Reopening the Ventnor Tunnel

[PTR 444]

With last month’s landslip at Bonchurch and emergency roadworks on Ocean View Road in Ventnor blocking 2 of 3 access roads into the town, a local resident shares his view on what could be next for Ventnor, with a suggestion of restoring the railway line into the town.

Urgent calls for Ventnor railway reinstatement as town faces geological threats

Rejection of Shanklin-Ventnor railway bid ignites debate on Ventnor's geology and future

onthewight.com

Either side and below the old station the geology of Ventnor is much less stable, clays and blue slipper intruding as strata into the chalk here and there, with all the inevitable consequence of landslip and subsidence.

Victorian and Edwardian structural engineers chose wisely where to locate buildings through Ventnor, mindful of the many sub-aquifers. A wake-up call to this came on 12th July 2021 when it became clear that imminent danger-spots were at Smugglers Haven and the Lowtherville Graben, catastrophic landslip having already occurred along the Undercliffbeyond St Lawrence, closing that A road ever since.

I sent anxieties about road stability in the Ventnor area into the railway bid Consultants in 2021 before the decision to reject it was taken.

The following images from December in Ventnor show the fragility of the present public transport infrastructure.

All this chaos has been occasioned by Island Roads closing just a fifteen foot section across Alpine Road lower in the town.

Closure at Alpine Road © David Baldwin
Diversion up Ocean View Road
Whilst Newport Road was closed in December, it meant there were only two roads out of Ventnor leading Westward. This closure led to the only diversion that could be made – ie via Ocean View Road. This can take only one lane of traffic as cars are parked all along it, so passing becomes impossible unless there is a break between parked cars.

The result was absolute and immediate chaos. The traffic backed into the town and the buses and taxis were unable to move. I was caught in it and witnessed a bus wedged tight against a lorry the occupants missing hospital and dental appointments and others unable to meet their care obligations and rostering. It took half an hour to un-wedge them. Businesses were complaining about lack of trade and deliveries and pupils were late for school.

Indisputable need for restoration of rail service
The irony is that old Ventnor Station faced onto this very blockage along Ocean View Road.


The need for the restoration of Ventnor Station to maintain basic and consistent public transport for the town, and soon, is now indisputable as result of the experience of these past two days.

The same chaos resumed later in the month, only this time the queues were right along Ocean View Road and down Gills Cliff Road, as well as back up to Wroxall at the junction.

11-mile round trip
Queues formed at all roads leading onto Ocean View Road from below as they were unable to join the existing queues already there along the road… I was unable to drive Eastward from the Park back to the town centre as the traffic was all diverted upwards to Ocean View Road and every turn was blocked.

I had no option but to exit Westwards towards St Lawrence and motor to Whitwell, Godshill and Shanklin in order to enter Ventnor from the East to get to my road. This was an eleven mile round trip to get back to where I started in Ventnor!

Up until now, I’ve always assumed the Ventnor Tunnel can never be used for transport purposes again, but with the recent landslips and climate change making extreme weather more likely, it is a matter of time before something will have to be done to ensure Ventnor isn’t cut off from the rest of the Island. Reopening the the tunnel would probably be the most practical option as the infrastructure is already there, while the water pipe can always be moved. Restoring the railway from Shanklin makes the most sense although I’m also wondering if the tunnel could be compatible for road traffic as another option?

 

[Doomotron]

With last month’s landslip at Bonchurch and emergency roadworks on Ocean View Road in Ventnor blocking 2 of 3 access roads into the town, a local resident shares his view on what could be next for Ventnor, with a suggestion of restoring the railway line into the town.

Urgent calls for Ventnor railway reinstatement as town faces geological threats

Rejection of Shanklin-Ventnor railway bid ignites debate on Ventnor's geology and future

onthewight.com

Up until now, I’ve always assumed the Ventnor Tunnel can never be used for transport purposes again, but with the recent landslips and climate change making extreme weather more likely, it is a matter of time before something will have to be done to ensure Ventnor isn’t cut off from the rest of the Island. Reopening the the tunnel would probably be the most practical option as the infrastructure is already there, while the water pipe can always be moved. Restoring the railway from Shanklin makes the most sense although I’m also wondering if the tunnel could be compatible for road traffic as another option?

