A8 - A725
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Ordnance Survey map - Alternative aerial view
Where is it?
On the A8, part of the Glasgow to Edinburgh trunk road, where a shortcut between the M74 south and A8 east connects.
It was spotted by Martin Spiers.
What's wrong with it?
Look at the picture. Do I need to say more?
Oh, okay then. Where do I start? The A725 from the south, a grade-separated dual carriageway, merges with a B-road to form a single carriageway road. The B-road forms a right-hand entry and exit. The A725 from the north is dualled until this junction, but gives up. The flyover connecting the two halves is single carriageway. The sliproads connecting to the A8 are also single carriageway, and have the kind of corners you would associate with a mountain pass. There's more but I think you get the idea.
Why is it wrong?
I think that's obvious too. This part of the A8 was dualled and grade-separated in the early 1960s, and back then a tiny junction with narrow, sharply curved sliproads was probably fine. The problem is that since then, every improvement that has been made to the roads approaching this junction has failed to do anything about it. A grade-separated dual carriageway plugs into the south and just gives up, leaving its traffic to fight through two horrible junctions to get onto the A8 eastbound. A complete shortage, in other words, of joined-up planning.
What would be better?
The death penalty for anyone who designs a junction like this.
Right to Reply
Email me with your comments.
Michael Davidson brings good news:
About a year ago an new roundabout was added at the north side of the junction. This has improved the situation for vehicles from the south needing to turn to the right onto the A8. Unfortunately they still have go through the bottleneck on the south side.
Harvie Milligan shows that it's even worse:
The A725 northbound actually reduces to single carriageway where it merges with the B-road, creating a bottleneck - since the Strathclyde Business Park opened a few years back just down the A725, the evening queue to filter 3 lanes (2 A725 + 1 joining from the business park) can be very frustrating. It does look like they're to reinstate the 2-lane flow at the B-road merge, by fitting traffic lights - this work has been ongoing for a number of weeks without it being obvious what they're actually trying to do.
Oh, and the only reason there's a grade-seperated junction with the B-road (the original A725 before the Bellshill bypass opened) is that there was an old disused railway bridge, which they used for the southbound carriageway - this is much narrower than would be allowed these days, and I suspect that it will become single-lane when the M8 upgrade happens.
The whole lot will be revitalised as part of the M8 completion works - see m8completion.co.uk for details.
Gavin Spence has an update: (Apr 08)
This junction has been changed to traffic lights on the approach from the south. Instead of the A725 being put down to one lane as you come up on the merge they have put traffic lights on the A725 and the B-road and you can now use the two lanes through the junction. This gives capacity back and stops the fighting to merge on the approach. About time someone with some thought applied a litle common sense. Shame it's being ripped apart soon anyway.
