On 01/10/2010 20:32, Jonathan Morton wrote:
wrote in message
...
While this is true, the road signs should show both numbers with the
"secondary" route in brackets to show that one can be reached by a turn
off the other. This is the general convention in the UK for all such
cases. A case I saw recently is near Colchester, where the A120 to / from
Harwich crosses the main A12. Both roads share the Colchester by-pass and
the road is shown as A12 (A120).
Whilst it should be true that the number of the "senior" road is used where
the route is shared, it is surprising how often this is not the case:

Newmarket By-pass - shared A11/A14, designated "A14";
Rhayader-Llangurig - A44/A470, designated "A470";
The use of A55 for the last part of the London to Holyhead road (rather more
excusable);
The use of A303 for the first few miles west of Popham to Micheldever
Station (which should be A30).

There are opposite examples, too. The short stretch from the end of the M50
to Ross-on-Wye should be A449 but is marked "A40", with three legs of that
road apparently converging on one roundabout.

Regards

Jonathan


Can't speak for the others, but the "A303" designation is correct. This
is the principal route and it starts from junction 8 of the M3 and runs
to its junction with the A30 near Upottery. Apart from a couple of
short sections which it shares with other main routes and its western
end beyond the A303, the A30 is largely a secondary route and no longer
has "trunk route" status.

The A303 is a trunk road and - together with the western end of the A30
- is the main road to the SW for destinations too far south for the M4
to be part of a sensible route.

It's the same situation as the "A55" one, where the "new" road to modern
design has usurped the "old" route - in that case the A5. I can
remember the time when traffic from London and the Midlands to north
Wales would use the A5 (and the queues for it blocked up the M6 at
junction 12) , but you wouldn't now unless you fancied a scenic drive.

Similarly, I can remember when the A30 *was* the principal route from
London to the West Country, but those days ended with the building of
the M3 and the upgrading of the A303.

As for the A40 case, as the M50 is effectively a "feeder" to this road,
the designation you describe is probably employed to avoid confusing the
motorists who are actually looking for the A40 and not the A449. We
have a similar situation in Southampton where the A33 was always the
main road from the north and London into the docks. Now the M27 and
M271 are there, this is the best route to the docks (and the West Quay
shopping centre) and is signposted as such. So what was the A35/A3024
linking the end of the M271 to the City Centre and Docks has been
renumbered A33. The old A33 which runs from the end of the M3 straight
down through the city still retains its number, so if you are leaving
Southampton on the A33 you have a choice of two!

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