Talk:Great Britain road numbering scheme

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[edit] Date of creation of classification scheme

The article gives 1919 as the date for creation of the road numbering scheme; I'd like to see a cite for that. Although the classification studies began during the Road Board period, the first list of road numbers was not published until 1922. Argatlam 20:20, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] M roads and motorway standard

Were the motorways always numbered M*, or were the A routes originally moved to them (as was often done in the U.S. where the U.S. Highways were moved onto new freeways, and then moved back off after the Interstate Highways were numbered in 1959)? --SPUI (talk) 01:08, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I believe most motorways have always been M roads. They were built as entirely new roads. Some however are upgrades to A roads, and get an M in brackets after their A number. And various A roads have been upgraded to the same standard, but without being classified as motorways. (The motorway classification means restrictions on the types of vehicle that can legally use the road. Such restrictions do not appply to a motorway-standard A road which is not actually classified as a motorway.) Laurel Bush 10:22, 30 May 2005 (UTC).

No. The numbering scheme for motorways was developed for England the summer after the Preston Bypass had opened as M6 (Public Record Office file MT 112/67 refers). A summary can be found here. Bracketed numbers were reserved for motorway-standard town bypasses which could be, and often were, later assigned unbracketed numbers when they became part of interurban motorways. Examples include the A4(M) Maidenhead bypass (now M4) and A20(M) Maidstone Bypass (now M20). The A1(M) designation persists because the 1946 tea room plan called for improvements to the A1 along its existing line rather than an interurban motorway in the same corridor as the A1. The English motorway numbering scheme does not apply in Scotland, where motorways generally take the numbers of the A roads they replace even if it means the resulting motorway designation has discontinuities (like the M8) (the A8000(M) is an anomaly). Argatlam 20:20, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article name

I am wondering whether the article would be better named United Kingdom road numbering systems (systems plural). The article seems to be about several separate systems based on a common template, two systems within the United Kingdom (one in Great Britain, the other in Northern Ireland), the others in neighbouring crown dependencies. I imagine the template itself is UK in origin. Laurel Bush 10:33, 30 May 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Motorways

Are motorways not roads? (ie shouldn't they be in the article, or at least prominently linked, or the article renamed) Morwen - Talk 15:33, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Motorways are covered, though more could maybe be said. --SPUI (talk) 22:22, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The most important A-roads

I'm planning a template box for UK A-roads similar to the one recently implemented for motorways. It'll include A1 to A99, but I was looking for some consensus on which three digit A-roads are important enough to be contained as well.

The following I have no doubt about:

but which others should be considered? The article names a few, but I don't know how seriously to take these. Erath 20:47, August 17, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] A Road/B Road pages

At the moment, there is a seperate page for B Roads, containing much of what is in this article; however, A road simply redirects here. Do people feel that B Road should be merged into this article, or that a new 'A road' article is begun, moving some of the content from this page?

Alternatively, of coruse, it could just be left as it is! Robdurbar 12:53, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trunk Roads

I notice there is a list of motorways and (M) class A roads, but is it worth also creating a list of trunk roads ((T) class A roads)? Does anyone have any comments about this, or has it already been done? Thanks. Road Wizard 13:20, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the number of trunk roads has been greatly reduced, so should be a manageable task to list them. I wouldn't have thought that there is a single list anywhere (especially as Scottish, Welsh and English trunk roads are all administered by different organisations), so might have to collate from various sources. this was the situation in England near the end of 2004 but a few of those may have now been de-trunked. IIRC, all (or close to all) primary routes in scotland are trunk.Richard B 19:00, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I hate to say it, but...

Actually, we could do with adding "(Great Britain)" to each and every one of the road names in Category:Roads in the United Kingdom. The reason is that this numbering system is used by other countries, leading to dab pages and renaming. So either we're proactive and rename the lot, consistently, or we let each person who comes across this lot (like me, trying to fix A2 road!) chose their own renaming. I vote for the former... :-) JackyR | Talk 18:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Surely a dedicated article about the GB or preferably UK road network(s) would be better?

I've noticed that this article seems to have become the main centre on Wiki regarding the GB/UK road network, but isn't it purely about the numbering system which is only a part of a much wider topic? IMHO a dedicated article about the road network(s) in the United Kingdom with for example: details of different standard of road, numbering system(s), topics of interest, significant roads/routes/histories, links to relivant sites (SABRE, CBRD etc), would be better than using this as some sort of centre which it's title doesn't suggest it should be? I know railways are much more detailed and have a better following but in comparison surely we can do better than this as our centrepiece? --Achmelvic 02:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been toying with the idea of having a History of Motorways in the United Kingdom page or something similar. There is already some information on motorways about the UK network. There is also bits on Interchange (road) and of course special road. I suspose if you wanted to do it you could plan it along these lines:
There are two further articles at Speed_limit#United_Kingdom and National speed limit which I am not sure we could do with...
Admittedly I have proposed a serious rewrite and rearrangement of the UK roads articles. I am also surprised that Northern Ireland material appears under Roads in Ireland and not in a seperate article - if anything I would have thought it should be in a UK article. However I am also aware of the background to a lot of articles there which can cause problems.
Just my thoughts but I would be interested in other opinions...Regan123 23:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] fictitional roads

this article makes no sense?

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