6:59 "Highways England said 'Learn how to drive' and it's been that way ever since" I've never heard a statement that so accurately describes the attitude of Highways England in their never-ending quest to avoid doing any sort of meaningful work
Unfortunately it’s name keeps changing. Originally it was the “Highways Agency “, then it became “Highways England” now it’s know as “National Highways”. Please be reassured that tax payers money has been used for each rebrand. No wonder the UK is £2 trillion in debt!
On this occasion they were correct though, as a regular user of the road it's signposted for miles that the left hand leaves the A329M and joins the M4, you just have to pay attention, tricky for a lot of people in their cars it would seem.
@@arod9998 we'll say nowt about illegally infilling bridges and then having to dig them out again... all to save spending 20k and its only cost 850k so far!
@@Speedkamthe responsibility is to not let these kinds of situations happen in the first place. If you as a designer are enabling bad drivers to drive bad and cause accidents, then your design is a bad design.
I don't know why I watch his content. But in the other hand. Very informative of the 'then' & 'now' of the motorways. Tbh, I haven't driven on the motorway for a long while now though
Excellent video on my local Motorway. (For future videos it's the Lodd-on option not load-on) Very accurate account of all the local goings on. Only one other interesting thing along the motorway you could have spoken about is the small but excellent museum of Berkshire aviation, just off the motorway next to the park.
Love this episode, a bit more local! Just a few points from my hazy recollection: - The M31/A329(M)/A3290 was originally supposed to link to Vastern Road in Reading centre as noted in the video. This was abandoned when they realised that they realised where they would have to cross the River Kennet (between the Thames and the railway line) sat a historically protected foot bridge apparently designed by Brunel and some people got very angry about the potential loss of a historic footbridge. Draw your own conclusions. They then replanned to take the motorway north across the Thames and Caversham Lakes, to Caverham (still in Berkshire). This would relieve the central Reading bridges of congestion, the Reading IDR (inner ring road) of congestion, and substantially relieve Sonning Bridge (one way with traffic lights) - all in Berkshire. However, Caversham Lakes are in a stub of Oxfordshire, and Oxfordshire County Council said "lol, no thanks, no benefit for us", and Berkshire County Council (and later the unitary authority successors) were once again stymied to leaving a glorious slip road to the Thames Valley Park / Microsoft & Oracle complex. - At the Winnersh triangle junction there were originally 4 slip roads as you might imagine. The 5th slip road was added later (I think I recall seeing it under construction in the 1990s), and was always solely for the buses from the cinema park & ride car park to Reading city-oh-no-its-a-town centre. The bus lane on the now-A3290 used to be all the way from the cinema slip lane to the Winnersh Triangle to Sutton Seeds roundabout (hence the length of the derating), but for some reason I recall car drivers managing to somehow get confused and drive in the bus lane, and then they abandoned it apart from the end where the roundabout congestion begins. - At the south end, at Coppid Beach roundabout, is the "glorious" Coppid Beach hotel modelled after ski chalet hotels. This is because it sits next to the former location of a dry ski slope, and if there's one thing we've learned about the UK, it's that all post-WW2 new towns like Bracknell needed a dry ski slope.
I worked in Reading for a few months in the late 90s. My abiding memory of the time was seeing a Lotus Elan, on fire and melting, on the southbound sliproad at the Coppid Beech junction on the way home one Friday evening. It didn't matter how shitty the job made me feel, I knew that at least one person had just had a worse week than me.
Of course many people use the non-existent M31 since, despite having to go through Bracknell, it's still quicker than continuing around the M25 and using the M4. It would have been a very useful link for sure.
I love the mention about the J10 1 lane downgrade on the A329M. Its absolutely carnage, people constantly go into the wrong lane, and then swerve over at last minute. Really it should of had the two lanes merging on the other side of the second M4 exit, that way both lanes would continue through the junction, but would also allow the M4 joining traffic to have their own lane
I thought something that was also missed in this video is the point that all the bridges on the north side of J10 are designed for 3 lanes so they wouldn’t need demolishing upon upgrading. Also that the A329(M) is one of the few locally controlled and maintained motorways in the country, ran by Wokingham council. However the bit of the A329m going through J10, as far as I’m aware acording the National Highway’s network map is now under control of NH, making changes harder to push through
Hi Jon. I am biased to say it’s your best episode to date. Why? Because I could see my house in your satellite view of the A329(M) near Dinton Pastures. Brilliant episode. As for the bus lane, and the abandoned park and ride which constantly flooded, resulting in the disused “on ramp” all worthy of its own video in due course.👏👏👍😀
another notable aspect for road nerds like me is that this motorway has the last remaining 1959-style advance direction sign in England that only shows the number, I.e. no destinations; it's on the northbound approach to M4 (several of them survive in Scotland, and they're still the norm in NI)
The M31 would have been fwicked sweet awesome. I often had to travel between Croydon and South Wales, and the Heathrow area was dire. I learned to use the M3, A323 and A329(M) route, but even then the bits that would have been bypassed by the M31 were usually the most congested part of the journey.
I think you mean the A322? But 100% agreed, I've been recently travelling to and from South Wales to Eastbourne, the majority of the time I use the M4 > A329(M) then along A322 (Bagshot road) to M3 > M25 > A22 route. The M31 would reduce mine, and others reliance of the M25 somewhat, and in turn reduce congestion on the M25. In my head, its the equivalent of the A417 not existing, and expecting all the traffic to go and use the M4/M5 interchange. Madness the M31 wasn't built.
