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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yrnz5wxgko.amp
I can’t call myself a local but I do ride there most weekends, so I was just wondering what Peak dwellers actually thought about the possibility of Snake Pass being non vehicular ?
That road is taking up a very significant chunk of Derbyshire CC's roads maintenance budget. So every time they need a bit more money, there's a story like this that does the rounds and eventually someone in Government agrees to chuck another few million quid into the gaping hole caused by the most recent landslide.
Really what it needs is a complete overhaul - if this happened in Switzerland for example, the old collapsed road would be replaced by an incredible elevated roadway sweeping elegantly up the valley, built within a year or so. But because it's the UK, it gets a few sets of temporary traffic lights which will still be there in 4 years time.
Correct. This country is pathetic when it comes to fixing roads. Much of the trouble is that all works are now done by private contractors and it is in their interest to eeek it out as long as possible. We had a small (not even a cubic meter) slip between the road at the end of our farm drive and our drive just below it. It undercut the maod by about 20 cms so that if someone had driven close to the edge to pass it would have collapsed and caused the vehicle to fall the 2 metres down the bank to our drive. Honestly, I have the kit (diggers, concrete mixers etc) to fix it in a day for about £500 in materials and the same in time and hire of kit. But it now has 2 roadwork signs, 2 keep left signs and a solid metal barrier for about 5 meters . I know that signs cost the council £50 a week to hire, the barrier probably more. Let's say a conservative £300 a week for the installation. It has already been there 4 weeks and is likely to be there for the foreseeable. They will claim there is no money to fix it (because their prefered contractor has probably quoted £40K to fix I am guessing). And we wonder why there is no money in the public purse!
I wonder at what point it becomes just not viable though? The article mentions broken road at Mam Tor which is closed to our benefit IMHO somewhat similar in the fact that geology won at the end of the day
The article mentions broken road at Mam Tor which is closed to our benefit IMHO somewhat similar in the fact that geology won at the end of the day
Broken Road isn't *really* critical infrastructure cos Winnats Pass exists a few hundred metres away although that too is one hell of a flaky road - the slightest bit of snow or ice and it's just an instant crashfest. So to some extent, Broken Road could just be left to fall to bits without it impacting anything much.
And even that, if you threw enough money and engineering at it, you could get a sort of short version of an Alpine pass; it's just not economically viable enough to do so.
Snake is different though - without that everything is forced north over Woodhead or south through Hope Valley - the latter one running into problems cos it's a very narrow and congested road busy with residences and involves either the "quick" route up Winnats or the long (and equally narrow / congested) road around via Edale and up Mam Nick to get out of the valley.
So there are two options. Massive (hundreds of millions of ££) investment up front to do the job properly and in pretty spectacular fashion. Or a constant drip drip drip of make do and mend. The former option is complicated by the fact it's Peak District National Park and they'd be dead against anything that spoilt the apparent "natural" beauty of the park - rather ignoring the fact that the entire park is a biodiversity desert that's seen millenia of quarrying, blasting, mining, farming, grazing and deforestation, there's nothing natural about any of it.
I almost said, somewhat in bad taste, that 'we' can't even maintain major roads, so Snake pass would be lower on the 'road fixing' agenda.
So I shant say that.
Be a shame to see it go, but there are more critical infrastucture projects that are also failing.
This is how societies fail. The main A-road between Todmorden and Hebden Bridge was closed for Seven F&c£ing Weeks over the New Year period just, well, because. Public transport gave up, adding hours to my working week, every week. I can't imagine what effect it had on people who lacked the fitness to walk/cycle round the bottlenecks created by this abject failure in organisation.
This was an exchange with my sister yesterday - she works for Cornwall council in the transport dept
It'll never close, it's got farms and houses all along it so at best it would become restricted but mainly it'll never close because of the complete car brain culture that says you must maintain a totally unsuitable road built in an unsuitable place on unsuitable ground because there's a city at each end of it and economics... northern power... leveling up... business... blah blah blah. Someone will be along soon to suggest another feasibility study into opening Woodhead tunnel which will delay things just enough for everyone to forget about it and we're back to square one.
I was just wondering what Peak dwellers actually thought about the possibility of Snake Pass being non vehicular ?
