A14 Upgrade Huntingdon to Cambridge

Somebody was either better clued up, or lucky with their quotation and is now going to reap a much bigger profit than expected ! Remember - contractors get their profit from what they don't do ! Lets just hope it doesn't all start to sink into the ground after a few months. From the motorist's perspective it all looks pretty good right now...
 
As an extreme youngster we used to holiday in Fritton, Journey was all on A and B roads, from town to town, as there was no motorway anywhere near the route. I have vivid memories of my grandads ford pop ( yes with wing top mounted headlights ) being the luxury vehicle with 7 of us in it, One year I did the entire trip sitting on a wooden orange box in the rear footwell surrounded by adult knees.
Later I lived in Haverhill, this around 85 / 86, with regular trips down to the smoke the A11 / M11 was one route but I hated the M11. Stanstead was pretty new then.
I was last over there maybe 5 years ago and was amazed at the improvement in the road network, even most of the route through Thetford forest was more than 1 lane each way and the 4 went ways round about was much bigger than in 85.
By the look of this I won't recogonise any of it now.
Here in Wales we still have 2 lane motorways, the bottleneck that is Newport tunnels and the disaster of the motorway around Swansea. They should have kept the bridge toll and spent it sorting out Newport tunnels.

Not to mention the roads in Swansea Centre, they change it to make it better every two years only to find it's worse than previously and do it all again 2 years on.
 
Fritton ? Not Fritton Lake, that's not far from me. Local aggregates companies were trying to destroy the area, but that has been stopped now. The roundabout approching Thetford, just before Elvedon, is 'Fiveways' with 'Fourwentways' being further south near the A1307 into Cambridge I believe. It is amazing how it has all changed, mostly in small increments over the years.

The Elvedon bypass has made a huge difference, those traffic lights were so inefficient. As soon as a tractor appeared and wanted to cross the A11, both directions of that major and busy route, had to immediately come to a halt. At times it would back up for miles, just to give priority to local villages and a few tourists.

I look forward to seeing how quickly I can get between Cambridge and Tony's place when the new road is fully open. Those slow crawling pace drives in both directions do not help maintain concentration on the road !
 
Fritton Lake, not sure. Fritton as a Hamlet near Long Stratton, that was as a real youngster. I think I know what you call Elvedon Roundabout, it would back up for miles but was something I went through not to frequently on the 80s. It was more Haverhill, 4 went ways then either south or straight across to Cambridge. I was young free and single then, with a Hipster beard before it was a hipster beard.
No doubt you'll benefit from the roads improvements, but maybe they just get you to the next bottle neck quicker ! That's sure the case with the loss of 7 bridge tolls, Traffic sails through now and makes the jam bigger at the glorious Brynglass tunnels at Newport. My apologies for the thread Hi jack
 
Yup Foobar, that's the place. I can even recognise the place we used to stay. It was a pub back then but became a private house many years ago. Close to Fritton text on the map, 42m text in the plot.
Fond memories.
 
Well it's been open a few weeks, usual ****heads have had it closed once already with various other incursions, even had a car transporter hit the old bridge with a massive 14ft max height barrier in front of it lol and he went through 3 height restriction warning signs to reach it lol seems a decent bit of road, much more free flowing and well signposted, although i still struggle behind the thinking of the junction restrictions at a couple of the junctions
 
I get the distinct impression that highways projects 'go' whenever there is enough, or nearly enough money, or they would wait a lot longer. Its almost like blackmail it seems from the key funders. As a result 'a few corners get cut' - sorry for the pun. These then get looked at in due course and revised to what they should be. The Norwich NDR is a typical example. The roundabouts are weird and dangerous, with 4 lanes on, 3 past the first turnoff and space for only 2. Accidents are almost a daily occurrence. After they have finished the western link, we may see some changes...
 
Quick update, most of the outlying work has now been done, they've just opened up one of the link roads from the ring road in huntingdon to the station, also a very large chunk of the old flyover over the station is now missing lol, first time i remember seeing daylight over that part of the railway station.

Looking like the A428 to Caxton Gibbet section is hopefully going to be under way in 2022
 
I've just clocked the date on this last post šŸ˜³ šŸ˜³šŸ˜³

One hell of an improvement tho, especially to the town centre, and yes i'm including the whole project around Brampton/Huntingdon.

The latest one going through is as i said previously, the Black Cat to Caxton Gibbett stretch, which will include a 3 tier interchange at Black Cat, to allow through flow on both carriageways at all times, and is currently well under way for development etc

The legal challenge is over - National Highways

This will allow free flowing traffic all the way from Cambridge M11/A14 interchange through to J13 of the M1 :eek: so as you can see this will be a huge gamechanger for cross country transport, probably taking a chunk of traffic off the A14 too
 
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Not that I do Bedford to Norwich anymore but after 8 years of doing that drive regularly I can tell you being able to skip the annoying A421, A1, A428 part from black cat through half of Cambridgeshire before you find a dual carriageway again will massively cut the journey time. Glad it's finally happening. Apparently it's been talked about for 40 odd years
 
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