Misery on M6 in Midlands nearly at end
Saturday 22nd January 2011, 11:29AM GMT.
Eighteen months of nightmare roadworks and narrow lanes on the M6 are coming to an end.
Restrictions have been in place between junctions 10 at Walsall and eight to allow work on a £150 million scheme to open up the hard shoulder to traffic in rush hour and to introduce variable speed limits to ease congestion.
The Highways Agency said narrow lanes on the northbound carriageway had been widened and work to remove narrow lanes on the southbound carriageway was due to be completed this weekend.
But the 50mph speed limit would stay for engineers to carry out tests. It is expected that these restrictions will be lifted next month.
The agency also said the scheme was on target to achieve hard shoulder running on the M6 by the spring.
Narrow lanes and speed restrictions have been in place for a number of months for the Managed Motorways scheme which will run from the M6 junction with the M42 to Junction five of the M6, and from junction eight to junction 10A at Essington.
It has seen drivers forced to find diversions off the motorway at regular intervals.
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It’s nice to see this scheme nearly implemented and the roadworks finally coming to an end. Not really sure how much capacity this is really going to free up, because that part of the network is one of the most congested in the UK. However, kudos to the way this has been carried out as it has been relatively smooth and the amount of disruption minimal.
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People don’t notice much difference because this motorway is one of the worst in Europe. This temporary work (18 months lol), won’t change that. The M6 is a reflection on the our politicians: successive failure, and we’re left with the mess. Meanwhile Stafford and surround areas get shiny new roads to drive on..we paid for it and we will always pay for it because this region bears the brunt of the worst of Europe and not just with roads. According to Inrix, the UK has the worst traffic in Europe..tell us something we don’t know. Meanwhile, train tracks stand unused..same for light rail transport systems. The reason people don’t come here is because they have to set their clocks back 50 years behind everyone else.
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It will still be congested after all the work, they hav’nt made any exception’s to to entry slip road’s or the exit’s so these will still snag up just as bad,
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We wait with baited breath, the scheme worked to a better effect on the M42, but so much traffic uses the M6. They ought to concentrate more on the area of the M5 that joins up to the M6 going north, that is awful, no matter what time of day.
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Well Sue, if this latest ‘scheme’ doesn’t work..I suppose the government can always price it’s own citizens out of their own cars, at the same time offer no viable alternative other than dirty, inefficient and hideously expensive forms of public transport.
Wait..don’t they already do that?!
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How long before they start again
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16 years ago the M6 was in repair around Birmingham, a hell of a place every Friday afternoon/night trying to get home from Luton. Recently, roadworks again………… when will someone get the job done ‘right’, and make it last. Is it incompetence of the repair companies, or the fact that the road work directors are choosing cheap………?
Someone’s head should roll for the continual roadworks required on the M6, someone is being paid for incompetence.
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Why does the road need repairing after you and millions of others have driven up and down it for 16 years? It’s quite a puzzle, isn’t it?
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It is noticable already the difference the revised entry sliproads onto the M54 have made!
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