The alignment is broken in multiple places, including immediately south of Shanklin station. Not only would rebuilding the line have little commercial benefit, rebuilding it in the first place would be prohibitively expensive. If the council can justify the cost based solely on relatively rare landslides, then it may be theoretically possible - as to whether that justification would have any weight to it is another matter entirely.

If there was going to be a new line on the island, the new route on the line that would serve the most amount of people would be to West Cowes via Newport, but the same problems apply.

 

[bluenoxid]

Temporary inconvenience/diversionary routes/back ups don’t build up a great business case. My impression is that revised parking restrictions may be just as effective to keep traffic moving

 

[Meerkat]

For the price of railway restoration they could probably build a road tunnel that would be far more use, including for buses that would actually go into Ventnor rather than stop at the highest part of the town

 

[HSTEd]

You could also build an aerial ropeway of some description for comparatively little money to get people up the hill.

 

[cinders&ashes]

For the price of railway restoration they could probably build a road tunnel that would be far more use, including for buses that would actually go into Ventnor rather than stop at the highest part of the town

A new road and tunnel through St Boniface Down would cost vastly more than reopening an existing tunnel and alignment, and would have traffic bottlenecks in Wroxall anyway.
All the line needs is a new bridge at Shanklin and changes to road layout in Wroxall where the alignment has been built over.

Temporary inconvenience/diversionary routes/back ups don’t build up a great business case. My impression is that revised parking restrictions may be just as effective to keep traffic moving

Parking on Ocean View Road is for residents. There are no driveways and the backs of the houses don't reach on to other roads with parking.
If you're coming from Wroxall and possibly Whitwell you'd take that route

The alignment is broken in multiple places, including immediately south of Shanklin station. Not only would rebuilding the line have little commercial benefit, rebuilding it in the first place would be prohibitively expensive. If the council can justify the cost based solely on relatively rare landslides, then it may be theoretically possible - as to whether that justification would have any weight to it is another matter entirely.

If there was going to be a new line on the island, the new route on the line that would serve the most amount of people would be to West Cowes via Newport, but the same problems apply.

Ventnor is a town of 6000 with a further 1800 in Wroxall on a 4 mile line. Both have tourist accommodation and attractions and Ventnor has beaches popular with tourists and islanders alike.
The bus takes ages to get to Ryde, train would be about 2/3 of the time.

 

[Gloster]

Nice to see the annual crayonista plans for the Isle of Wight starting off early.

There is no alternative route through Wroxall for anything larger than the Dotto train: to put the railway through you would have to demolish a number of properties, probably around a dozen. You would also have to demolish property at the Ventnor terminus, but it would still be at the end of an industrial estate at the top of town. As long as the buses can go into the centre, people will prefer them, and if they can’t it’s probably because Ventnor has fallen into the sea, so you won’t need a railway.

 

[bramling]

With last month’s landslip at Bonchurch and emergency roadworks on Ocean View Road in Ventnor blocking 2 of 3 access roads into the town, a local resident shares his view on what could be next for Ventnor, with a suggestion of restoring the railway line into the town.

Urgent calls for Ventnor railway reinstatement as town faces geological threats

Rejection of Shanklin-Ventnor railway bid ignites debate on Ventnor's geology and future

onthewight.com

Up until now, I’ve always assumed the Ventnor Tunnel can never be used for transport purposes again, but with the recent landslips and climate change making extreme weather more likely, it is a matter of time before something will have to be done to ensure Ventnor isn’t cut off from the rest of the Island. Reopening the the tunnel would probably be the most practical option as the infrastructure is already there, while the water pipe can always be moved. Restoring the railway from Shanklin makes the most sense although I’m also wondering if the tunnel could be compatible for road traffic as another option?

