For the love of god, when is someone going to build an alternative or widen the M6 so it can accept more traffic?

Travel time Manchester to London @ 05.30 – 3.5 hours
Travel time London to Manchester @ 12:00 – 5+ hours

No accidents, just “congestion J14-17”. Crap end to a crap day.

Rant over 🙂

Why no just fly? Far nicer. Especially as the lounge at Manchester has a cracking view of the runway.

*Awaits eco-mentalists damning me for murdering fluffy ickle polar bears….* 😉

rockitman – Member

For the love of god, when is someone going to build an alternative or widen the M6 so it can accept more traffic?

Pointless to do so – traffic just fills it again in a year or two. See M25.

Agree. That section must be one of the most congested roads in the UK.

I just never travel on the M6 in peak hours. Manc to london in 3.5 hours isnt bad at all, 5 hours is not great but not THAT bad – thats averaging about 60 all the way (roughly 300 miles isnt it)?

Flying would take about 3 hours all in anyway, and require parking and transport either end just the same.

Train might make sense, if yu want to be crushed and pay a fortune.

CK – it’s just over 200 miles

I thought they had? The M6 toll?

Stop gurning.

If you want a PITA Journey try getting from Glasgow Airport to the centre of Edinburgh at peak times.

50 mile journey that’ll take you 3 hours on a good day.

I see your mistake – You chose to drive the M6 on a Friday afternoon ..AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!

The M6 in the Midlands & the M25 on the NW side are about as bad as it gets for a Friday afternoon
I don’t think the M8 comes close to those 2 TBH

I often have to travel from Guildford to Thirsk [N. Yorks] on a Friday, the 35 miles from Jcn 10 to 21 on the 25 often takes 2 – 3hrs

You’ve clearly never been stuck on the M8 for hours on end then.

Takisawa2 and myself were going to Nant Y Arian a couple of weeks ago and agreed to share a car rather than take 2. So T2 came to my house wich is 2miles from J13 – M6.. We were not intending to go along the M6 but use the A449 and then join the M54…
So we got to J13 wich also is a junction of the intended A449 towards M54.
However, after about 400 yards along the A449 we came to a standstill and from where we were it looked like the road had been blocked sometime and cars were turning round and heading back to J13…
So I turned round and did the same… We got on M6 intending to get off at J12 (A5) .. Half a mile along the motorway we ground to a complete halt. It took 1.5 hrs to do 4 miles to J12 (A5) as we neared J12 over head gantries informed us of the complete closure of the M6 from J12 to J13 – the whole motorway was coned off forcing cars off at J12… The motorway had been closed since around 3am that morning but the police had done nothing at all to close off any of the feeder slip roads or even post warning information… this is very typical of the organisation of traffic controllers / police in this area..

Houns – That’s kinda the point I was trying to make. The M6 is bad every Friday. That’s 52 days every year minimum when it’s a complete pain in the arse. Wasn’t even travelling at peak time today. Just wish someone would do something about it rather than just let it continue 🙂

You’ve clearly never been stuck on the M8 for hours on end then.

I used to commute daily from our office in in the centre of Edinburgh to our workshop in Govan
The M8 is bad but not as bad as the 2 I mentioned – I also think the M60 around the NW side of Manc & the M62 between Huddersfield & Leeds are probably worse than the M8

If you’re going Edinburgh to Govan you’re missing the worst of it and going in the wrong direction – that’s why I said Glasgow Airport to the centre of Edinburgh.

How d’you think I got back?

Through the tunnel and onto the expressway if you had any sense.

Driving anywhere on a Friday afternoon is schoolboy error.

No – I queued at the end of Helen Street with everyone else to join the M8

🙂

Thats where you were going wrong then. 😀

See, if you had just have posted on here at the time you could have saved yourself a load of time being stuck in traffic.

M6 on a Friday – Russian Roulette is safer. It’s why I stopped doing it.

No really, banging my fists on the steering wheel out of sheer frustration. Just couldn’t do it no more for no matter how much money.

SB

i spent a few months working in the RAC building on the M5/M6 junction, spent waaaay too much time driving between there are Manchester.
I hate that road with a passion, there isn’t even a decent alternative cause you get screwed in stoke.

Widening the M6 is not the solution. As stated earlier,it would just fell up(with even more cars).
Failing to tackle the Transport infrastructure has been one this governments’ many short comings.
I live quite close to Junction 15,the whole city grinds to a halt,if there is a problem between 15 and 16.