@@hardwarexpert You're right -- the A323 through the far side of Aldershot would have been well out of my way, and on worse roads. Thanks for the correction. I'll be careful not to try out that route!
I was under the impression that there was an intention for the A329(M) to have actually continued straight, crossing what is now the Caversham rowing lakes and the Thames, dropping onto (or probably passing over) the A4155 and continuing North towards the M40? Great video of my closest motorway anyway Jon 👍
There was indeed. It's been resurrected a few times over the years, but Oxfordshire County Council who are the authority on the north side of the Thames want nothing to do with it. The plan was to bypass the endless congestion through Reading and over the two bridges. The building of the large Tesco by the side of the river took up a lot of the land for the original site, and the rowing lakes are in the way of an alternative route. I don't think it will ever happen as nobody wants a major road ploughing through rare open spaces these days.
Ive walked this whole 6 mile stretch A329(m) and A3290 litter picking for the council 100's of times for 17 ½ years and never knew a fair chunk of this information. Thanks john 😊.
My local motorway. The park and ride has never been in use in the 10 or so years I've lived in the area - at least not as a park and ride. That and the Showcase cinema car park next to it are basically the flood plain for the river Loddon, which likes to live in the car park at least once a year. It's also just along the road where you'll find the infamous Tesla Supercharger station - the one that if you google "flooded tesla supercharger" it's the one that pops up as the image, because it too is built on a flood plain.
Great video! I’ve lived in Reading and surrounding areas fair amount of my early life. The M31 extension plan to the south also had twin extension plan to the north beyond Thames Valley Park to cross the Thames near Sonning to give 3rd major crossing point (the current Sonning Bridge in the village is single lane with traffic lights). There were early plans to eventually join to the M40 apparently. This third bridge idea joining with the main Henley Road resurfaced in the late 2010’s but seems to be stalled at Berkshire council want it but Oxfordshire do not….
It's very odd/surprising to me to be recommended a video of such a familiar piece of road. I was born in Reading and live in Wokingham so I've driven up and down the A329(M) for as long as I've been driving, but I didn't know the history or the plans for an M31 that I would surely have used quite a few times by now had it existed. I've also walked that wiggly footpath visible at 7:07 which I'm sure was designed by a frustrated would-be racetrack designer!
Nice to see my local Motorway feature. Just to add, the Flyover at the Copid Beech Roundabout was a later addition - for many years if traveling from Reading towards Bracknell, you had to come down a slip road and then back up the other side. The Flyover was finally added in around 1990, some 7 years after the two lane section of the A329 toward the centre of Bracknell was completed.
Here in Stockholm they built a new bus lane exit from the E4 to a garage only to close it after a few months because so many cars would take it and get stuck. Now its closed off and Swedens most modern ruin motorway
Please keep making these. Highways England need to be embarrassed into sorting themselves.if you get to the M62 might be worth seeing what a b@lls up they are making if the Ouse bridge in East Yorkshire. It was faulty from the start and caused a delay in ppening the last section. Its been under repair for years and bloody dangerous. If it was in the South, it would have been replaced but its being patched up yet again and has been bodged and had work going on for the last 2 years. Apparently another 9 months to go. Restrictions are still in place
It's a complete fuck up. Highways 'learn to drive' England has put in a mind numbingly boring/ridiculous 30mph section so it takes fking ages to get over the god damn thing. Would have been cheaper and quicker to torch it and build a new one....
Praise be, the weekend WOULD NOT BE THE WEEKEND without your videos. Listening to you relay a series of numbers & letters is very enjoyable as is all the other information you bring us, many thanks.
Ah, my old home turf - I was born in Reading and lived there for 22 years. I'm pretty sure there were junction numbers in the past and it's pronounced "Lod-un". I was only 2 at the time but I didn't know about the bridge collapse with resulting deaths and inuries - that's horrifying! When Reading had no Cinema multiplex we used to use the A329(M) to whizz over to The Point at Bracknell to the cinema there, along with bowling and TGI Fridays. Oh, and of course the artifical Ski Slope at the John Nike Leisure sports complex and Coral Reef leisure pool. I would like to say that we didn't see how fast we could go around that left-hander after the Coppid Beech roundabout in various cars on the way there without sliding off, but that would be a lie. 🤣 It used to be quite a good motorway but since they decided to start messing with it, every new incarnation has been 💩. Shame the M31 never happened, would have been awesome! Thanks for another fab episode Jon!
Loddon, not loadon. You missed the excellent opportunity when mentioning said river that rises in and travels through Basingstoke, to point out that this is the river that carries the result of the Basingstoke Sewage Works at Wildmoor all the way to the Thames, and then onto London! (Send us your slum clearance overspill will you? We'll teach you!) An excellent view of the most abused motorway in the south, a strip of road that I wasted months on waiting in queues in the 80s and 90s.
Ahh i remember when the A329M was a twinkle in the planners eye. You forgot to mention the famous ski jump just north of the now closed access road you were standing on. It`s been subsiding there since the 60`s.