If someone could make a workable business case for reinstating it as a railway line then it would certainly be a good thing, but doesn’t address the original problem of the station being high above the town. That combined with Ventnor being a small place would make it very hard to make the figures add up. Though by the same token one would think it would be one of the easier potential reopening schemes.

Realistically, if this tunnel finds any transport purpose it is most likely to be as a foot or cycle path. For that it actually has some significant benefit, as it avoids both main roads and steep hills. I suspect this will be something that does eventually happen, even though there don’t seem to be any such plans at the moment.

 

[AlastairFraser]

With last month’s landslip at Bonchurch and emergency roadworks on Ocean View Road in Ventnor blocking 2 of 3 access roads into the town, a local resident shares his view on what could be next for Ventnor, with a suggestion of restoring the railway line into the town.

Urgent calls for Ventnor railway reinstatement as town faces geological threats

Rejection of Shanklin-Ventnor railway bid ignites debate on Ventnor's geology and future

onthewight.com

Up until now, I’ve always assumed the Ventnor Tunnel can never be used for transport purposes again, but with the recent landslips and climate change making extreme weather more likely, it is a matter of time before something will have to be done to ensure Ventnor isn’t cut off from the rest of the Island. Reopening the the tunnel would probably be the most practical option as the infrastructure is already there, while the water pipe can always be moved. Restoring the railway from Shanklin makes the most sense although I’m also wondering if the tunnel could be compatible for road traffic as another option?

Conversion to road may be feasible with a link road at the Wroxall end bypassing the village of Wroxall itself, and rerouting the water/sewer pipes.
Southern Vectis do have single deckers, but they may need to purchase some more higher capacity single deckers for use of the tunnel during a diversion.
The main issues are really economic - can IoW Council afford it?

 

[Meerkat]

A new road and tunnel through St Boniface Down would cost vastly more than reopening an existing tunnel and alignment, and would have traffic bottlenecks in Wroxall anyway.

Wasn’t planning on heading toward Wroxall, just round the back of the dodgy bit.
I wouldn’t bet on it costing more than a railway! And it would have vastly greater benefits to pay it back (And there must be a reliable main road into Ventnor, or are you planning on it being rail access only?!)
might not even need the tunnel - how deep would you have to go to find solid ground to build a viaduct round the headland (maybe a ground level one like that fix for the Settle & Carlisle).

 

[cinders&ashes]

Conversion to road may be feasible with a link road at the Wroxall end bypassing the village of Wroxall itself, and rerouting the water/sewer pipes.
Southern Vectis do have single deckers, but they may need to purchase some more higher capacity single deckers for use of the tunnel during a diversion.
The main issues are really economic - can IoW Council afford it?

So you're talking about a bus-only tunnel? Cos you'd be lucky to get a 2 lane road in that. And if you go to the cost of reopening the tunnel and connecting it, it'd make more sense just to run the train through there as designed.

 

[Doomotron]

So you're talking about a bus-only tunnel? Cos you'd be lucky to get a 2 lane road in that. And if you go to the cost of reopening the tunnel and connecting it, it'd make more sense just to run the train through there as designed.

Reopening a tunnel for a road is much, much cheaper than rebuilding it as a train tunnel, demolishing two dozens houses, rebuilding at least one station, building the line, signalling it and training staff for it.

 

[AlastairFraser]

So you're talking about a bus-only tunnel? Cos you'd be lucky to get a 2 lane road in that. And if you go to the cost of reopening the tunnel and connecting it, it'd make more sense just to run the train through there as designed.

No - a road tunnel that buses can pass through, and, as @Doomotron said, due to the obstruction of the former rail alignment, it's not necessarily cheaper.

 

[CunningPlan]

Reopening a tunnel for a road is much, much cheaper than rebuilding it as a train tunnel, demolishing two dozens houses, rebuilding at least one station, building the line, signalling it and training staff for it.

