M1 - M6 - A14

Recent work has altered the junction a little, but I cannot say that it marks any form of improvement. There are some traffic lights and the western roundabout is a teardrop now, so you can't go back up the M6 having come off the M6 unless you pass under the M1 twice.

On the other hand, in your list of hates about the junction, you haven't mentioned the fact that the bridge under the M1 is only three lanes wide and is approached in both directions by two lanes. This makes for an evil squeeze unthe M6 to A14 movement, with drivers having no idea which lane is best to approach the first roundabout: two lanes up to the roundabout, two lanes off the roundabout, oh f***, now we have to merge without colliding.

An unmitigated disaster.

A minor comment to underline the apalling construction and ill considered impact of this junction. I live in a village off junction 1 that gets every scrap of cut-through traffic avoiding this dogs breakfast of a junction. Also, the combination of three strategic routes "colliding" at one inadequate junction means that there have been 33 serious accidents in the triangle around the junction in the last 12 months [October 2003]. One every 10 days!

I fully agree that the current junction is horribly deficient, for all the reasons stated. Being keen on junction design, and interested in the process by which traffic is kept flowing during roadworks, I've done something about it.

The design is based on a few key observations:

• Traffic from the A14 principally wants to get to the M6, and secondarily onto the M1 (N).
• Similarly, M6 to M1 (N) is an infrequent movement because of the M69.
• People want to be able to go between the A5 and A14/M1/M6, which probably seriously annoys the residents of Catthorpe.
• Tarmac is a lot cheaper than bridges.

With this in mind, and with a little lateral thinking, I came up with the notion that by far the most elegant approach is to re-align the A14 in a southwards sweep to merge with the M1 northbound. Two lanes would then meet three, and run as five up to the existing M1/M6 split.

There is a blazingly obvious solution to this: simply make the A14 a continuation of the M6 mainline and add free-flowing links for A14-M1 and M6-M1(N) movements rather than having two shoddy roundabouts. I admit it would be expensive, but it would make the whole thing a lot easier and safer!

I use this regularly, but one thing struck me this morning in fairly heavy traffic going M1S-A14E. The lights were on green for 6 seconds only, with 9 seconds being given to M6S-A14E. This is no way to get a large volume of traffic moved swiftly. I know they have a limited amount of space to build back into without interfering with motorway traffic, but I'm sure that the "greens" could be longer. A simple software mod would sort this.

I've used it a lot recently coming south off the M1 onto the A14 eastbound. It's great that they've made Lane 1 of the M1 into a sliproad - but it's just as well...

I timed the traffic lights on the roundabout and noticed that traffic coming off the M6 gets 55 seconds to go through, while traffic off the M1 get seven!

No wonder they needed that sliproad! The sooner they rebuild this, the better!

A few years ago travelling east on M6 wanting to join A14 to get to Norwich I missed the left slip, and had to carry on down, join the M1, take the next junction, off and back on M1, then up and back onto M6, then off at the first M6 junction, round and back onto M6 again. It would be much better with a large roundabout for the end of M6 under the M1 with access to A14, and to minor roads.

More recently going from Worcester to Stanstead, I tried the same route, and the left lane of M6 was virtually standstill for about 2 miles coming up to the turn off for the roundabouts, but once on A14 traffic was fine!

This junction is indeed a nightmare built on the cheap. I used to use it every week or so and I feel that when they carried out the alterations they shifted the problem from one side to another. With the old layout traffic coming off the M6 south going toward the A14 east had to firstly pause at the westernmost roundabout (for A14 west to M1 north traffic passing round) then filter into the single eastbound lane underneath the M1 to get to the A14. This resulted in queues back up on to the M6. Westbound traffic off the A14 however had a freeflow onto the east roundabout and through the bridge under the M1 to either the M6 or M1 north. Now the westbound traffic off the A14 and is stopped by traffic lights and the queues can go back for a mile on occasions.

I'm so glad it's not just me! On my first run as a navigator coming down the M6 and heading to Cambridge, this junction had us going round in circles for about fifteen minutes trying to figure out what to do about it. Then we discovered the A14 was shut. Yay, incomprehensible diversion signs!

On the up side, I suspect I may be the first navigator to successfully include Northampton town centre on this particular route.

I crashed yesterday at the junction to Catthorpe. I was coming from the A14, and someone pulled out from the road coming from Catthorpe to go towards the M1 or A14. Even though it is solely the other guy's fault, I think a roundabout at that junction would have reduced my speed and helped me avoid the write off and insurance trouble I now have to deal with.