Ask a silly question…
The M6, where it meets the A74(M). This section was completed in 2008 at a cost of £174m.
Which British motorway should never have been built and has a number that makes no sense?
The answer, of course, is the A74(M).
And in the week that the submissions to the Union Connectivity Review are revealed, it’s a great reminder of where prioritising “Union Connectivity” leads.
We’ll come onto the Union Connectivity Review later but first of all, let’s here the sorry story of the A74(M).
Why should it never have been built?
The A74(M) is the stretch of motorway that connects the M6 and the M74.
Both the latter were built in the 1960s, but there was no need to build a motorway through the Scottish lowlands. The A74 was a dual carriageway with two lanes in each direction, which the highways authorities continually reported was perfectly adequate for the low levels of traffic in an area of very low population density.
But in the late 1980s, the Conservative Government was starting to fear the impact of Scottish nationalism and the decision was taken to replace the A74 with a full-width motorway with three lanes in each direction. The Sabre Roads wiki quotes an insider as follows:
The reason for D3M [i.e. a three lane motorway] is politics. The three final Tory Secretaries of State for Scotland, Rifkind, Lang and Forsyth were desperate to show Scotland that the Government was not anti-Scottish and gave us a nice big wide road to keep us happy and hopefully keep voting Tory- also that the road conveniently passed through solid (at the time) Tory Constituencies.
The project never made transport sense. The existing M74 into Glasgow was (and still is) a D2M (i.e. two lanes in each direction) motorway, so the extra capacity on the A74(M) could never be used as, in the incredibly unlikely event of the capacity being used, it would simply lead to tailbacks at the M74.
But the Government could hardly spend millions replacing a D2 dual carriageway with a D2M motorway offering identical capacity, so a brand new D3M motorway was built right next to the existing dual carriageway (which promptly had one of its carriageways ripped up).
You can see the brand new motorway on Google Earth (characteristically empty), with the old A74 immediately adjacent. The space between the two is where the second carriageway of the old A74 has been removed
It took from 1992 through to 2008 for the motorway to be built in full, at which point one continuous motorway stretched from the English Midlands to the Scottish central belt. A political project was achieved, by replacing an adequate road with a wider one.
And what about the number?
At first glance, it patently makes no sense. From Glasgow, you start south on the M74. At junction 13, the number changes to A74(M), though the junction numbers continue counting upwards in the same sequence. After junction 22, though, the next junction is 45, and then they start counting back down again as you imperceptibly transition onto the M6.
All change please (image copyright Google)
It would obviously make more sense for the whole road to be a single number.
But, no, like Boris Johnson with forenames, this road must have three.
It won’t surprise you to learn that, originally, the whole road was going to be called the M6 all the way. The A74(M) project was called the M6 Extension and, indeed, the PFI company that maintains the A74(M) is still called “Autolink Concessionaires (M6) plc”.
However, with sections of the new motorway due to open in isolation from the existing sections, the Government realised that it would not make sense to number the new road M6 until it was actually connected to the existing M6. The solution was published in an official notice in 1992:
The Secretary of State has decided to change the number of the upgraded sections of the Glasgow-Carlisle Trunk Road (A74) lying to the south of where the existing M74 ends at Nether Abington. Each section, on completion of upgrading, will be renumbered A74(M). Once all the sections of the A74 between Carlisle and Nether Abington have been upgraded, the entire length of the M74 and the A74(M) from Glasgow to Carlisle will be renumbered, and form part of, the M6. The Scheme and associated Orders have been amended to reflect these changes, where necessary.
Thus the A74(M) was born. Gradually the A74 between the M74 and M6 was replaced with the temporary A74(M) until, finally, in 2008, the whole road had been completed.
This was, of course, the moment for the A74(M) to, superman style, rip off its outer clothes and reveal itself as the M6,
(This is pretty literal. The new signs all the way through Scotland were printed “M6” with sticker “A74(M)” labels over the top. Many still remain:)
M6 beneath
But, of course, by the time the new road opened, roads in Scotland were no longer the responsibility of a Tory Government looking to strengthen the union; they were the responsibility of a nationalist Scottish Government. There was no way that Alex Salmond was going to agree to the English M6 reaching into the heart of Glasgow. It would therefore make sense for the new road to be numbered M74. But without replacing all of the (brand new) signs, this wasn’t possible. The only numbers they could show was M6 or A74(M). Hence we ended up with the slightly schizophrenic road numbers we have today.
(Don’t despair: somehow even the British and Irish Governments managed to coordinate that the main road from Dublin to Belfast should be the M1 in Ireland and the A1 in Belfast; so there’s still hope!)
Why should we care?
Good question! Well, because it cost hundreds of millions of pounds to achieve a purely political project that failed to achieve even its political objective because, by the time it was completed twenty years after it was commissioned, the political world had moved on.
Into that context comes the Union Connectivity Review, commissioned by Boris Johnson and being undertaken by Sir Peter Hendy.
Now, this particular duo have form. Indeed, Sir Peter’s Faustian pact at Transport for London seems to have been that if Boris left him alone to make his own decisions on things that matter, he (Sir Peter) would push through Boris’s expensive vanity projects. Hence the cable car that’s lost passenger numbers every single year since it opened and a bus procured entirely for conductors on which not a single conductor has travelled for six years.
(By the way, if this sounds like a criticism of Sir Peter, it most certainly is not. It’s the people of London’s fault that TfL was lumbered with Boris as a boss; allowing him his toys to play with in return for him leaving the grown-ups to do their jobs seems a perfectly sensible compromise. I imagine Chris Whitty wishes that there were a way of taking the same approach to running a pandemic.)
So, rather like a rockers’ reunion tour, Boris and Sir Peter have been reunited in the latest distraction shopping spree of the Union Connectivity Review. The terms of reference almost explicitly call for fun baubles for the PM to play with:
Much recent transport investment has been the result of an appraisal methodology that prioritises large numbers of travellers saving time spent on travel; naturally favouring travel to and from major conurbations. However, this review is about – and I am interested in – what can be done to invest in and widen the benefits of growth and cohesion across the UK.
It’s certainly true that if there’s one criticism you couldn’t make of the cable car, it is that it prioritises ‘large numbers of travellers saving time spent on travel’.
Union Connectivity Review submissions
The catalogue of options for Boris’s latest toy was in the New Civil Engineer on Monday. What might he buy?
There are quite a few tunnels under the Irish sea, connecting Carlisle and Belfast, and there’s a High-Speed rail link from Cardiff to Birmingham. These all have the advantage of being phenomenally expensive and, largely, without transport merit.
Obviously, a union connectivity review would benefit from a submission from the Scottish Government but, for political reasons, they refused to send one.
Many other organisations did so and, very sensibly, refused to play Boris’s game and instead repeatedly asked for things he’s already promised. Hence HS2’s Eastern leg, “Northern Powerhouse Rail” and East-West Rail coming up repeatedly despite, officially, being Government policy already.
But these aren’t why Boris wrote to Sir Peter. Like a kid who already has an Xbox writing to Father Christmas for a PlayStation, Boris has written to Sir Peter wanting new toys, not a reminder of the ones he already has.
So I expect that the outcome of the Union Connectivity Review will be another A74(M): an expensive project without transport merit but which is out of the way enough that it doesn’t derail the professionals’ actual priorities.