My old neck of the woods (I grew up in Crowthorne). The A329( M) was really useful for driving to Reading ( even better now with the Coppid Beech flyover). Before you had to drive through Wokingham and the old A329 which took ages. I have mixed feelings about the planned M31. One one hand it would have been a hood linking road. On the other hand, so much forest and heath land has already been ripped up locally for development .
Another spiffing episode John 👍🏼 All very well explained about a bloody confusing situation with councils, bus lanes, A roads, and road number changes. I was hoping for “gravel pit” by Wutang clan as the outro tune, but was it the theme to Fun House ? This week I’m in my final week of working a months notice to go on to pastures new…. And never have to go to London EVER AGAIN 😁😁
Art Attack, apparently. I was wondering if mention of the A321 would have been an excuse to have the music from 3-2-1 but I suspect our host is slightly too young for that :D
Nice work John. I grew up in Woodley and my parents' house is right next to the motorway near Loddon Bridge Road, their close was cut in half by its construction a few months after they purchased it, making it pretty much worthless for a time. I grew up being able to see over the top of the wall from my bedroom window. The footbridge at the start you are standing on is by Earley station and when we were kids, we used to stand on it, grip the railings and jump up and down in unison to make the bridge bounce so much, the railings would rattle. Fun times!
I saw my house! Well my old house... used to live in that little collection of buiding to the north and east of M4 J10 and used the A329M a lot. Loved walking around Dinton Pastures, great but of aerial footage over the lake there! Great vid as ever.
The M31 would have saved me so much time over the last 20 years. Even going through Bracknell it is still ten minutes quicker than carrying on the M4 when coming into London.
You didnt mention the dead straight measured mile that is marked out with yellow/red discs coming from reading to the Winnersh junction on the now A3290. Tested a few cars on that bit of road over the years…….
@josyms7849 Yes. It is a 7 lane motorway with no central reservation. It has a bi-directional middle lane during rush hour , meaning it is 4 lanes into the city and 2 out in the morning and vice-versa in the evening. During normal times it is 3 lanes each way. There is always a closed lane to separate traffic but no solid central reservation, meaning it is singalong carriageway.
Need to get yourself to Newcastle; A167 central motorway! Only part of it built, rest was scrapped, slip roads that are the thing of nightmares, and a few random abandoned parts. It’s time …..
Am I alone in thinking that one day, given the locations and dress code of our dear content provider gets involved with, eventually while he's describing the history of a particular section of motorway, he's going to get approached by a shady character with trembling hands asking if he's got any heroin to sell? I mean, all black, wearing a black beanie no matter the weather, hanging out in the middle of nowhere in places where pedestrians or cameras aren't around... eventually someone's going to get the wrong idea. Respect to the content provider, though. He's clearly doing what he loves to do, and I hope he has a ton of fun making it.
@@AutoShenanigans Hey, at least you can rest assured that if this RUclips thing doesn't work out, you literally know all of the out-of-the-way spots to carry out your black market deals.
I travel into Reading frequently on the adjacent railway line and have often wondered about that abandoned sliproad, thanks Jon for explaining the reasoning behind it 🙂
I like the free art gallery concept too. There are so many boring grey concrete constructions that they need brightening up with some original artwork. I'm guessing that is why you had the theme tune to "Art Attack" playing at the end?!
Used to live in Reading and used to cycle on this carriageway just after the roundabout where the motorway (before changing to A3290) ended going into the Thames Valley Business Park. It's still a dangerous carriageway though as I had a few close calls with fast coming traffic. Miss Reading though was here between 89-98.
Jon, your films have no right to be entertaining but they somehow are; maybe I have spent too much time on Britain's fabulous motorways. Keep up the good work!
Brilliant as always. My old stomping ground and happened to be back on the A329(M) two days ago for a wedding in Reading. I learned two things (1) It is very easy to miss the A4 exit and end up at the next roundabout that goes nowhere apart from an industrial estate and (b) Reading has become absolute s***hole if you want to either drive through, or even park in the place. Not what I remember at all - although it was a few years ago.
John there was some vague thought in the 1960s that there should be a bridge over the Thames to the North and that the A329M would extend that way - Reading was unsure where new building would be and declared that the M4 would be the urban boundary to the South. As usual others may know more, that was what I was told when I studied the university many, many years ago.
You could easily do a tour of the M31 and all the other motorways that weren't. In the case of the m31 i heard that there was a plan to bridge the Thames at reading to improve north / south flow
I remember that bridge collapse in the 1970's. It happened, as you say, during construction and was virtually at the end of our road at the time. Used to travel the A329M motorway weekly back in the day. Also remember fishing in the river Loddon as a kid. Didn't catch much though. 😏
As always an awesome video, but particularly do this week as I am travelling on the A329(m) later this week. I intend to play this video to my passengers as we travel along it.
Both ends of the A329 where referred to as the Ski Jumps as the fly-overs where not completed for years. The derelict barn you were standing in was the scene of an accident when a vehicle attempted to exit the road through the hedge and landed upside down in the barn damaging a Bedford Horsebox, ha!
That was an amazing amount of detail and interest in just 4 miles of motorway. Can you go back and do the same for the other motorways, you can start a new “extended edition” series of motorway secrets? I’ve taken that road many times and its annoying how it dumps you into completely inappropriate road into Reading, or if you go the other way to avoid parking on the M25 for a while you have to crawl through the roundabouts of Bracknell. Wish the M31 had been built
It only takes about 5 minutes more to get to the A3 in London from Reading taking the approximate route of the M31 than using the M4 or M3, plus you can stop and play in the sandpit at Horsell Common on the way.
