A56 - A682 Comments

The 50mph speed limit has been in place for a year now and still hasn't changed anything and if it wasn't for some nice people in Whitehall ruining the lives of speed camera operators everywhere I think we could have seen yellow vultures here next before anyone actually attacked the layout and made it better...

I think it's time the HA remarked the northbound exit so that lane 1 was dedicated off, and lane 2 splits. With the reduced speed limit, reduced standards can be employed.

Fun fact: the "Traffic Island: Stay In Lane" sign on the southbound carriageway was demolished in a collision. Good to see that high friction surfacing worked then.

I'm sorry everyone, I hate this junction so much it brings out my internal Jeremy Clarkson. I want to smash it with a hammer.

To be quite honest and simple, the easiest and admittedly not the cheapeast option would be to extend the M66 to meet the M65 but that will never happen... such a shame really!

I travel through here every night returning to the Rossendale Valley. I am continually baulked by drivers trying to cut in to left lane at the last possible second. Although good, legal fun can be had by staying in left lane and continuing to Rawtenstall and trapping a late cutter on the A682, requiring a 6 mile detour!

The option suggested of making the "straight on" A682 a "right turn" is the perfect answer. But making a right turn off a dual carriageway must be too radical a move for the Highways Agency. Similar things work perfectly well in the USA - though I did fall victim to it once!!

This is another of those half do the job then change your mind schemes, such as the southern end of the M53 in Cheshire.

The now A682 through Rawtenstall and Burnley was originally the A56 all the way from Bury to Colne and beyond in each direction.

During the 1960s it was intended to replace the entire then A56 between Bury and Brierfield, north of Burnley, by a new dual-carriageway route. The Edenfield by-pass was the first section to be built, which terminated temporary in the large roundabout just west of Rawtenstall town centre. The next stage, Bury to Ramsbottom, evolved into what is now the M66.

From Rawtenstall it was intended to by-pass Crawshaw Booth and then follow a new line to the junction of the Burnley by-pass (A646) and the then A56. A new route from there, passing to the east of Burnley town centre, to rejoin the original A56 south of Brierfield was planned to replace the steep hill down into Burnley from the A646 by-pass.

However, with the coming of the M65 and later the A680 bypass of Accrington, the plans for a replacement A56 north of Rawtenstall were abandonned, a by-pass of Haslingden, from the end of the local spur from the A56 to the start of the Accrington by-pass, filled the gap in the through route. Unfortunately that resulted in the planned through route into Rawtenstall becoming a local spur and a local spur to Haslingden becoming the through route, with their junction being laid out back to front!

Since my last grumble I can say that during the period of works I had the pleasure of being driven into not once, but twice by traffic ignoring the temporary speed limit and narrow lanes and hitting the back of the queue...

Of course, we can now eliminate this entry from Bad Junctions as the newly installed 50mph speed limit and "queues likely" signs on all approaches has made the capacity and lane cutting problems vanish overnight, especially now there are new shiny streetlights to make it easier to see the queue you've just driven into.

It has become so annoying to use this junction in the AM peak that many drivers are now rat-running through Haslingden on the A680 - the exact reason the bypass was built in the first place.

Sort it out someone.

The Highways Agency has missed a golden opportunity to sort out the northbound approach with this junction - there is a major repair scheme to replace aging street lighting and surfacing but it only commences from where the A56 peels off towards Haslingden!

Maybe next time...

It took me a few attepts to remember to use this junction when driving to my Girlfriend's new house in Nelson.

My Toyota Yaris's built in Sat-Nav only tells me that it's 3 miles to the next roundabout at the split. The mapping data is slightly out of date, so it's not totally it's fault.

The turn really needs to be signed better from earlier on.

To make matters with this interchange worse, drivers using Sat-Nav get sent the wrong direction. Mapping data (supplied by TeleAtlas) on Navman devices has not captured all the necessary layout information for routing through this unusual junction. When travelling North on the A56 and intending to continue on the A56, as you are already aware, one has to turn-off for the A56 to remain on the A56.

At this point during a Sat-Nav guided journey it is traditional for a well spoken lady (or gentleman) to prompt you to "Exit Left" - not on this trip. The weird road layout has not been fully translated and the Sat-Nav forgets to tell you to "Exit Left" for the A56.

Meanwhile, poor unsuspecting driver has sailed straight on and is now halfway to Rawtenstall. Old Sat-Nav suddenly wakes up and realises that it is now on the A682. You will then be sent on an intricate guided tour of Rawtenstall and Haslingden to get you back-on-track (TM). I have experienced this error on Navman devices (ICN520 & N40i) but it may affect other manufacturers too (like TomTom) if the fault is in the Map Data they are supplied with.

What is not discussed is the traffic southbound from the M65 on the A680 bypass wanting to travel towards Rawtenstall, Bacup and beyond has to come off the dual carriageway, and travel down a narrow residential road (A681 Haslingden Road) to the big Rawtenstall roundbout which gets so busy in rush hour with buses and parked cars. Why couldn't they have added a filter lane from the bypass direct onto the A682 approach to Rawtenstall? In fact, even better, they should have made it connect direct to the Rawtenstall Bocholt Way bypass, perhaps with an underpass out coming out on the Burnley Road.

The frantic lane changes you refer to when wanting to take the left hand lane onto the A56 are executed by drivers who do know the junction is there but seem they have to queue jump just to get ahead of that extra vehicle or two!

I agree with comments about the northbound layout - a left hand bend, lots of trees and poor signs mean that unless you know the fork is there you end up in Rawtenstall.

But then you wrote "Southbound, the A682 could be dropped to one lane so that only one lane of the incoming A56 needs to merge."

That is a description of the existing layout!!!! The southbound A56 drops to 1 lane, with the on-slip from the A680 roundabout forming lane 1 to its left. As you run down the hill towards the mainline, the right-hand (A56) lane forms lane 1 - as the A682 is down to a single lane and forms lane 2. The lane that joined from the A680 roundabout is separated from this by hatchings, before mering into lane 1.

So southbound, it all works perfectly fine. Reducing the A56 to a single lane allows it to slew across the alignment from one side to another, easing this tight bend. A680 traffic gets its own lane and own merge, and dropping the A682 mainline to a single lane delays no-one as its always empty.

You suggest that the A682 could be reduced to one lane through the junction. In fact this has already happened, with both the A56 and A682 dropping to one lane before the junction, and the slip road from the roundabout being a temporary lane gain on the A56.

I fully agree with your comments about the poor signage of this junction, which also apply to the lane-drop on the southbound A56.