I got from Bracknell to Huddersfield on a Friday afternoon once leaving at 1700 in pouring rain in 3.5 hours. Hallelujah miracle that was, (leaving Bracknell not withstanding).

But then none of my journeys ever takes me up the M6 until past Preston. Not that the M1 is much better (except for possibility of A1 and M40/A46 alternatives).

I think there are plans to widen the M6 through cheshire up to 4 lanes not sure when it’s happening.

I used to live in Lancaster and on the occasions when there was an accident between J33 and 34 (reasonably common…) they’d close the motorway and divert the traffic through Lancaster’s notoriously shite one-way system.
It happened one morning and it took my boss 1.5hrs to drive the 8 miles to work. I’d ridden in and it took me ages to work out why the traffic was so horrendous!

Nicest part of the M6 is around Tebay when the north and southbound carriageways separate. That long left hand bend at the Howgills is lovely, really feels like you’re getting away from it all at that point. 🙂

“when is someone going to build an alternative or widen the M6 so it can accept more traffic?”

As everyone’s already pointed out, you can’t (often) build your way out of congestion and you may actually increase the volume of traffic in the medium term:

http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/roadbuilding-futility.html

Also – would a train station at Glasgow Airport not be extremely useful?

The M6 is hatefull, people moan about the M25 but its a joy to drive on in comparison. I try to travel at night now, infact I did London to Colne, Lancs in 3 hours setting of at 10pm before.

I bet the M1 and A628 is quicker than using the M6, my usual daytime route to Lancs from London is M1, M62, A58, then x-country via oxenhope

Yep it’s loathsome. The M6 toll has only moved part of the problem away, j8-10 are still miserable, even on a bike as the lanes on the elevated section are just slightly too narrow to filter swiftly.

The train’s not too bad, Manchester>London’s meant to only take a 2:10 now, the probelm being that £267.00 return is a complete joke.

If you want to experience a truely hateful, dangerous journey, try driving from Newcastle to Edinburgh via the A1 on any day of the week.

Did a land survey in 1990 to build a new motorway around the west of Brum (M5 Bromsgrove to Wolverhampton then up to the M6 at Cannock) so keep an eye out for that one being built soon…..

Surveyed the A1 in 1991 and that has just started site clearance, can’t rush these things now.

Theo – Seeing as i live in that area where exactly will that road go?

I return from Belgium every Friday evening and I’d rather do the commute back to Oxfordshire around the M25 than the drive down from Blackpool to Shropshire that I used to do on a friday night.

I hope they are going to do the same thing to the M6 around 10-15 that they’ve done around the M42 at Birmingham, reducing the speed limits and using the hard shoulder during busy times as a fourth lane has made a huge difference to that stretch of motorway.

Houns

It was planned to go from Lickey End south of Belbroughton to Churchill then west of Kinver to Lower Penn then to Perton and up past the M54 then to the M6 – think it was at the A5 (if that junction has a couple of huge lakes)

The DOT bought loads of farms and houses on the route in preparation, we were living in a repossesed house in Hagley.

Like I said it was 19 years ago so I don’t know if it was shelved or is still in the DOTs thoughtplan.

Right, I have a bit of insider (well it’s all available if you look) regarding the joyous M5M6…..that part of the motorway is the busyest in all of Europe, it carries more traffic than M25 etc! Those of you that use that strech regularly will have noticed some works going on along the roadside, this is for the cameras etc that will enable the hard shoulder to be used as a running lane at peak times (a la M42). So technically the M6 will not be widened but there will be a usable extra lane within the next 8-12 months. 😀

Yeah i remember lots of banners etc up around Wombourne and Perton protesting about the plans. I live in Blakedown now, with family in both Wombourne and Perton..Lots of nice riding and countryside around here too.
Not heard anything about it since then, your post brought the memories back.
I’ve always thought i’d never be a Nimby, but i could be readied into action if this ever came round again

Agree with the post above my last, i’ve spent 18 months traveling up and down the M5/M6/M62 from Stourbridge to Rochdale and back (god im glad that’s over) During that time they’ve been upgrading the hard shoulder, cutting out areas in case you break down and checking the bridges etc

there isn’t even a decent alternative cause you get screwed in stoke.

What do you expect in stoke? least its cheap there…