Where will all the 'spirited driving' clod wombles go to hurtle headlong into each other and other innocent road users?
Mostly though, I find myself not caring very much. It might reduce the volume of traffic on Glossop High Street - aka the A57 - of a summer weekend, but aside from that, we should be investing in public transport rather than pouring money into maintaining unsustainable roads.
I don't believe it will happen anyway.
https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/derbyshire-county-council-answers-questions-9347959
There's always the option to build a 25-mile long tunnel under the Peak at a cost of just £12Bn apparently... that should get people to Ladybower faster...
I went up a couple of years ago on one of the closures - I used to ride it a lot, but not in more recent years because how busy it is. It's knackered, and needs some serious money spending where the road has slipped.
we should be investing in public transport rather than pouring money into maintaining unsustainable roads.
What will the public transport run on?
it’ll never close because of the complete car brain culture that says you must maintain a totally unsuitable road built in an unsuitable place on unsuitable ground because there’s a city at each end of it
Those bastard Romans and wagon drivers, building their sodding roads on the off-chance someone will invent the internal combustion engine in 2000 years time....
Accepting that lack of infrastructure, especially around public transport, is a disaster on the UK, but if countries with far worse geographical hurdles can deal with this sort of thing, we need to learn some lessons and sort our shit out.
This is how societies fail.
STW never disappoints!
Given they're currently(?) building a new bypass (Mottram bypass) around all the towns at one end of the snake pass, it would be wildly poor foresight to then close the road that is causing all the traffic in those towns. How the article missed that fact is beyond me.
Fwiw Google reports the A6 as faster for almost all destinations for me. It's worth remembering whilst you can get the train to Manc and Liverpool, the roads across the peak district link Sheffield to virtually all areas west of the park and north of stoke. Much harder to get the train to Snowdonia and the lakes!
It needs loads of money spending on it, however the road itself is a danger, it’s used during the day by people who this it’s acceptable to try and overtake 4 cars coming upto a blind bend, during the weekend it can be used as a race track for cars and bikes.
https://www.buxtonadvertiser.co.uk/must-read/high-peaks-10-most-dangerous-roads-revealed-2851072
it’s used during the day by people who this it’s acceptable to try and overtake 4 cars coming upto a blind bend
I almost got obliterated when cycling along Snake Road towards the pass and someone doing just this, at like 60mph coming off the pass, on the wrong side of the road, shot past me going the other direction with inches to spare. I doubt they even saw me at all.
I find its OK to cycle early doors but I don't go up there unless early morning on a weekend now.
If it was closed to cars but not bikes etc that sounds fantastic from a cycling PoV but I assume the traffic would not disappear but rather just clog up some other part of the peak district so I'm not sure it makes a difference to me personally either way.
Given they’re currently(?) building a new bypass (Mottram bypass) around all the towns at one end of the snake pass, it would be wildly poor foresight to then close the road that is causing all the traffic in those towns. How the article missed that fact is beyond me.
Ah yes, the bypass that will shunt every bit of traffic delay from Mottram Moor down the road to Dinting Vale and the already massively congested Glossop town centre.
Then there'll be another 20 years of campaigning for a Glossop/Dinting bypass.
Not that local to me, but live on edge of Peak. The area is littered with landslips, some will be cost prohibitive so something has to give.
The recent repairs following the slip at Oker & Snitterton took an age, and those in the village there got used to the rat run being closed. The finish is pretty poor, and the fencing adjacent the road can be rocked by a little finger!
Tree removal (above landslips), excessive and unmitigated vehicle use and climate change (funny given the previous two) are leading to this.
but if countries with far worse geographical hurdles
It's built on shale & peat. Other countries wouldn't have had their aristocracy willy waving major projects at each other then used that as the basis for their entire transport network.
Given they’re currently(?) building a new bypass (Mottram bypass) around all the towns at one end of the snake pass, it would be wildly poor foresight to then close the road that is causing all the traffic in those towns. How the article missed that fact is beyond me.
That's as much about the Woodhead as the Snake, more in fact, as that's the route that the HGVs take. As far as I can tell, the A57 is more quasi-local traffic, 'spirited driving / lemming' clod wombles, Sunday drivers and Ladybower grockles than goods vehicles.
