On the back of the "What's so special about Mondays" thread which turned into "Why does drizzle snarl up roads?", I made an observation about the newish section of the M60 a few weekends ago.
Often do a 'circuit' of the M60 when babysitting a friends 1 year old, as baby falls asleep more easily in the car than on my shoulder.
A couple of Sundays ago it was raining very heavily. I noticed that there was a marked difference in driving conditions on different sections of the motorway, even though it was the same rain.
Between the M62 and Ashton-under-lyne, which was the last section of the ring road to go in, all the matrix signs were warning of a skid risk. I also noticed that there were fixed signs at the side of the road warning of flood risk. The rain water was just not draining away at all, and conditions were such that 30mph was the order of the day. As soon as the older section of the road was reached, the matrix signs were off, and the surface water was almost no-existant, yet the rain volume remained the same.
Seems to me to be quite a flaw in the construction of that section of the M60.
|
porous asphalt or not is my guess
www.rushmoor.gov.uk/council/hig9750.htm explains it fairly clearly
but a google search brings up loads of other stuff.
eg a answer in Hansard in 2000 listed all UK motorways with such asphalt, M60 not listed but also I'm not sure when it was actually built.
|
|
|
|
If it makes any difference, when the final section was opened they made a bit thing of saying it was made with a low-noise surface. You certainly can tell the difference in road noise between it and the older sections. I'm wondering if the downside is the poor performance in wet conditions?
|
|
The new section of the M60 is dreadful, the road has a bad cambere in my opinion and water sheets accross it. I'll have to drive on it on Saturday to go to Hyde.
|
|
I don't think it actually has any camber. It's just totally flat.
|
I seem to remember not long after they opened the new stretch there were reports of flooding. I too have to use that bit of the M60 when visiting my Gran. I have done a search and came up with the following link. You have to go to the very bottom of the page to find the information.
www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm20...m
GC
|
Interesting....
"there have been no recorded occurrences of flooding caused by either failures of the motorway drainage system or overflow from external water courses. What has happened is that during periods of intense rainfall, excess water can collect on the surface of the carriageway"
no flooding - just excess water on the carriageway, and politicians wonder why no-one shows them any respect !
Bora - what Bora ?
|
|
|
|
I can't believe it is almost 10 months since I started this topic! Seems like a few months ago.
There was major flooding on the M60 yesterday which caused it to be closed between J23 and J27.
I thought that GMP did a fantastic job, from what I could see. They were diverting anti-clockwise traffic off the M60 at Ashton, and had officers on many of the major junctions directing traffic, and over riding the traffic lights.
As I joined the motorway (the free flowing side) I noticed that they were turning vehicles around on the opposite carriage way and letting them go the wrong way to get to the exit ramp.
Was impressed at their forward thinking. Why don't they do that more often at major incidents?
Great that they allowed Manchesters M25 be built without proper drainage isn't it?
|
8< Snip
Mods: As I am an ex-employee, surely I\'m allowed????
{Maybe, but as you included a swearword - that isn\'t allowed. DD.}
|
Drove over the 62 tonight round Manchester to Trafford and the surface was pretty much an ice rink with the water lying on it. I was doing 40 in the MINI and that felt plenty fast.
Can't be right that a newish road gets in that state so easily.
However, not 40 clearly wasn't fast enough for the parade of nutters in lane three who thought a 15 yard gap at 75 in paddling conditions was fine. One stamp on the brakes ahead of them and I'd still be in the queue as they were scraped off the barrier/road.
PS - Anyone seem FiF lately?
--
Lee
MINI adventure in progress
|
"Can't be right that a newish road gets in that state so easily."
I can't vouch for the M60 but the new M6 Toll Road in Birmingham was designed to require a minimum number of vehicles per hour to clear rain water from its surface. Unfortunately it's not getting this minimum during a lot of non-peak hours with the result that there are regular areas of standing water.
No doubt the M60 had a similar design spec.
|
They resurfaced parts of the M27 with porous asphalt last year. The danger in heavy rain is that the subsurface can reach saturation point, leading to isolated pooling, however the surface seems far less prone to aquaplaning. I guess the water still gets forced down through the asphalt as well as sideways?
By far the biggest problem I have witnessed is at the point where the new porous surface meets the old surface. At these points you get huge amounts of standing water. Very nasty.
|
the m62 - 2 miles of bumps are hardly better between birchwood and m60.
|
|
|
|
