link, the A14, meets a spur from the A1 allowing access between the A14 to the east and the A1 to the north.
With the completion of the A14 Cambridge-Huntingdon upgrade works in late 2019, this junction is no longer part of the A14 and no longer a Bad Junction.
What's wrong with it?
Quite aside from the fact that three arms of this four-way junction are numbered A14 (the fake one is the one to the north, which is a four mile spur to the A1 further north), this junction gets its priorities all wrong. The main flow of traffic is on the A14 between the east and west, meaning that most traffic has to negotiate the roundabout.
Coming westbound, there are huge gantry signs to alert motorists to the fact they have to turn off at this exit to stay on the same road. If you look closely at the aerial photo, you can see the problems this causes — the photo actually shows traffic backing up on the A14 to the east and the westbound off-slip.
Why is it wrong?
The A14 is a new road, but rather than being new build (aside from a few short bits) it's mostly cobbled together out of bits of other road. This section used to be the A604 (under the roundabout) which at the time took the main traffic flow. When the A14 came, it needed to turn off the A604 alignment and head west, but the junction wasn't altered.
What would be better?
It's hard to say, but there are lots of ideas floating around. The government's multi-modal study reccommends a whole new A14 alignment that avoids Huntingdon and this whole mess by a good few miles.
Right to reply
The Highways Agency have recently installed lights at this junction. I'm fortunate not to have to use this at peak times but it does seem to be mentioned less on travel reports now.
Have things improved? It strikes me that they have missed an obvious trick here. One of the main traffic movements here is actually one of the easiest to cater for. A free flow link from the northbound A14 (from M11) onto the westbound direction (towards M1/M6) would by-pass the roundabout with its lights, removing the frustrating and dangerous queues on the slip road.
I imagine the reason for not doing this (apart from cost) is that to access the nearby business park from the west you have to do a full circuit of the roundabout. You would then have to fight your way across such a free flow slip road if it were built. The access to this should never have been put so close to the roundabout. As for east/southbound traffic you will just have to wait to 2010? 2012? ...for something which should have been done in 1994.
As mentioned, there can't be a filter lane (or two) for all that westbound traffic due to the business park. However, I think a more pressing issue here is the backing up of traffic onto the eastern part of the westbound carriageway.
The only thing necessary to fix this would be to repaint the road so that both lanes turned off to join the roundabout, with a "slip road" diverging from the /right/ of those lanes to continue towards the A1(M). It would certainly be an unconventional layout, but it would be safer and less confusing for drivers, as it wouldn't feel like a TOTSO any more.
I suppose with the imminent final approval of the A14 Huntingdon to Cambridge bypass plans, we'll finally see an end to this ghastly junction, when construction is completed, as no doubt it will be downgraded and perhaps converted to a single level at-grade roundabout to serve the ever expanding Huntingdon. Not the grand method I was hoping, but hey, at least we'll be getting a new three lane A14 to the south and a widened A1 to the west!
This is indeed a very silly junction: my family sometimes use the A14 on the journey north from London and more than once we have failed to spot the turn-off-to-stay-on and ended up on the A1 northbound - on one occassion doing a little loop round the outskirts of Huntingdon to get back on track again. This is easily done especially in bad weather and when engaged in conversation with a passenger. My uncle got caught out by this junction the other day, but was at least able to enjoy the delights of Grantham services and the Nottingham Ring Road...
This is a stupid junction.
Travelling along any given road should never have to involve the action of turning off it - in order to stay on it (I know this happens elsewhere - the M25 has something just as mind-bogglingly dumb - but that's no excuse!).
Travelling Westbound, it's bad enough that the peak-time queues back up along the A14, effectively reducing it to a single lane and causing dangerous road conditions. It's even worse as you sit there in your pointless queue and gaze to your right in envy at the occasional vehicle travelling on it's merry way towards the A1...with two clear lanes to choose from!
In the opposite direction, once you have fought your way through all the confused drivers around the pointless roundabout, you find that the A14 isn't the main road you thought it was, and is in fact a mere access ramp on to a spur road, off the A1.
In both directions, the priority and emphasis is all wrong. All I can think is that during the planning of this, some faceless half-wit must have decided that most A14 users should be heading up the A1, and designed the junction accordingly.
...or maybe they just wanted to make it some sort of initiative test?
As Chris has pointed out, at one time before the A14 ran West from here, the A604 used to run North under the roundabout here and that took most of the traffic. That's why it's like it is now. It's no excuse though,
The Fen Ditton-Ellington bypass will solve this terrible excuse for a major junction.
They should do something like they did with the A45 - A46 Bad Junction.
With the impending completion of the A14 Huntingdon Bypass, I do wonder if this junction will be left in its current form. As the current A14 running straight through the junction will see a natural sheer drop in traffic, it'll be very odd if they leave it in-situ. Perhaps an at-grade roundabout would be appropriate? Regardless, when the bypass is complete and takes the A14's current heavy burden, this appalling junction will have cheated its way out of this list!
This junction will NOT remain in its current form after the new A14 Huntingdon bypass (Fen Ditton to Ellington) is opened, although I do not know how soon it will change.
What is now the A14 south from here to Godmanchester is to be closed completely; the bridge over the railway is to be demolished because it is life-expired.
Quite what will happen to this (A14 - A141) junction I do not know; local readers may be able to enlighten us further.
The current A14 southwards from this junction will remain open once the A14(M) Huntingdon Southern Bypass opens. The viaduct across the railway is indeed going to close, but the existing dual carriageway will be diverted at either end of the viaduct to connect to the B1514 Brampton Road on the level. That means there will be no particular reason why the junction will have to be remodelled, unless you have specific information that it will be changed?
At least leave the stretch from entry onto the old A14 from the back of StIves to the first roundabout alone.
I have suffered traffic jams there for 20 years going from stives to Cambridge. At last it is a peaceful bridlepath running parallel to the intimidating 'TO THE NORTH' multilane horror. Friends suggest to me that you hired a North Country road designer to get the red wall revenge on us southerners.
I haven't hired anybody - I just run a hobby website in my spare time! You might want to speak to Highways England, but at this stage any plans they might have for your local road will have been fixed long ago, and are unlikely to be changed.
The aforementioned bridge further south is due to have gone by 2022 (at an estimated cost of £46 million). It didn't really earn it's pay either as it was only built in the 1970s and had a lot spent on it as well. Good riddance I say.
The major problem with this junction is when travelling from west to east. The green signs and the road markings give differing information about whether the A14 is straight over or right. And this is compounded by people going straight over from the right hand lane and turning right from the left hand lane. The number of near misses I see is extraordinary.