The whole Tintwistle bypass has been on the go for decades now and is ripe to be shelved again as soon as there's some sort of public spending cost-cutting drive. It's a terrible idea anyway, just a way of generating more traffic. I do feel mildly sorry for people living on Mottram Moor and in Tintwistle, but while they might benefit to a point, all the new roads will do is redistribute existing traffic and suck in more. Mottram Moor will inevitably turn into a rat run.
The Snake is on my personal list of red-flagged roads which I avoid on a bike along with the Woodhead, which is totally, flaming awful on a bike, the A624, which is a nasty mix of fast and too narrow, the A6 and others.
What will the public transport run on?
Rails? You know, like the existing line that runs across the Peak.
We need to try to drive less even if it means - shock, horror - changing the way we live.
This country is pathetic when it comes to fixing roads.
Kex Gill on the A59 in North Yorkshire is another example of this. Although they are finally diverting the road, but that has been delayed also.
I have the kit (diggers, concrete mixers etc) to fix it in a day for about £500 in materials and the same in time and hire of kit.
Oh yeah? There's a path by a stream near me that became undercut by the water. Someone thought they could do a quick job, but the stream washed it away again. So they fixed it again, washed away again. Repeat three or four times then they brought in the big machines and did a proper job, re-routing the path in the process. Half of what they put in has gone again. This stuff looks a lot easier than it is, I reckon.
This was on the radio (5Live) last night.
What will the public transport run on?
Rails? You know, like the existing line that runs across the Peak.
And the show host made the useful, fully substantiated comment that "travel by train between Sheffield and Manchester is terrible too!".
So there.
And the show host made the useful, fully substantiated comment that “travel by train between Sheffield and Manchester is terrible too!”.
It's true, it's not optimal, but that's the point. If we want people to drive less then the alternatives have to be viable and if we don't invest in them, then they never will be. But anyway, they'll go on patching it up the Snake on a reactive basis. I once met the road engineer who'd been in charge of the Broken Road, apparently he went back once a year to see how it was 'progressing'.
What he said was that the road there was basically impossible to shore up without spending enormous amounts and even then it probably wouldn't have worked, but as far as I can see, the areas where the Snake Pass is crumbling are significantly less steep, so maybe more durably repairable. Obviously I am not a road engineer 🙂
The area is littered with landslips, some will be cost prohibitive so something has to give.
Yup, I'm looking forward to finding out how long it will take for the Macclesfield to Whaley road to (not) reopen, as that shut last month because of a massive new hole in/under it.
all the new roads will do is redistribute existing traffic and suck in more.
I think the residents of High Lane would agree with you there.
We did a field trip to see the land slips on the Snake back in the 90’s, I remember the lecturer getting very animated about how the road would need constant attention as a result. Guess he wasn’t wrong.
On the point of public transport, the Hope Valley line is in essence Victorian infrastructure trying to cope with modern demands. They’ve done the Capacity Upgrade recently but all that’s done is improve punctuality by shunting the cement works freight onto a siding to allow commuter trains past. It’s in desperate need of improvement akin to the work happening a bit further north on the Transpennine Route Upgrade.
On the point of public transport, the Hope Valley line is in essence Victorian infrastructure trying to cope with modern demands. They’ve done the Capacity Upgrade recently but all that’s done is improve punctuality by shunting the cement works freight onto a siding to allow commuter trains past. It’s in desperate need of improvement akin to the work happening a bit further north on the Transpennine Route Upgrade.
The line is constrained by capacity at Manchester, Sheffield and - to a lesser extent - Stockport.
Electrification would help a lot cos electric trains can accelerate much more quickly but electrification through the tunnels is problematic cos they were never built with that headroom in mind.
At the moment, the line has to juggle the "fast" EMR and TPE services which go Sheffield - Chinley - Hazel Grove - Manchester, the Northern Rail stopping service (Sheffield - New Mills - Manchester, the whole length of the line) and freight.
Rather ironically, HS2 (in full, to both Manchester and Sheffield) would have pretty much sorted the capacity issues and allowed 2-3 stopping services per hour instead of the one that can currently fit along it at the moment.
