A12 road
Encyclopedia : A : A1 : A12 : A12 road
| A12 Road | ||
| Northbound exits | Junction | Southbound exits |
| Essex | ||
| M25, Brentwood A1023 | 11 (M25 J28 - Brook Street) | M25, Brentwood A1023 |
| Brentwood A1023, Mountnessing B1002 | 12 (Mountnessing Marylands) | Brentwood A1023, Mountnessing B1002 |
| No Exit | 13 (Trueloves) | Ingatestone B1002 |
| Margaretting | 14 (Furze Hill) | No Exit |
| Chelmsford A414, Margaretting B1002 | 15 (Webb’s Farm) | Chelmsford A414, Margaretting B1002 |
| B1007 | 16 (Stock Road) | B1007 |
| A130, Chelmsford A1114 | 17 (Howe Green) | A130, Chelmsford A1114 |
| A414 | 18 (Sandon) | A414 |
| No Exit | 19 (Boreham) | Chelmsford A138 |
| Hatfield Peverel | 20a (Hatfield Peveral South) | No Exit |
| No Exit | 20b (Hatfield Peveral North) | Hatfield Peverel |
| Witham B1389 | 21 (Lynfield Motors) | No Exit |
| No Exit | 22 (Coleman's) | Witham B1389 |
| Kelvedon B1024 | 23 (Kelvedon South) | No Exit |
| No Exit | 24 (Kelvedon North) | Kelvedon B1024 |
| Braintree, Stansted A120, B1408 | 25 (Marks Tey) | Braintree, Stansted A120, B1408 |
| A1124 | 26 (Eight Ash Green) | A1124 |
| Colchester A133 | 27 (Spring Lane) | No Exit |
| Harwich, Clacton A120, Colchester A1232 | 29 (Ardleigh Crown) | Harwich, Clacton A120, Colchester A1232 |
| Suffolk | ||
| B1029 | 30 (Park Lane Birchwood) | B1029 |
| East Bergholt | 31 | East Bergholt |
| Capel St. Mary | 32a (Capel St. Mary South) | Capel St. Mary |
| C475 London Road | 32b (Bentley Longwood) | C475 London Road |
| London, Ipswich A14, A1214 | 33 (A14 J55 - Copdock Mill) | End of duplex with A14 |
The A12 is a major road in England, a trunk road for most of its length, running from London to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.
Starting at the Blackwall Tunnel, it heads north, then north east through Leyton, Leytonstone, Gants Hill and Romford, then into Essex, passing Brentwood, Chelmsford and Colchester. In Suffolk, it passes Ipswich, Woodbridge and Saxmundham, then follows the coast through Lowestoft and Gorleston before entering Norfolk and ending at Great Yarmouth.
London
The section from the Lea Interchange to Leytonstone, which is all dual carriageway, was built in the 1990s following the removal of protestors. This section has an underpass at the Bow Interchange roundabout, a junction with the A11. The old section as far as Wanstead was rebuilt as a dual carriageway. Prior to that, the A12 started at the Green Man Roundabout at Leytonstone, and was single carriageway west of Wanstead tube station. It now has an underpass at that roundabout, which again is a junction with the old A11.East of Wanstead, the A12 runs roughly due east. It is known as Eastern Avenue, then Eastern Avenue West and Eastern Avenue East until it reaches Gallows Corner in the London Borough of Havering, just east of Romford. (This is where the A127 starts.) It now veers roughly north-eastward, because it starts to follow the course of the Roman road from Colchester to London. (The Romans started building this road from Colchester, their original capital for the province.) Originally, the A12 followed the Roman road fairly closely hence was fairly straight, but there are now several town bypasses, so the road through Essex looks quite wavy on a map. However, the 2.5 mile (4 km) stretch from Gallows Corner to the junction with the M25 motorway, called Colchester Road, is still perfectly straight. The M25 junction is number 28; it also marks where the A12 crosses the boundary from London to Essex.
Essex
The A12 formerly went through Brentwood,, Mountnessing, Ingatestone, Margaretting, Chelmsford, Boreham, Hatfield Peverel, Witham, Ramsgate, Kelvedon, Copford, Stanway and Colchester, but these are all now bypassed, and the A12 is close to motorway standard for its whole length in Essex.
- Colchester
Before the 1970s, the A12 took a route much closer to Colchester itself, and although still a bypass it consisted of urban single carriageways with roundabouts and pedestrian crossings. The old bypass is, of course, still in existence – the western half is now part of the A1124 and the eastern half part of the A133.
Suffolk
The Suffolk stretch of the A12 starts with the Capel St Mary by-pass. Originally the route from the Northern end of this bypass ran through the villages of Washbrook and Copdock and into Ipswich. When Ipswich's Southern by-pass was built in the early 1980s, the route picked up from the northern Capel St Mary junction (now numbered 32b), to pass to the West of the original line -- this allowed the relevant ground works and interchanges to be completed with minimal traffic disruption. The old dual carriageway through Washbrook and Copdock is blocked off at White's Corner and was renumbered to be the B1113. A footpath still exists which enables passage underneath the A14.
- Ipswich
For most of its remaining length through Suffolk the A12 is a single carriageway road and in many places its speed limit is less than the national limit, for example as it passes through towns and villages. During 2003/2004 some of these speed restrictions were further reduced from 40mph to 30mph.
- Lowestoft
An alternate route avoiding Lowestoft is available through Oulton Broad (the town of), but again via urban roads and a bridge.
The presence of these bridge choke points can cause serious disruption to north-south trunk traffic, especially when local traffic is added during rush hours.
A proper bypass for Lowestoft would have to be well to the west, even to the west of Oulton Broad (the body of water), and its route would have to consider the great extent of marshland in that area. For that reason an often discussed compromise is a third bridge, crossing Lake Lothing, linking the sections of urban spine-road that run approximately along the western edge of Lowestoft.
Norfolk
- Gorleston
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.