Apparently is unlikely due to them needing to acquire land to do the Keele stretch according to something the local rag posted a while back
PaulNowak:
Just a 2 min detour around H/C rob. Misspent my youth in that village, so there are ways and meansSent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That’ll be left at the lights and right at the junction then, use that way myself rather than the M6.
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Teach me not to read the whole post lol.
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stevegm3:
Wish the hard shoulder between 19 and 18 southbound had been repaired prior to starting the works. Run down with a decker Fri Sat Sun nights, frightened the life outta me, ended up sitting in middle lane till J18.
often wondered if a D/D could get under bridges on the hard shoulder,if you look at the bridges they are quite low at the beginning,i reckon you were right to sit in the middle lane otherwise you might have gone back to the depot with a single decker
Reply received
thank you for your recent query regarding the M6 J16-19 smart motorway.
I represent the contractor Carillion Kier who are carrying out this major project for highways England.
To answer your questions this project is upgrading this busy section of the M6 to an all lane smart motorway. When completed the hard shoulder will be converted into a permanent running lane to provide extra capacity. There will be refuge areas at regular intervals along the carriageway for emergency use. The traffic will be constantly monitored via a CCTV control room and new technology under the carriageway surface which will feed back instructions to motorists via the electronic gantry signage. This will bring a reduction in congestion, an improvement in traffic flow , less delays and better journey planning.
To implement such a major project on a live network requires careful planning to keep the public and our workforce safe and to deliver the scheme in a cost effective and most efficient way. We have planned our traffic management accordingly so that the various stages of construction can run alongside each other, along the scheme length. Although it may look repetitive to you we are working in the central reserve J19-17 to remove the old debris, carriageway surface and metal barrier. We are installing a new concrete crash barrier, more effective drainage to improve surface water and miles of new ducting that will house the vast lengths of electronic cabling required to power the new smart motorway technology. To be able to install this we need to excavate into the carriageway surface, the materials that we remove are transported back to our office compound for crushing and then the materials are backfilled into the excavation. We are working carefully alongside existing live gas and electric services and the fuel line for Manchester Airport which runs along the motorway verge. We have to carefully balance the cost effectiveness of working in shorter lengths against delivering the project on time, shorter lengths of traffic management ™ would mean an extended project and greater disruption to road users, longer lengths of TM mean we are able to complete the various stages of work quicker by utilising our available teams and machinery. Our current traffic management between J19-17, where we have installed the narrow lanes and have a 50mph limit, is 12.5 miles in length, not 17 miles. Although the public perception may be that there is little going on, glancing whilst driving past is not a god indicator of what is happening, if we had time lapse video to show out teams progress it would show just how much we have done to date. Here are some stats from just one day last month to illustrate our progress, there were:
18 excavators digging down into the central reserve surface
6 dumper trucks bringing in materials
18 22 tonne wagons removing the excavated spoil for crushing on site and redelivery
75 operatives working in smaller gangs
20 Tarmac operatives
10 traffic management operatives who travel up and down the narrow lanes as well as the centre.
10 subcontractors
2 tarmac layers
4 tarmac rollers
10 rollers
20 office staff supervising the works and entering and leaving the works from the various structures, drainage and infrastructure teams.
We understand that breakdowns will happen which is why we offer a free vehicle recovery service in our narrow lane section J19-17( where we have removed the hard shoulder). This is a service which is audited for efficiency by our client so we aim to recover any broken down vehicle within a 45 minute window to the safety of the local service area. This reduces delays to other road users. We report on all data monthly and you may be interested to hear that last month the biggest cause of vehicle breakdowns were drivers with tyre problems and lack of fuel. We are working on a project safety road campaign to highlight this in the press so that drivers are made aware of the reasons vehicles break down and to give them the opportunity to take greater care on the network, especially in the colder months, to make sure that their vehicles are road worthy and fit for travel. In relation to accidents, data from the narrow lanes does not suggest there are a greater number of accidents now, but there are more incidents overall with HGVs. This is a result of them driving too close to cars or the drivers lack of concentration so we have Cheshire traffic police patrolling the section and in the next few weeks with their HGV mobile surveillance truck to catch HGV drivers who use mobile phones whilst driving or who are driving carelessly.
I hope this has helped to answer your query, I am always happy to answer any other questions you may have or if local, we invite our customers to our site offices off J17 Sandbach to get a better understanding of the work involved in delivering this major project.
Kind regards
Sam Maidment
Stakeholder Engagement Manager
M6 J16-19 SMART MOTORWAYS PROJECT | Carillion Kier Joint Venture
M6 J16-19 Project Office | Holmes Chapel Road | Sandbach | CW11 1SE
Office Tel: TBC | NEW Mobile: 07970 201 504.
E-Mail: sam.maidment@kier.co.uk
Stakeholder Engagement Manager?
Good God. Whatever next?
What is actually meant is “We haven’t got time lapse photography, otherwise you’d see a load of numpties doing jack all”
Nice to see they have 20 managers on board. FFS
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PaulNowak:
Stakeholder Engagement Manager?Good God. Whatever next?