Er... I think you may have forgotten 2 things. Firstly, the tunnel was only ever single track. This was acceptable on a rail route where trains were limited to a maximum of once every 20 minutes in each direction, each able to carry hundreds of passengers at a time. However, a single-track road tunnel would need protecting by fail-safe traffic lights enforcing traffic flow to just one direction at a time. It's hardly a short tunnel either, so you would need to allow about 5 minutes between the lights turning red for one direction and going green for the other. That would dramatically reduce its usefulness.

Secondly, you may not be aware that the Isle of Wight railways always had an exceptionally small loading gauge... If the existing tunnel was used for a road, nothing larger than a small van would physically fit through without a total rebuild. I suspect such enlargement would be so expensive that it would be more cost-effective to bore a modern 2-lane road tunnel through the chalk alongside the rail one.

You could also build an aerial ropeway of some description for comparatively little money to get people up the hill.

In the original plans for Ventnor station, there were meant to be 3! One connecting the beach to the town centre, a second from the town centre up to the rail station, and a third from the station up to the top of the downs. Had they been built, the business case for keeping the station going 1967-onwards might have been better.

Temporary inconvenience/diversionary routes/back ups don’t build up a great business case. My impression is that revised parking restrictions may be just as effective to keep traffic moving

No. I grew up in Ventnor and there used to be 4 roads in and out of the town. 2 are now impassible, and a third is likely to go the same way eventually. Even the fourth could yet be lost. We're not talking about temporary inconvenience but rather about the viability of the town.

- The West-facing Undercliff Drive was lost to catastrophic landslide about a decade ago and was judged prohibitively expensive to restore.
- The North-facing route to Wroxall passes across a surface-level fault line (known as The Graben) which not only moves every so often, but eventually will move enough that the road cannot be reopened.
- The north/east facing route to Shanklin is the one threatened by the most recent movement of The Landslip... And even if it can be reopened for through traffic in the coming weeks or months (currently uncertain) its long-term future is sealed. In many places the route is too precarious and goes through an area where land movement is an inevitability... It's not a question of whether it becomes permanently impassable, but how long before that happens.

This means that long-term, if nothing is done, literally all people and goods heading to/from Ventnor will have to pass along the Whitwell Road... A narrow, just-about 2-lane single carriageway which connects to the town centre via winding roads and chicanes. Even if it connected to the other major population centres of the island via a sensible route (which, perhaps with the exception of Newport, it does not) the standard of the road would never be a good choice for literally the only route in and out. And even Whitwell Road is not immune from weathering - it runs along a narrow strip of relatively stable clifftop for some distance - that could eventually go too.

Unless something is done, it may be within my own lifetime that Ventnor is effectively cut off. The only option left would be to charter a boat... Which is not a viable future for any community, let alone one built on a an average 1 in 4 incline.

 

[cinders&ashes]

Er... I think you may have forgotten 2 things. Firstly, the tunnel was only ever single track. This was acceptable on a rail route where trains were limited to a maximum of once every 20 minutes in each direction, each able to carry hundreds of passengers at a time. However, a single-track road tunnel would need protecting by fail-safe traffic lights enforcing traffic flow to just one direction at a time. It's hardly a short tunnel either, so you would need to allow about 5 minutes between the lights turning red for one direction and going green for the other. That would dramatically reduce its usefulness.

Secondly, you may not be aware that the Isle of Wight railways always had an exceptionally small loading gauge... If the existing tunnel was used for a road, nothing larger than a small van would physically fit through without a total rebuild. I suspect such enlargement would be so expensive that it would be more cost-effective to bore a modern 2-lane road tunnel through the chalk alongside the rail one.


In the original plans for Ventnor station, there were meant to be 3! One connecting the beach to the town centre, a second from the town centre up to the rail station, and a third from the station up to the top of the downs. Had they been built, the business case for keeping the station going 1967-onwards might have been better.


No. I grew up in Ventnor and there used to be 4 roads in and out of the town. 2 are now impassible, and a third is likely to go the same way eventually. Even the fourth could yet be lost. We're not talking about temporary inconvenience but rather about the viability of the town.

