Derek Geldard wrote:
On Fri, 30 May 2008 22:11:39 +0100, Bruce wrote:

Derek Geldard wrote:
On Fri, 30 May 2008 08:30:12 -0700 (PDT), cynic wrote:

Does the M1 still go down to two lanes for a section of viaduct as it
passes Sheffield near the old steelworks cooling towers?

Yes it does. That was instigated before/whilst/until the Tinsley
Viaduct was being strengthened (Again ! ) and proved so successful
that there are no plans to widen it back out to 3 lanes. So they say.


That isn't quite true. The last strengthening brought it up to full
strength for the largest lorries and it is fully capable of supporting
three lanes of traffic in each direction.

However, the intention is to leave it restricted to two lanes each way

Hmmm, that's odd isn't it just after they supposedly got it sorted
after *many* years of it being reduced to 2 lanes presumably in order
to minimise the payout in the event of a "Santa Monica Freeway"
incident.

I can distinctly remember it being lane -restricted Ca. 1970 when I
used it every week to get back to Leeds from working in London (+ret.)

I think there have been three major schemes of work on the Tinsley
Viaduct. The first was to strengthen it after several failures of box
girder bridges elsewhere cast doubt on part of the design method used
for all of them. Then there was a second round of work to make access
into the box girders easier for internal repainting and other
maintenance. Finally, the most recent contract was to strengthen the
structure to take the latest EU-proposed Large Goods Vehicles which
are at least twice as heavy as anything the bridge was originally
designed for. There may have been a fourth contract somewhere in
between, but I'm certain of those three.

until the M1 on each side of it is widened from three to four lanes
each way. And apparently that's official, from the Highways Agency.

I've not seen that on their website, however their pronunciations on
the topic have been both capricious and sparse.

I got that from one of the engineering magazines, plus from a former
colleague of mine who worked on the last contract. I asked him when
the viaduct would be restored to three lanes and he told me that,
according to the Highways Agency, it would have to stay at dual two
lanes until the M1 was widened to dual four lanes, when the viaduct
would revert to dual three lanes. I recall that the decision related
to the capacity for queueing traffic waiting to exit the M1.

Stop Press: I have just found the following official press release
from the Highways Agency dated 10 October 2005:
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/detail...leaseID=172690

It states:

It has been decided that the current layout of two lanes each way,
with dedicated lanes for traffic entering and leaving the M1 at this
busy junction, will be maintained until the completion of work to
widen the M1 between Chesterfield and Leeds, which was announced in
April this year.