Talk:A50 road

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The A50's last junction is with the M1 at J24. jimfbleak 19:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

When travelling north up the M1 both 24 and 24a are signposted for the A50 as I discovered a couple of weeks ago Saga City 20:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure? J24a only has north-facing sliproads, meaning that if you are going north, you cannot exit - therefore there shouldn't be any road signs for J24a going north.Richard B 21:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm beginning to doubt it based on the excellent map at [1] but wife abd I were travelling north up the M1 to Long Eaton and, unusually, I was driving and left at 24 only to be criticised by wife (who usually drives that route) who said I should have carried on to 24a as she does - I must confess the trip up the A50 from 24 to 24a parallel to the M1 was not familiar though. If I had a couple of hours to spare I'd go and look.

This Highways Agency document states throughout that the A50 terminates at Junction 24A of the M1. See para 1.1.1 and throughout the document. Noisy | Talk 22:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The Highways Agency Route Management Strategies only look at trunk roads. Therefore, based on the description in the document, I assume that the A50 trunk road terminates at Junction 24A. The non-trunk A50 carries on down to Junction 24. This can be seen clearly if you check on a map website like Multimap. Road Wizard 23:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Some confusion here!
  • the bit parallel to the M1 is between J23a (A453 south and M42) and J24, and the M1 exit at J23a is northbound only.
  • J24 exits onto a roundabout above the M1, giving access to and from (in all directions) the A50, A6 and A453 (Nottingham)
  • 24a is a limited access junction (no northbound exit from the M1 or southbound access from the A50). The A50 southbound has one of the three lanes filtering off here to join the M1 North, the other two continue to J24.
The A50 definitely does not end at J24A - apart from anything else, it cannot be accessed northbound from there. It ends at the J24 roundabout, unless the stretch between 23a and 24 is also the A50. As far as I can remember though, that parallel stretch is designated A453 (later... it is). jimfbleak 05:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
this map , as referenced above is correct, the Highways Agency document is wrong (and the junction numbers haven't changed since then). I drive this route on a weekly basis. jimfbleak 05:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
This multimap at 1:25000 shows the exact layout (pan down a bit to get J24). jimfbleak 05:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Are you sure the Highways Agency document is wrong? All it says is that the A50 trunk road ends at J24a. It in no way rules out the existence of the A50 between J24a and J24, which is an undeniable fact. Road Wizard 06:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
The A50 from J24 is shown on Multimap and road atlases in green as a trunk road, rather than red (non-trunk) and is signposted as such. It would be odd if the single lane restricted access link to 24a was trunk road, and the four lane dual carriageway from 24, the only northbound access, was not. Road atlases are quite accurate on this - for example the A453 is trunk north of 24 and between 23a and 24 (the parallel bit), but non-trunk west of 23a. Either way, the A50 finishes at 24. jimfbleak 06:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Green is an indicator of a Primary route, not a trunk road. Some primary routes are trunk roads, but not all. The A453 between J23a and J24 will not be a trunk road as the Highways Agency never operates parallel routes that close together (the trunk route between J23a and J24 is the M1) as shown on this rough map. As you can see, the trunk road entry onto the A50 is from J24a or from the A52/A6 coming off at J25. As I have agreed all along, the A50's northern stretch does indeed terminate at J24. Road Wizard 07:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I have done some research today, and I have found a press release from October 2004, which shows that the section of the A50 between J24 and J24a was a trunk road at that time. As I cannot find any evidence to say it has been "de-trunked", I assume that it is still a trunk road. It should be noted though that the section south of J22 is not a trunk road, so the introductory sentence still needs to be changed. As a second point, the HA appear to be trying to prove me wrong yet again, because the A453 between J23a and J24 is also a trunk road (though why they would designate 2 separate roads running parallel to each other and less than 100 metres apart as trunk roads, I have no idea). Road Wizard 17:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Trust me to trust the Highways Agency. Sorry. From the HA website and the discussion above it seems that the intro para is wrong, and should be changed to:

The A50 is a major road in the United Kingdom, most of which is a trunk road.

or suchlike. The HA link on the article is not working. I suggest that the HA RMS document that I've linked be used to replace it. Noisy | Talk 07:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I came onto the A50 at J1 today, and the green eastbound sign read A50 (A6) (A453). I wonder if the confusion arises from the terms of the HA's consultants' contract - possibly they were not asked to look at the final stretch to the M1 south since this is a very old piece of road, whereas from the A50 J24a spur westwards is mostly new construction. M1 J24 was improved some years ago with the fourth lane each way running down to J23a and the M42, so presumably there was no point reviewing the final leg. jimfbleak 13:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
The HA had plans to have Route Management Strategies for all of their routes eventually, so it is more likely they just decided to include the section between J24 and 24a in either the M1 J19 - J30 RMS or the A52/A453 RMS - both of which are currently on hold. Road Wizard 17:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
The HA have a plan to widen the M1 between J21 and J30 and improve some junctions, including 23a, 24 and 24a. The A50 will get free-flowing connections to the M1 and A42 southbound at J23a. M1 northbound and A42 northbound traffic will get free-flowing connections onto the A50 at the same junction. A50 will get a bypass to avoid the roundabout at J24 and at J24a for eastbound A50 traffic. Southbound sliproads onto the M1 at J24 will be closed. A Kegworth bypass is to be built leading from a new J23a roundabout. Oh, and according to the plans there, the current A50 between J24 and J24a *is* trunk. The A453 between J23a and J24 is not. Richard B 18:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
What source do you have for your last sentence? This one says that section of the A453 is trunk. Road Wizard 18:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it probably is trunk - I'd be surprised if it wasn't. The source was this (large file - 2.6 MB) plan for the J23a-J24a improvements - which shows A50T if you zoom in really closely, but A453 (missing the T) - but as the A42 is also missing the T on the plan, but is definitely trunked, it's probably not that reliable. Richard B 20:17, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tescos

I have removed the following text: "It now serves the enormous Tesco shop at Longton. This has the largest floor area of any shop in the United Kingdom."

Not only is this information, in my view, irrelevant to an article about a road (do we list every significant retail space served by roads?), it is also unreferenced and ambiguous. The comment could have intended to say that the store had the largest footprint of any retail store in the UK, but having visited this store and numerous others around the country, I find this suspicious. If it was referring to total floor space, then the claim is even weaker as there are numerous stores built over several levels, which when combined would be much larger. If anyone seriously objects, feel free to revert the article, and explain why I got it wrong!ColourSarge (talk) 17:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)