Sorry, that's a digression from Snake Pass though...
I also doubt it ever happen, they would probably rather it was maintained by National Highways because that's it's use case really. They just want the government to step in and fix it because the pothole budget won't even touch the sides of what is essential a rebuild job on sections of it.
Woodhead is a much better road for traffic to be on, but it would mean traffic from south of Sheffield having to go through the city to get there. The Hope valley is a non-starter, the road to Castleton is fine, but then you have Winnats, so it'll be closed every time it snows or icy, even if it didn't just lead to an unacceptable fatality rate just in good weather if the traffic level increased. The road to Edale is just too narrow to be seriously considered, you'd struggle to get two lorries past each other in places.
What will the public transport run on?
As above there's a rail line serving the same route. It needs some upgrading really as it's slower than modernized trains elsewhere and not the best reliability if it's not improved. But if you need to get from Sheffield to Manchester it's still, the quickest option.
Or busses, I used to get the National Express to Manchester as it was half the price of the train (albeit slower). It was always busy too.
Consider how much less damage a single coach probably does Vs 50 cars. Or even just how much les congestion there could be in Glossop.
I used to regularly travel from Manchester to Sheffield as our biggest client was there.
The rail service was great! Fast, efficient, comfortable and reliable
Oh… hang on a minute…. I must have drifted off into an alternative reality there and dreamt I lived in a country with a functioning public transport network
Obviously, with it being the north west of England, it was the total opposite of that. A slow, unreliable service on filthy old overcrowded trains
The area is littered with landslips, some will be cost prohibitive so something has to give.
I see what you did there!
The train used to be a bit better when the airport to Norwich service was running but they binned it.
The simple fact is, no one is willing to spend the money to upgrade or to provide an alternative.
The area is littered with landslips, some will be cost prohibitive so something has to give.
BAdum-tish
A bit like the A83 Rest and Be Thankful in Scotland.
As far as I can tell, the A57 is more quasi-local traffic, ‘spirited driving / lemming’ clod wombles, Sunday drivers and Ladybower grockles than goods vehicles.
Perhaps on a weekend, but go there at rush hour and it's quite clearly inter-city commuters. You can tell it's a daily drive by the way they drive (i.e. grumpily)
no one is willing to spend the money to upgrade or to provide an alternative
Which is fair enough as it's all going in connecting somewhere south of Birmingham to Wormwood Scrubs
Not Snake Pass, but gives an idea of the costs and lack of money available elsewhere in the county This example is on a very minor road at Leashaw, near Matlock: https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/repairs-landslip-hit-derbyshire-road-9926851#comments-wrapper
Is snake pass currently open to motor traffic? Reason I ask is I'm considering a few days of gravel riding round the peak district / Marple bridge and would like to include snake pass. Happy for you to tell me that's a terrible idea and I should go up the xxx off piste route instead.
Is snake pass currently open to motor traffic?
Yes. With 2 or 3 sets of temporary traffic lights, one of which is really quite long and pushing the boundaries of what you can easily get through on a road bike within one phase.
travel by train between Sheffield and Manchester is terrible too!
Because the best rail route has been closed for nearly 50 years, and the main tunnel on the route is now full of National Grid power cables?
Rails? You know, like the existing line that runs across the Peak.
We need to try to drive less even if it means - shock, horror - changing the way we live.
I’d love to be able to do that, to go to gigs in London and Bristol. But the fact that they don’t run trains later than 11.28pm from London, or 10.32pm from Bristol, when gigs usually finish at around 11pm, with around a 30 minute walk or tube ride to the station means either having to drive, or spend an additional £50-odd on a B&B. It’s just not practical.
I’d like to catch a bus to Bristol, it would be free for me with my bus pass, but there’s no direct bus from Chippenham to Bristol, I either have to catch one to Bath, and then one to Bristol, or one to the outskirts of Bristol, then try to find a connecting one into the City centre, both options take about two hours, for a 30 mile journey I can do in half that time in the car.
I could get a railcard, which would halve the train ticket cost, but it’s a mile walk to and from the station for me, which is doable, but costs about £70, and I just can’t really justify the cost for the amount that I would use it.