The Reading end proposed extension is part of the reason Tescos acquired land and built the Kings Meadow store which would have been in the busy route in and out of town.
Having the delights of occasionally working from an office not far from the Loddon interchange, this answered a bunch of nagging questions I had about the A329(M)! Thank you!
I went up and down this motorway every weekday for about 8 years. There was never a moment where there weren't roadworks going on, and all of them seemed to make things worse. That lane change was ridiculous.
Amazing, in my neck of the woods, literally… I live just on the edge of Bracknell and walk up to Caesars Camp in Swinley Forest where you ended the episode on a regular basis. :)
I recall the fatalities when the crossing was built over the Loddon (pronounced like Lodd not Load)... and I recall the motorway ending at the A321.... nicely made.
That graffiti area under the motorway used to be the useful Loddon Bridge Park and Ride car park and bus link into and around the town of Reading. It did partially flood from time to time but can't see that it was progress for Wokingham Borough Council to shut it.
I can't remember if I've mentioned my mates mum before. She had a friend who's job is to paint over the bridge graffiti there to give the artists a nice blank canvas every Friday night. My mates mum and my mates mums mate have worked there for decades. They met while shovelling gravel out of the quarry. That's why it was so small, it was hand dug by the two women.
Thank you John for another entertaining and enjoyable video which as always is packed full of engaging information about the development of our motorway infrastructure and the process whereby they were constructed. (sadly no one video bombed you again!!)
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I have to admire John's commitment to not checking the pronunciation of place names and just saying it both ways every time.
The cynic in me says that it's so that people comment to correct the pronunciation, which improves "engagement" for the algorithm.
And its Loddon not Lowdon! I used to to work near Sherfield on Loddon
Typical northern behavior 🤡
@@andykilvington1651 Yep. Lived in Reading all my life; never heard it pronounced Lowdon outside this video!
6:59 "Highways England said 'Learn how to drive' and it's been that way ever since" I've never heard a statement that so accurately describes the attitude of Highways England in their never-ending quest to avoid doing any sort of meaningful work
Unfortunately it’s name keeps changing. Originally it was the “Highways Agency “, then it became “Highways England” now it’s know as “National Highways”. Please be reassured that tax payers money has been used for each rebrand. No wonder the UK is £2 trillion in debt!
On this occasion they were correct though, as a regular user of the road it's signposted for miles that the left hand leaves the A329M and joins the M4, you just have to pay attention, tricky for a lot of people in their cars it would seem.
How is highway england reaponsible for abysmal driving skills across the nation? Unless you claim people drive well?
@@arod9998 we'll say nowt about illegally infilling bridges and then having to dig them out again... all to save spending 20k and its only cost 850k so far!
@@Speedkamthe responsibility is to not let these kinds of situations happen in the first place. If you as a designer are enabling bad drivers to drive bad and cause accidents, then your design is a bad design.
John is a legend for making this stuff so interesting to watch.
I’m in America and I can’t
get enough
Amazing what you can do with a personality. Wish I had one
I live in the area covered by this video, never thought of the A329(M) as interesting before 😊
@@stubbsz
You've most likely got you're own unique personality of your own!
Jst don't compare to others, thinking your unworthy. 😉👍
I don't know why I watch his content. But in the other hand. Very informative of the 'then' & 'now' of the motorways.
Tbh, I haven't driven on the motorway for a long while now though
Any road to help people escape Reading has got to be worth hitting the like button.
Although if you miss the M4 junction then it will deposit you in Bracknell, which is even grimmer.
@pizzalover3 facts
This is journalism of the highest quality 🫡
Excellent video on my local Motorway. (For future videos it's the Lodd-on option not load-on) Very accurate account of all the local goings on. Only one other interesting thing along the motorway you could have spoken about is the small but excellent museum of Berkshire aviation, just off the motorway next to the park.
WOD NDB
Love this episode, a bit more local! Just a few points from my hazy recollection:
- The M31/A329(M)/A3290 was originally supposed to link to Vastern Road in Reading centre as noted in the video. This was abandoned when they realised that they realised where they would have to cross the River Kennet (between the Thames and the railway line) sat a historically protected foot bridge apparently designed by Brunel and some people got very angry about the potential loss of a historic footbridge. Draw your own conclusions. They then replanned to take the motorway north across the Thames and Caversham Lakes, to Caverham (still in Berkshire). This would relieve the central Reading bridges of congestion, the Reading IDR (inner ring road) of congestion, and substantially relieve Sonning Bridge (one way with traffic lights) - all in Berkshire. However, Caversham Lakes are in a stub of Oxfordshire, and Oxfordshire County Council said "lol, no thanks, no benefit for us", and Berkshire County Council (and later the unitary authority successors) were once again stymied to leaving a glorious slip road to the Thames Valley Park / Microsoft & Oracle complex.
- At the Winnersh triangle junction there were originally 4 slip roads as you might imagine. The 5th slip road was added later (I think I recall seeing it under construction in the 1990s), and was always solely for the buses from the cinema park & ride car park to Reading city-oh-no-its-a-town centre. The bus lane on the now-A3290 used to be all the way from the cinema slip lane to the Winnersh Triangle to Sutton Seeds roundabout (hence the length of the derating), but for some reason I recall car drivers managing to somehow get confused and drive in the bus lane, and then they abandoned it apart from the end where the roundabout congestion begins.
