A46 - A606
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Ordnance Survey map - Alternative aerial view
Where is it?
At the northern end of the main road north-east from Leicester, the A46. The road was improved to grade-separated dual carriageway standard in the 1990s and the improvement stopped here at the A606.
What's wrong with it?
At first, nothing. So many fast dual carriageway schemes end at a flat roundabout. This one ends at a grade-separated roundabout interchange, meaning that the continuation northwards - should it ever materialise - will be very simple. On the other hand, this means that the traffic joining the A46 northbound has to merge with a narrowing high-speed road.
What actually happens northwards is that the A46 narrows to one lane at the very point that the sliproad merges in. Three into one does not go.
Why is it wrong?
Grade separation is not the perfect solution for a single carriageway - merging is difficult when you only have one lane to join. It's even more difficult when you've got two lanes of traffic trying to merge into one, which you then have to merge into. Too much merging all round.
The junction will be fine when the dual carriageway extends further north. But that has now been put on hold until 2016 or later.
What would be better?
A simple partial fix would be to move the point where the A46 northbound narrows to one lane a little way south. This would mean that by the time the A606 sliproad joins, the main carriageway has sorted itself out and the merge will be simpler. You could even use some of that wide carriageway to extend the merging distance.
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Steve Travis finds a fault heading south too: (Apr 08)
The slip road onto the A46 southbound is very short and blind to traffic approaching on the A46. (The length is limited by it passing under a railway bridge). It would be easier to make this safer by keeping the A46 southbound as a single carriageway until the sliproad merged as a carriageway onto the main road. As it is, traffic accelerates onto the dual carriageway under the roundabout and traffic approaching down the slip has little time to merge.
