A50 re-engineering delivers cost and operational benefits

This project was instigated to upgrade the existing left in/left out junction to a grade-separated junction on the A50 at Trentham Lakes near Stoke-on-Trent in England.  Hyder, acting as the contractor’s designer, re-engineered the scheme from the client’s original remit to create an innovative design and build tender.
 
The design included combining an integral overbridge with re-enforced earth retaining walls to minimise whole life costs. The walls were built over a significant thickness of mine waste which, together with a detailed settlement analysis, obviated the need for ground improvement techniques, thus reducing the scheme’s overall cost.
 
Hyder created the following additional benefits for the client:
•  Improved traffic movements on the westbound slip road as a result of the new overbridge.
•  Increased capacity and reduced need for weaving on the A50 eastbound carriageway through the installation of full traffic signal control on the A500/A50 Queensway roundabout.
•  Increased number of eastbound lanes on the railway viaduct achieved by reducing the central reservation and eastbound hard verges.
•  Disruption to road-users minimised by carefully co-ordinating traffic management with the concurrent A500 Pathfinder project.
•  Reduction in waste achieved by using surplus fill materials from the A500 Pathfinder project as fill for the A50 earthworks.
This work has brought new accessibility to the former colliery, Britannia football ground and Sir Stanley Matthews Way to facilitate the development of these sites and increase employment and commercial opportunities in the area.