Last night I told you about the opening of the long awaited M74 motorway which links the existing M74 to the M8 motorway at the far side of Glasgow city centre. Today though I want to ask you what may seem like a daft and maybe pointless question, but it’s one that’s got me curious for a while but I’m sure one of you out there will be able to answer it…
When a new motorway (or extension to an existing motorway) opens, how do they go about opening the new bit of roads and all the associated on and off-ramps to the mew road at the same time?
Sorry, I know that might seem a strange question to ask, but to me, who thinks logically about all I do and all problems I face, it struck me that this kind of situation may be a bit of a logistical nightmare:
- What if they open one on-slip road before the remaining of-ramps are open?
- What if they are opening the junctions/on-off ramps in sequence and a motorist gets ahead of those opening the junctions?
- What if they open the on-slip roads but haven’t opened where the new road joins the existing road?
I did think for a while that they could probably avoid a lots of these potential issues by opening the new motorway in the middle of the night when there would obviously be very little traffic. This theory was however dashed when I discovered the M74 extension was opening at 7pm last night – So how did they do it?
I’m sure there is probably a very sensible and straightforward answer to this, but hey I’m just curious how they do it!