- At the south end, at Coppid Beach roundabout, is the "glorious" Coppid Beach hotel modelled after ski chalet hotels. This is because it sits next to the former location of a dry ski slope, and if there's one thing we've learned about the UK, it's that all post-WW2 new towns like Bracknell needed a dry ski slope.
I worked in Reading for a few months in the late 90s. My abiding memory of the time was seeing a Lotus Elan, on fire and melting, on the southbound sliproad at the Coppid Beech junction on the way home one Friday evening.
It didn't matter how shitty the job made me feel, I knew that at least one person had just had a worse week than me.
“Highways England said learn how to drive” sums up their approach really😂
Of course many people use the non-existent M31 since, despite having to go through Bracknell, it's still quicker than continuing around the M25 and using the M4. It would have been a very useful link for sure.
i find it much slower since I stop off for a walk in Horsell Common half way. I avoid Bracknell by going through Wokingham Without / nine mile ride.
It’s slower as it is traditional to stop off at the kfc in Bracknell 🤣
No M31? Aha. Well, that's one less video for Jon to make, I suppose.
@@grahameida7163 Next to the best doner van in Berks.
@@David_Crayfordhuh? Did you even watch the video?
I love the mention about the J10 1 lane downgrade on the A329M. Its absolutely carnage, people constantly go into the wrong lane, and then swerve over at last minute. Really it should of had the two lanes merging on the other side of the second M4 exit, that way both lanes would continue through the junction, but would also allow the M4 joining traffic to have their own lane
I thought something that was also missed in this video is the point that all the bridges on the north side of J10 are designed for 3 lanes so they wouldn’t need demolishing upon upgrading. Also that the A329(M) is one of the few locally controlled and maintained motorways in the country, ran by Wokingham council. However the bit of the A329m going through J10, as far as I’m aware acording the National Highway’s network map is now under control of NH, making changes harder to push through
Agree. It's a nightmare.
Yes I agree, it should have had the two lanes merging on the other side.
Hi Jon. I am biased to say it’s your best episode to date. Why? Because I could see my house in your satellite view of the A329(M) near Dinton Pastures. Brilliant episode.
As for the bus lane, and the abandoned park and ride which constantly flooded, resulting in the disused “on ramp” all worthy of its own video in due course.👏👏👍😀
could almost make out my house in North Wokingham just below the A239(M)
The Sandford Lake Road is a bit bloody treacherous after heavy rain!
@@stephenhookings1985 Isn’t it just. Only fools ignore the “signs”. 🫣🥴
LODD-ON. Basically, rhymes with 'modern'. As with all your vids, excellent, informative, well-edited and just.... great.
Think he might have been taking the pee as he couldn't pronounce Earley properly either.
But "LODD-ON" would in no way at all rhyme with modern? Do you mean modeM and not modeRN? Though even modem wouldn't rhyme. How do you say modern?
@@jimmydesouza4375 ruclips.net/video/Q-1TxNHgRQg/видео.html
another notable aspect for road nerds like me is that this motorway has the last remaining 1959-style advance direction sign in England that only shows the number, I.e. no destinations; it's on the northbound approach to M4
(several of them survive in Scotland, and they're still the norm in NI)
The M31 would have been fwicked sweet awesome. I often had to travel between Croydon and South Wales, and the Heathrow area was dire. I learned to use the M3, A323 and A329(M) route, but even then the bits that would have been bypassed by the M31 were usually the most congested part of the journey.
I think you mean the A322? But 100% agreed, I've been recently travelling to and from South Wales to Eastbourne, the majority of the time I use the M4 > A329(M) then along A322 (Bagshot road) to M3 > M25 > A22 route. The M31 would reduce mine, and others reliance of the M25 somewhat, and in turn reduce congestion on the M25.
In my head, its the equivalent of the A417 not existing, and expecting all the traffic to go and use the M4/M5 interchange. Madness the M31 wasn't built.
@@hardwarexpert You're right -- the A323 through the far side of Aldershot would have been well out of my way, and on worse roads. Thanks for the correction. I'll be careful not to try out that route!
And it would have bypassed what is by far the busiest part of the M25.
I was under the impression that there was an intention for the A329(M) to have actually continued straight, crossing what is now the Caversham rowing lakes and the Thames, dropping onto (or probably passing over) the A4155 and continuing North towards the M40? Great video of my closest motorway anyway Jon 👍
i was just about to write the same
There was indeed. It's been resurrected a few times over the years, but Oxfordshire County Council who are the authority on the north side of the Thames want nothing to do with it.
The plan was to bypass the endless congestion through Reading and over the two bridges. The building of the large Tesco by the side of the river took up a lot of the land for the original site, and the rowing lakes are in the way of an alternative route.
I don't think it will ever happen as nobody wants a major road ploughing through rare open spaces these days.
Ive walked this whole 6 mile stretch A329(m) and A3290 litter picking for the council 100's of times for 17 ½ years and never knew a fair chunk of this information. Thanks john 😊.
