Just a little game to test your knowledge of your local roads.
Travelling with SWMBO on the M60 this morning, she drove for a change. This gave me time to look around. It's a route we use all the time.
It has a long slip road and starts at Junction 4 Eastbound M60 and winds it's way up and down, over and under other slip roads, railways and M60 itself, coming out on the A34 southbound.
Just out of interest, we clocked it on the odometer from the start of the hatchings to becoming part of the A34 proper.
We clocked it at just over a mile and 3 quarters !
Are there longer ones ?
Ted
|
Not one of my local roads, but this article
www.cbrd.co.uk/motorway/m25/
reckons that the Reigate clockwise off-slip road from the M25 is the longest in the world, outside of the US.
Mind you, I only measure it at about 1.5 miles
preview.tinyurl.com/yz4lpsy
I guess it depends what you classify as part of the sliproad.
|
The southbound slip road into Woolley Edge services on the M1 is a long one as is J11 westbound on the M27 to Fareham.
Pat
|
|
Using Tom tom to calculate the M5 M6 south sliproad is nominally 1.5m and if you consider that the sliproad does not end until the roundabout at the A34 Junction that would make it 2.2 miles. As there is no give way line at the roundabout (! ! ! !) you could continue it on to the M6 north making it even longer!
|
|
Yeah there's 1 on the M1 northbound between Derby and Sheffield could that be the wooley edge one. But the exit from the M1 north to take the M18 must be the longest in the universe and when its rush hour can take a day to just get pass this.
|
|
The inside lane of M1 Northbound for virtually the whole length between junctions 34 and 35 is a sliproad for Meadowhall - roughly 2 miles.
|
|
|
|
I guess it depends what you classify as part of the sliproad.
I'd start measuring from the start of the pecked line coming off lane 1, up to the point at which it either meets a roundabout or set of lights, or actually starts being the road it leads to.
My vote's for the westbound Reigate slip, too.
|
There are a few contenders for this one.
I can't decide between the aforementioned M25 slip at Reigate, the southbound entry slip from the A120 at Stansted Airport to the M11 or the slips to/from the A1 at the north side of the South Mimms roundabout.
It would make sense that the longest slip roads would be on the busiest roads in the busiest part of the country.
Edited by Dave_TD {P} on 04/12/2009 at 10:46
|
I can't decide between the aforementioned M25 slip at Reigate the southbound entry slip from the A120 at Stansted Airport to the M11 or the slips to/from the A1 at the north side of the South Mimms roundabout.
Can't comment on the A120/M11 slip, but at the moment I'm travelling regularly past Reigate and using the A1(M) from South Mimms to Hatfield and back again - think the Reigate one is definitely longer.
I can only assume that the Reigate slip is the length it is
a) because it was for some time the end of the motorway, before they built on to Leatherhead and beyond, and
b) because if it was shortened by any significant margin, the gradient would become too steep for wagons etc.
|
I occasionally use Reigate and always wonder why it is quite so long.
At this point the M25 is rising up the scarp face of the North Downs and the gradient must be nearing the maximum allowed in the standards. The slip road rises to up even further, to the roundabout above the motorway, and so the slip road was always going to be very long.
However it was much shorter before the widening/rebuilding of the M23/M25 junction. Also the first half mile or so of the sliproad is at much the same level as the main carriageway.
My best guess is that it is an attempt to get the traffic onto the sliproad before the steepest part of the hill. If this was not done the slowing lorries would make it more difficult for the faster traffic to get across to the sliproad due to the speed differentials.
|
|
|
|
|
![2018 BMW 2 Series Convertible M240i 2dr [Nav] Step Auto](http://images.honestjohn.co.uk/imagecache/url/crop/90x60/https/cdn.uk.prod.group-mobility-trader.com/images/cas/3122624839f404b6c9c2e61e7dbe068b/d423e81f6a6e9eb38c5835b9457910ba.jpg)
