M6 - A683

I work for a nearby coach company and it usually can be a rather exciting event going north onto the M6 at this junction with a coach! However, I agree with Bryn that lately with the re-instated upgrade works it has been a dream.... apart from the queues. Like a number of people in the area I just hope the Lancaster by-pass doesn't get cancelled so that the junction gets its much required re-modelling... eventually.

There are currently [July 2010] roadworks for communications upgrades that mean the left hand lane through Junction 34 is closed.

The northbound merge onto the M6 at present is a dream! Unfortunately, the actual M6 itself has suffered terribly from the loss of a lane which has killed off the idea of temporarily reducing the M6 to two lanes through the junction until the Lancaster-Heysham Bypass is connected up and the whole mess is rebuilt.

I join your other correspondents in condemning access from A683 northwards onto M6 at j34: it is most dangerous and often made worse by impatient cars tailgating the more cautious driver on the slip road waiting for a slot in the motorway traffic. There is also danger to M6 traffic travelling southwards, wishing to leave at A683. The count down markers are immediately followed by absence of the hard shoulder at the overbridge. Although it is not permitted to use the hard shoulder when exiting, its sudden absence must be disconcerting to many drivers.

What I presume to be the official reasons for this ghastly junction seem a bit disingenuous. I find it hardly credible that j35 was intended as the northern access to Lancaster. Its route would have taken traffic through Carnforth, Bolton-le Sands, Hest Bank, and over Skerton Bridge, the then only crossing of the River Lune. Similarly, I am surprised that a gated access was proposed at the crossing of M6 and A683. We should remember that when this bypass was opened, it was isolated from the motorway network, so carried little traffic. It comprised two, two lane carriageways, which were later converted to three lanes but the bridges, including crucially the Lune crossing, had not been designed to take a third lane. At all bridges, including the Lune crossing, hard shoulders had to be removed to make space for the extra lane. The problem caused by the dangerous northbound access is caused, quite simply by proximity of the Lune crossing, and failure to anticipate this problems by having made it too narrow. No amount of widening of slip roads and improved markings will overcome this problem.

The answer appeared in local public exhibitions by Lancashire County Council in 2001, when there was a big consultation exercise about whether the M6-Heysham link should be west or north of Lancaster. The county's solution, if the northern option succeeded was construction of a second Lune crossing, and a complete re-modelling of north and south access. This scheme was essentially adopted, and we hear that work may start in 2011.

A slight diversion from this account occurred when the long battle between the two M6-Heysham routes was at its bloodiest phase. Estimated costs of the two schemes had been publicised by the county, and of course, inclusion of the second river crossing produced a (marginal) advantage to the western route. I argued to Dept of Transport, that it was unfair to burden the northern (and now adopted) route with the whole of the cost of a bridge which was long overdue to alleviate a badly designed and sub-standard access. The Dept, while accepting that it was dangerous, simply argued that there were other priority junctions before Lancaster would have its turn. It is a sobering thought that had the northern route not been adopted, we would be suffering this awful intersection for years to come.

I have measured the on-slip for heading north using Google Earth and you have approximately 70m before you hit the Lune Bridge (no hard shoulder). Compare this to a junction near me, Leyland, where heading north, you have at least 270m and even then you've got the bonus of the hard shoulder.

There is actually a plan to completely rebuild this junction if the proposed Heysham - M6 Link Road is built. This road would link from the current Morecambe Bypass, where it crosses the main Morecambe-Lancaster road, to a point about 500 yards north of the existing J34. At that point there will be a roundabout with a northbound entry slip road, and then a link road down to the A683, where another roundabout will be sited, and a new northbound exit slip will be built on the south side of the roundabout. The southbound slips will apparently be replaced with a new larger parclo.