Was it that or jail time? :D Thanks for watching mate
Excellent as always, Jon. I quite like the Highways Agency reply: "Learn to drive" 🤣🤣🤣
My local funny. There were also plans to extend the a329(m) over the river to Henley
Oxfordshire council said not on your nelly
My local motorway. The park and ride has never been in use in the 10 or so years I've lived in the area - at least not as a park and ride. That and the Showcase cinema car park next to it are basically the flood plain for the river Loddon, which likes to live in the car park at least once a year. It's also just along the road where you'll find the infamous Tesla Supercharger station - the one that if you google "flooded tesla supercharger" it's the one that pops up as the image, because it too is built on a flood plain.
Great video! I’ve lived in Reading and surrounding areas fair amount of my early life. The M31 extension plan to the south also had twin extension plan to the north beyond Thames Valley Park to cross the Thames near Sonning to give 3rd major crossing point (the current Sonning Bridge in the village is single lane with traffic lights). There were early plans to eventually join to the M40 apparently. This third bridge idea joining with the main Henley Road resurfaced in the late 2010’s but seems to be stalled at Berkshire council want it but Oxfordshire do not….
It's very odd/surprising to me to be recommended a video of such a familiar piece of road. I was born in Reading and live in Wokingham so I've driven up and down the A329(M) for as long as I've been driving, but I didn't know the history or the plans for an M31 that I would surely have used quite a few times by now had it existed. I've also walked that wiggly footpath visible at 7:07 which I'm sure was designed by a frustrated would-be racetrack designer!
Nice to see you back south again John, though I note you couldn't leave that heather behind
It never ceases to amaze me how watchable this content has proven!
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Nice to see my local Motorway feature. Just to add, the Flyover at the Copid Beech Roundabout was a later addition - for many years if traveling from Reading towards Bracknell, you had to come down a slip road and then back up the other side. The Flyover was finally added in around 1990, some 7 years after the two lane section of the A329 toward the centre of Bracknell was completed.
Quite a few people still seem to do that at the coppid beach roundabout. I always wondered why
Quite a few people still seem to do that at the coppid beach roundabout. I always wondered why
graffiti done to that standard is definitely art, it takes a great deal of talent to produce. Tags that just say "John woz ere", that's vandalism.
Wow, a council planning a country park, rather than selling off the land to developers of new housing or warehouses! That’s history right there. 😂
Here in Stockholm they built a new bus lane exit from the E4 to a garage only to close it after a few months because so many cars would take it and get stuck.
Now its closed off and Swedens most modern ruin motorway
Please keep making these. Highways England need to be embarrassed into sorting themselves.if you get to the M62 might be worth seeing what a b@lls up they are making if the Ouse bridge in East Yorkshire. It was faulty from the start and caused a delay in ppening the last section. Its been under repair for years and bloody dangerous. If it was in the South, it would have been replaced but its being patched up yet again and has been bodged and had work going on for the last 2 years. Apparently another 9 months to go. Restrictions are still in place
It's a complete fuck up. Highways 'learn to drive' England has put in a mind numbingly boring/ridiculous 30mph section so it takes fking ages to get over the god damn thing. Would have been cheaper and quicker to torch it and build a new one....
Hello Jon, how the devil are you, have you had a good week?
Our name is viewers, and you dont need to thank us for joining you
Looks like that defunct bus lane should be reverted and the a(m) motorway reinstated.
Praise be, the weekend WOULD NOT BE THE WEEKEND without your videos. Listening to you relay a series of numbers & letters is very enjoyable as is all the other information you bring us, many thanks.
Hitting us with Art Attack at the end! You legend!!
I can't wait for the 30-second video on the a167(m) & a194(m) both of which were part of bigger plans and just got left 😢
I've lived in Reading for 5 years now. The A329M is my main route out of Reading to London or Wales. Love this episode, thanks John!
Watching this is so intense. A complete firehose of information, most of entirely unmemorable. Why am I so compelled to watch this?
Ah, my old home turf - I was born in Reading and lived there for 22 years. I'm pretty sure there were junction numbers in the past and it's pronounced "Lod-un". I was only 2 at the time but I didn't know about the bridge collapse with resulting deaths and inuries - that's horrifying! When Reading had no Cinema multiplex we used to use the A329(M) to whizz over to The Point at Bracknell to the cinema there, along with bowling and TGI Fridays. Oh, and of course the artifical Ski Slope at the John Nike Leisure sports complex and Coral Reef leisure pool. I would like to say that we didn't see how fast we could go around that left-hander after the Coppid Beech roundabout in various cars on the way there without sliding off, but that would be a lie. 🤣 It used to be quite a good motorway but since they decided to start messing with it, every new incarnation has been 💩. Shame the M31 never happened, would have been awesome! Thanks for another fab episode Jon!
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Loddon, not loadon. You missed the excellent opportunity when mentioning said river that rises in and travels through Basingstoke, to point out that this is the river that carries the result of the Basingstoke Sewage Works at Wildmoor all the way to the Thames, and then onto London! (Send us your slum clearance overspill will you? We'll teach you!) An excellent view of the most abused motorway in the south, a strip of road that I wasted months on waiting in queues in the 80s and 90s.
Ahh i remember when the A329M was a twinkle in the planners eye. You forgot to mention the famous ski jump just north of the now closed access road you were standing on. It`s been subsiding there since the 60`s.
Superb theme at the end linked in to the art of this video.
