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It’s been a quiet year for Roads.org.uk, but we will be back to our usual schedule soon.
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Sir James Drake
County Surveyor and Bridgemaster for Lancashire in the 1950s and 60s, Drake was instrumental in the motorway revolution.
The other day I had some business in Merseyside, and decided to head back to Barnsley via M67. I knew Denton roundabout had a bad reputation, but I figured it's only a roundabout, how bad can it be?
God almighty, how wrong I was. Traffic on the exit sliproad was nearly stationary and backed up onto the main line of M60 for over a mile (beyond the Bredbury scissors), bringing the entire motorway to a crawl. The entire roundabout was jammed up, with every entry and exit blocked and nowhere for traffic to go, so each cycle of the lights allowed about half a car or 1/6 of a wagon onto or off the roundabout. It took 40 minutes to negotiate the junction, once on M67 it was plain sailing (bonus: no queue at Mottram!) and I could see the entire Denton-bound carriageway was at a standstill for over a mile. It was like the Leeds Inner Ring Road near peak times, but on a much larger scale.
And all this was just on an ordinary weekday afternoon - god only knows what it's like when someone breaks down there, or there are roadworks!