§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is(a) the design capacity of the road, (b) the maximum daily and hourly use of the bypass after its complete opening and (c) the maximum daily and hourly use of the road currently for the Denton Burn, Ponteland road and Great North road interchanges of the Newcastle western bypass.
§ Mr. KeyThe Department does not use the concept of design capacity. It uses a range of flows to provide starting 561W points for the economic, environmental and operational assessment of carriageway width options. In the case of this road the range of flows is 30,000 to 46,000 vehicles per day. This range of flows does not provide any indication of the ultimate traffic flows which the carriageway can carry.
The Newcastle western bypass was fully opened to traffic in December 1990. No hourly traffic flows are available. The 1991 annual average daily traffic flows are as follows:
Traffic flow Great North Road to Kingston Park 44,000 Kingston Park to Ponteland Road 44,000 Ponteland Road to Stamfordham Road 55,300 Stamfordham Road to Denton Burn 55,300 The 1992 annual average daily traffic flows are as follows:
Traffic flow Great North Road to Kingston Park 44,400 Kingston Park to Ponteland Road 47,800 Ponteland Road to Stamfordham Road 55,700 Stamfordham Road to Denton Burn 61,000