My old neck of the woods (I grew up in Crowthorne). The A329( M) was really useful for driving to Reading ( even better now with the Coppid Beech flyover). Before you had to drive through Wokingham and the old A329 which took ages.
I have mixed feelings about the planned M31. One one hand it would have been a hood linking road. On the other hand, so much forest and heath land has already been ripped up locally for development .
Another spiffing episode John 👍🏼 All very well explained about a bloody confusing situation with councils, bus lanes, A roads, and road number changes. I was hoping for “gravel pit” by Wutang clan as the outro tune, but was it the theme to Fun House ?
This week I’m in my final week of working a months notice to go on to pastures new…. And never have to go to London EVER AGAIN 😁😁
Art Attack, apparently. I was wondering if mention of the A321 would have been an excuse to have the music from 3-2-1 but I suspect our host is slightly too young for that :D
@@dickoon I think I’m similar age, I’m 44. I remember Art Attack, Neil Buchanan with the lisp 😂
Having the art attack theme for this episodes outro brought back waves of nostalgia
Mega, thanks for doing my 'local' motorway. Glad you discovered the graffiti, a hidden gem!
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Now becoming part of my Sunday night ‘guilty pleasure’…….. Mrs 6thDayBlue x
Thrilled to be part of it. Thanks for watching
Nice work John. I grew up in Woodley and my parents' house is right next to the motorway near Loddon Bridge Road, their close was cut in half by its construction a few months after they purchased it, making it pretty much worthless for a time. I grew up being able to see over the top of the wall from my bedroom window. The footbridge at the start you are standing on is by Earley station and when we were kids, we used to stand on it, grip the railings and jump up and down in unison to make the bridge bounce so much, the railings would rattle. Fun times!
The bridge still wobbles!! I was surprised to find this out :D
I saw my house! Well my old house... used to live in that little collection of buiding to the north and east of M4 J10 and used the A329M a lot. Loved walking around Dinton Pastures, great but of aerial footage over the lake there! Great vid as ever.
That sonic music at the end really got me 😂 love it my dude.
Nice one, thanks for watching!
I love your humour it's infectious 😂😂
I've drove drove on these roads for 40 years Thanks for your history of this area , your knowledge is quite interesting & informative..
The M31 would have saved me so much time over the last 20 years. Even going through Bracknell it is still ten minutes quicker than carrying on the M4 when coming into London.
You didnt mention the dead straight measured mile that is marked out with yellow/red discs coming from reading to the Winnersh junction on the now A3290. Tested a few cars on that bit of road over the years…….
The A38(M) is intersting with it being a single carriageway motorway!
Single carriageway?
@josyms7849 Yes.
It is a 7 lane motorway with no central reservation. It has a bi-directional middle lane during rush hour , meaning it is 4 lanes into the city and 2 out in the morning and vice-versa in the evening.
During normal times it is 3 lanes each way. There is always a closed lane to separate traffic but no solid central reservation, meaning it is singalong carriageway.
Need to get yourself to
Newcastle; A167 central motorway! Only part of it built, rest was scrapped, slip roads that are the thing of nightmares, and a few random abandoned parts.
It’s time …..
With that end music I was half expecting the drone to pan out to reveal a huge piece of art that you'd made on the ground ;)
i was trying to work out what that music was. it's etched into my brain.
Am I alone in thinking that one day, given the locations and dress code of our dear content provider gets involved with, eventually while he's describing the history of a particular section of motorway, he's going to get approached by a shady character with trembling hands asking if he's got any heroin to sell? I mean, all black, wearing a black beanie no matter the weather, hanging out in the middle of nowhere in places where pedestrians or cameras aren't around... eventually someone's going to get the wrong idea.
Respect to the content provider, though. He's clearly doing what he loves to do, and I hope he has a ton of fun making it.
Well, these videos aren't going to pay for themselves...
@@AutoShenanigans Hey, at least you can rest assured that if this RUclips thing doesn't work out, you literally know all of the out-of-the-way spots to carry out your black market deals.
I travel into Reading frequently on the adjacent railway line and have often wondered about that abandoned sliproad, thanks Jon for explaining the reasoning behind it 🙂
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Great stuff, John I don't know how you make this interesting - but you do! Thank you
Nice one, thanks for watching!
I like the free art gallery concept too. There are so many boring grey concrete constructions that they need brightening up with some original artwork. I'm guessing that is why you had the theme tune to "Art Attack" playing at the end?!
So much, so quick, I have to watch it twice. Fascinating stuff. Thanks.
Used to live in Reading and used to cycle on this carriageway just after the roundabout where the motorway (before changing to A3290) ended going into the Thames Valley Business Park. It's still a dangerous carriageway though as I had a few close calls with fast coming traffic. Miss Reading though was here between 89-98.
Always makes me happy that RUclips's automatic captions detect your emphasis on 'wicked sweet awesome' and spell it with a capital W.
Jon, your films have no right to be entertaining but they somehow are; maybe I have spent too much time on Britain's fabulous motorways. Keep up the good work!
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Brilliant as always. My old stomping ground and happened to be back on the A329(M) two days ago for a wedding in Reading. I learned two things (1) It is very easy to miss the A4 exit and end up at the next roundabout that goes nowhere apart from an industrial estate and (b) Reading has become absolute s***hole if you want to either drive through, or even park in the place. Not what I remember at all - although it was a few years ago.