If XPO have anything to do with it, we’ll have stakeholder engagement champions next.
Only XPO depot I use is Carlsberg Northampton. Bit hit and miss for getting loaded, but the coffee machine is free, and there’s a smoking area [emoji2]
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Just had the misfortune to drive this tonight. Was actually closed 23 to 21a. I think it’s closed a bit further down tomorrow. Anyone planning on driving it Tuesday night should probably check first.
Captain Caveman 76:
Just had the misfortune to drive this tonight. Was actually closed 23 to 21a. I think it’s closed a bit further down tomorrow. Anyone planning on driving it Tuesday night should probably check first.
That’s nothing to do with the Smart motorway work, it would have been for other work to be carried out.
J19 to J16 is now my least favourite stretch of road to drive - and I’m fast tiring of miles of meaningless Road cones! 
380streamline:
J19 to J16 is now my least favourite stretch of road to drive - and I’m fast tiring of miles of meaningless Road cones!
You wanna try the traffic lights 20’ apart on the A77 just inside the 30mph limit Cairnryan.
Not bloody even a trailer length apart and been there months “guarding” a frigging POTHOLE!!![emoji52]
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Big Truck:
380streamline:
J19 to J16 is now my least favourite stretch of road to drive - and I’m fast tiring of miles of meaningless Road cones!You wanna try the traffic lights 20’ apart on the A77 just inside the 30mph limit Cairnryan.
Not bloody even a trailer length apart and been there months “guarding” a frigging POTHOLE!!![emoji52]Sent from my SM-J500FN using Tapatalk
they are only an inconvenience if you actually stop for them, 
dieseldog999:
Big Truck:
380streamline:
J19 to J16 is now my least favourite stretch of road to drive - and I’m fast tiring of miles of meaningless Road cones!You wanna try the traffic lights 20’ apart on the A77 just inside the 30mph limit Cairnryan.
Not bloody even a trailer length apart and been there months “guarding” a frigging POTHOLE!!![emoji52]Sent from my SM-J500FN using Tapatalk
they are only an inconvenience if you actually stop for them,
WARNING:
About fortnight ago coming down from Sainsburys East Kilbride for 0400P&O.
Set of motorbike lights behind me.
Came to said lights@ 0315 and slowed down to 30 but “cruised” on through.
Next thing Plod (who was riding bike!!![emoji52] ) puts blue lights on and waves me over.
Gave me a ballicking NOT for going through the red light but for stupidly doing it while he was following behind!!![emoji28]
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M1 J16-19 is another joke. When they set that up they were bragging on their site about how they had listened to the public and were going to do the works in shorter stages. Low and behold, they set up 2 segments of works, 16-17 and 17-19. I went through last night and what have they done ?. Yep, coned the whole stretch off 
i went up northbound on thurs afternoon…the lightest of slight drizle,no big deal…not 1 worker working…a cpl of jeeps crawling about,none of the track machines working,just nobody at all…and average cams to protect the workforce,
Drove (in a car) through this stretch southbound on Thursday morning around 0545, not one worker. Again, heading north, at 2100…not one worker. In fact, all the machinery that was parked up in the morning was in exactly the same place and appeared not to have moved at all.
Did anyone notice any work taking place at any point yesterday?
Works like this should take place 24/7/365. No ifs, no buts, this country runs on its road network, and it’s not acceptable to be so adversely affected for so long!
Now, how do I set up a road maintenance company to be able to do this…? 
Big Truck:
dieseldog999:
Big Truck:
380streamline:
J19 to J16 is now my least favourite stretch of road to drive - and I’m fast tiring of miles of meaningless Road cones!You wanna try the traffic lights 20’ apart on the A77 just inside the 30mph limit Cairnryan.
Not bloody even a trailer length apart and been there months “guarding” a frigging POTHOLE!!![emoji52]Sent from my SM-J500FN using Tapatalk
they are only an inconvenience if you actually stop for them,
WARNING:
About fortnight ago coming down from Sainsburys East Kilbride for 0400P&O.
Set of motorbike lights behind me.
Came to said lights@ 0315 and slowed down to 30 but “cruised” on through.
Next thing Plod (who was riding bike!!![emoji52] ) puts blue lights on and waves me over.
Gave me a ballicking NOT for going through the red light but for stupidly doing it while he was following behind!!![emoji28]Sent from my SM-J500FN using Tapatalk
at least he had a sense of perspective and not a complete plank.
same big car ■■■■■ last week heading for the boat,sat at 45mph the whole way from before dumfries daring the cars to overtake them right up to creetown where the picked their spot to nab the fliers off the boat i was heading for…i obviously hung back then stopped for a pee.caught them up,stopped to grab some sweeties,caught them up,stopped for a few mins cos i was sick of the sight of them,caught them up.nothing but slimebags knowing full well exactly what there doing.
Could be called ‘Work creation’, if there were actually any workers ‘on site’ 
.
Anyone know how many miles of cones there are lol! 