Britain: Shadow t-pikes

The British invented the turnpike company back in the 18th century but it died in the 19th, and was not revived until the Thatcher years. First came a couple of privately fiannced toll bridges, the second Severn crossing and a Thames bridge at Dartford to provide extra capacity for the M-25 London Orbital, which was previously constrained by a narrow tunnel. Many private toll road projects are now in process, and by the look of it they take even longer to get through studies, consultations and negotiations than in the U.S. But a difference may be that in Britain most of those started seem to eventually get through, whereas in the U.S. many seem to fall by the wayside.

Early this year the UK Secretary of State awarded a Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) contract for the A69 upgrade and operation, according to a press release sent by the Highways Agency, an arm of the UK Department of Transport. The concessionaire Road Link gets a concession to upgrade, maintain and operate the roadway for 30 years in return for shadow toll payments -- payments each year by the UK government based on traffic carried with bonuses for safety and penalties for any closures. This project is a small one, requiring new construction of a 2 mile bypass (2 lanes only). The roadway is an east-west link road 52 miles long between Carlisle and Newcastle immediately south of the Roman Hadrian’s Wall. Carlisle on the west coast has the major expressway standard ‘motorway’ from England to Scotland, the M6 running by it, so the A69 provides a link due east to the east coast city of Newcastle on Tyne. The A69 ends there at a major arterial from the south the A1, which varies in standard on its way south between full expressway and four lane divided with at-grade intersections.

The capital required is $15m for the 2 mile bypass and the contract requires the concessionaire to maintain to present standards 19 miles of existing four lane divided and 33 miles of 2 lane undivided roadway. Footnote for Americans: speed limits on the A69 are the standard UK 100kph (62 mph) on the 2 lane section and 120kph (74 mph) on the divided roadway.

A total of 13 larger DBFO shadow toll road projects are in the works and several close to contract including:

• M1-A1 Link Road, a $300 million construction job involving 19 miles of four lane divided expressway immediately south and east of the central British city of Leeds.The big M1 motorway (mostly 6 lanes) originates inside London and ends south of Leeds and the M1-A1 link is effectively an extension of this major motorway east around Leeds to the A1, the major northern artery north along the east coast. With seven interchanges of the characteristic British double bridging roundabouts, the road will also provide major improvements to mobility in the south part of the industrial city.

• A1(M) Alconbury-Peterborough, a 14 mile conversion of arterial divided road to motorway standard varing between mostly 6 and 8 lanes at a cost of $220m. The project is about 70 miles north of London. It is part of a longterm scheme to upgrade the whole of the London to Newcastle A1 to full expressway standard. An unusual aspect is a 6.3m or 21.5 foot overhead clearance being specified to make this a high load route.

• A419/A417 Swindon-Gloucester, a 34 mile shortcut roadway between the west-heading M4 expressway at Swindon and the north-heading M5 at the head of the Severn estuary near Gloucester. Located in the Cotswolds perhaps the prettiest rolling grass and stone village country in the world, the A419/A417 will improve access from London to residents, weekenders and tourists and provide another general traffic route between south England and Birmingham. To be built as four lane divided arterial with a mix of interchanges and intersections, it is a $50m construction job, with the concessionaire again taking payment in shadow tolls.

The British government decided late 1993 on a longterm policy of converting its whole motorway system to electronic tolls, though it is taking a centralized and measured approach to selection of the technology and to implementation. All major upgrades to the motorway (M) and arterial (A) system are being done with private concessionaires. The largest of these improvements presently in design is the Birmingham North Relief Road (BNRR), a 27 mile long 6-lane expressway designed to relieve an overcrowded M6 expressway that traverses this — the second largest city of Britain — close to its central business district. A 53 year concession for the BNRR was granted in 1992 to the Midland Expressway Limited, a joint venture of the British Trafalgar House company and the Italian toll road company Iritechna. Route selection and other planning permissions seem likely to delay the start of actual construction until about 1998. For the moment plans are for toll barriers with a mix of manual and e-tolling.

Officials want to build a Western Orbital after the northern relief road so eventually the Birmingham metro area will have three expressways north-south and three east-west. Transport(ation) experts say the greatest deficiency in the British highway system lies in its lack of good connections to the channel ports of Felixstowe and Harwich in the Ipswich area 60 miles northeast of London. European community transport plans show major highways to Ipswich from London and from the Midlands and Birmingham. (Source: The Highways Agency: 44 171 921 4438)