Nice one, thanks for watching!
This is my local area and this was fascinating. Thank you.
John there was some vague thought in the 1960s that there should be a bridge over the Thames to the North and that the A329M would extend that way - Reading was unsure where new building would be and declared that the M4 would be the urban boundary to the South. As usual others may know more, that was what I was told when I studied the university many, many years ago.
I can't recall seeing any plans but I did see mention of something along those lines, I couldn't find much on it.
1:06 - I'm guessing this was a different Highways Agency to the one that allowed a bus lane on the M4 between Heathrow and London.
yes! I haven't been able to watch these for almost 2 months now. Keen to catch up!
You could easily do a tour of the M31 and all the other motorways that weren't.
In the case of the m31 i heard that there was a plan to bridge the Thames at reading to improve north / south flow
Love all the outro songs... I know them from tv shows from my youth but it's a struggle to try to place exactly where they come from sometimes
A nice bit of nostalgia goes down well I think :D
Maybe you should make a competition out of it or something? First to get it right gets a pinned comment? @@AutoShenanigans
Highways England seem to be the root cause of so many road disasters. Well done John for highlighting their ineptitude. Great video as usual.
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Thanks for another interesting vid. Love the Art Attack theme tune. RIP CITV.
I remember that bridge collapse in the 1970's. It happened, as you say, during construction and was virtually at the end of our road at the time. Used to travel the A329M motorway weekly back in the day. Also remember fishing in the river Loddon as a kid. Didn't catch much though. 😏
As always an awesome video, but particularly do this week as I am travelling on the A329(m) later this week. I intend to play this video to my passengers as we travel along it.
Both ends of the A329 where referred to as the Ski Jumps as the fly-overs where not completed for years. The derelict barn you were standing in was the scene of an accident when a vehicle attempted to exit the road through the hedge and landed upside down in the barn damaging a Bedford Horsebox, ha!
Yey the A329 (M)! A great motorway - and I was on the Coppid Beech roundabout just a couple of weeks ago.
Brilliant John. Absolutely brilliant 👍
That was an amazing amount of detail and interest in just 4 miles of motorway. Can you go back and do the same for the other motorways, you can start a new “extended edition” series of motorway secrets?
I’ve taken that road many times and its annoying how it dumps you into completely inappropriate road into Reading, or if you go the other way to avoid parking on the M25 for a while you have to crawl through the roundabouts of Bracknell. Wish the M31 had been built
Another really interesting video from John and having the Art Attack music at the end wasn't lost either.
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Loving the Art Attack theme tune at the end 😆
Thanks for another great video. Finally found out what a Axxx(M) is all about!!
Awesome, thanks mate
Very nearly had me fooled with the intro Jon but its Art Attack from the 1990s. Fess up time I had to ask the daughter as it wouldn't Shazzam!
It only takes about 5 minutes more to get to the A3 in London from Reading taking the approximate route of the M31 than using the M4 or M3, plus you can stop and play in the sandpit at Horsell Common on the way.
Have I had a good week..? Dunno yet I’m viewing this on a Monday…
The A392(M) is also one of the only motorways managed by the local authority (Wokingham Borough Council) rather than National Highways
The Reading end proposed extension is part of the reason Tescos acquired land and built the Kings Meadow store which would have been in the busy route in and out of town.
Having the delights of occasionally working from an office not far from the Loddon interchange, this answered a bunch of nagging questions I had about the A329(M)! Thank you!
I went up and down this motorway every weekday for about 8 years. There was never a moment where there weren't roadworks going on, and all of them seemed to make things worse. That lane change was ridiculous.
Amazing, in my neck of the woods, literally… I live just on the edge of Bracknell and walk up to Caesars Camp in Swinley Forest where you ended the episode on a regular basis. :)
I recall the fatalities when the crossing was built over the Loddon (pronounced like Lodd not Load)... and I recall the motorway ending at the A321.... nicely made.
That graffiti area under the motorway used to be the useful Loddon Bridge Park and Ride car park and bus link into and around the town of Reading.
It did partially flood from time to time but can't see that it was progress for Wokingham Borough Council to shut it.
The smell of roasting meat and your humour Jon - they go together so well 🥩 🃏
Lived in Bracknell in the mid 1990s, used the A329M quite a lot.
Sunday Lunchtime viewing sorted
Note: for non-locals “the Council” mentioned in this is Wokingham. The A329(M) doesn’t actually enter Reading Borough Council boundaries.
It's important to note that WBC are notoriously awful at doing anything that makes sense.
Cheers matey, made my beer in the sun, far more bearable 😊
Can't wait for the weird B roads of Britain, great videos
Delightfully concise, entertaining and brief
Lived in Bracknell for near 30 years and never knew any of this stuff!!!! Fascinating!!!!
Nice one, thanks for watching!
I can't remember if I've mentioned my mates mum before. She had a friend who's job is to paint over the bridge graffiti there to give the artists a nice blank canvas every Friday night. My mates mum and my mates mums mate have worked there for decades. They met while shovelling gravel out of the quarry. That's why it was so small, it was hand dug by the two women.
Thank you John for another entertaining and enjoyable video which as always is packed full of engaging information about the development of our motorway infrastructure and the process whereby they were constructed. (sadly no one video bombed you again!!)