Safety group seeking A49 dual carriageway opportunities
Thursday 9th September 2010, 8:00PM BST.
Creating sections of dual carriageway and more overtaking opportunities on one of Shropshire’s busiest trunk roads remains a “long-term aspiration” for a safety campaign.
Members of the A49 Safety Campaign Group believe more overtaking opportunities on the section of the route between Bayston Hill and the south Shropshire border would make the road safer.
Group secretary Ted Clarke said that although major developments were unlikely in the present climate, a number of changes brought in on the road in the past decade, since the lobbying group was formed, had made the road much safer.
The group meets every six months and includes figures from the Highways Agency, West Mercia Police and contractors Amey Mouchel. The next meeting will be held at the Silvester Horne Institute, in Church Stretton, on Saturday at 10.30am.
Mr Clarke said: “There’s been constant lobbying for dual track in some places and it’s generally accepted that areas for overtaking should be generated. It’s a long-term aspiration but in the current climate the best we will get is ensuring the road is well maintained.
“The road is not particularly good — it’s an old route that was designed for horses and carts. The difficulty is trying to keep nibbling away to get improvements for the traffic we have on the road.”
Mr Clarke also pointed to changes to a junction near Condover and Longnor as examples of positive improvements, and added that major work at Marshbrook, near Church Stretton, had stopped the section becoming an accident blackspot.
He said: “All the changes that have been made, however small, have made a difference and helped to make the road safer.”
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halilujah!! please god yes, and the A5 to Oswestry next, its a death trap!!!!!!!
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yes agree with this, but not just in the south, the north to whitchurch also needs dualing and bypass some of the smaller villages with their 40mph zones which collectively undermine the whole network
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the wholea-49 could do with improving from the m-56 onwards to hereford i-e at least straighten and widen where possible it is a good short route through to s-wales taking
miles off journeys the a-5–a joke the worst
major trunk route to a ferryport ever far far worse and narrower than the a-49–once it gets to wales
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its not just safety though is it, its the economic vitality of the entire sub region which is being supressed by this under investment in public assets. Spend a few hundred million on this road and it will deliver billions in economic regneration for whitchurch-shrewsbury-ludlow-leominster-hereford. All these towns are conjs
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I don’t know why in this country we don’t more often follow the practice on many French roads of having three lane stretches of road with alternating sections for traffic in each direction to overtake. If motorists know that there will soon be an opportunity to overtake it would discourage the sort of reckless overtaking which is sometimes born of frustration. The cost would be much less than upgrading to dual carriageway – in some instances where the carriageway is already fairly wide it would be no more than a line painting exercise.
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much needed
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