- The West-facing Undercliff Drive was lost to catastrophic landslide about a decade ago and was judged prohibitively expensive to restore.
- The North-facing route to Wroxall passes across a surface-level fault line (known as The Graben) which not only moves every so often, but eventually will move enough that the road cannot be reopened.
- The north/east facing route to Shanklin is the one threatened by the most recent movement of The Landslip... And even if it can be reopened for through traffic in the coming weeks or months (currently uncertain) its long-term future is sealed. In many places the route is too precarious and goes through an area where land movement is an inevitability... It's not a question of whether it becomes permanently impassable, but how long before that happens.

This means that long-term, if nothing is done, literally all people and goods heading to/from Ventnor will have to pass along the Whitwell Road... A narrow, just-about 2-lane single carriageway which connects to the town centre via winding roads and chicanes. Even if it connected to the other major population centres of the island via a sensible route (which, perhaps with the exception of Newport, it does not) the standard of the road would never be a good choice for literally the only route in and out. And even Whitwell Road is not immune from weathering - it runs along a narrow strip of relatively stable clifftop for some distance - that could eventually go too.

Unless something is done, it may be within my own lifetime that Ventnor is effectively cut off. The only option left would be to charter a boat... Which is not a viable future for any community, let alone one built on a an average 1 in 4 incline.

I'm also a former Ventnor resident, grew up there too and lived on Gills Cliff Rd so am particular familiar with Whitwell Rd and Newport Rd. Losing the Undercliff was bad enough, but a the threat to the other roads I agree means the rail link needs revisiting.

A ventnor equivalent to the Shanklin Steamer could move people around the town Inc the station, reducing the need for car journeys too.

 

[Doomotron]

Er... I think you may have forgotten 2 things. Firstly, the tunnel was only ever single track. This was acceptable on a rail route where trains were limited to a maximum of once every 20 minutes in each direction, each able to carry hundreds of passengers at a time. However, a single-track road tunnel would need protecting by fail-safe traffic lights enforcing traffic flow to just one direction at a time. It's hardly a short tunnel either, so you would need to allow about 5 minutes between the lights turning red for one direction and going green for the other. That would dramatically reduce its usefulness.

Secondly, you may not be aware that the Isle of Wight railways always had an exceptionally small loading gauge... If the existing tunnel was used for a road, nothing larger than a small van would physically fit through without a total rebuild. I suspect such enlargement would be so expensive that it would be more cost-effective to bore a modern 2-lane road tunnel through the chalk alongside the rail one.

I am fully aware of both of these. I am not suggesting rebuilding the tunnel in any way, certainly not for road and rail. However, as a point of comparison for the terrible suggestion made in the OP it wins by default when it comes to plausibility, albeit not to the extent where it would make sense on its own.

 

[CunningPlan]

I am fully aware of both of these. I am not suggesting rebuilding the tunnel in any way, certainly not for road and rail. However, as a point of comparison for the terrible suggestion made in the OP it wins by default when it comes to plausibility, albeit not to the extent where it would make sense on its own.

Thank you for clarifying.

Personally I do think the tunnel option does need revisiting though. Ideally there would be rail and road, but if burrowing a new road tunnel was unfeasible, maybe Ventnor's future looks like Zermatt in Switzerland: car-free, access only by train and with electric/cable-hauled shuttle services to get between station and other parts of town.

I do wonder what Lowtherville (Upper Ventnor)'s long-term future would be in this scenario though, if The Graben has cut it off from Ventnor town. Perhaps a cable car could be run entirely on stable chalk?

I do realise most of this is rather fanciful. But I am genuinely concerned that unless something bold is done, Ventnor will ultimately have to be abandoned.

 

[cinders&ashes]

Thank you for clarifying.

Personally I do think the tunnel option does need revisiting though. Ideally there would be rail and road, but if burrowing a new road tunnel was unfeasible, maybe Ventnor's future looks like Zermatt in Switzerland: car-free, access only by train and with electric/cable-hauled shuttle services to get between station and other parts of town.

I do wonder what Lowtherville (Upper Ventnor)'s long-term future would be in this scenario though, if The Graben has cut it off from Ventnor town. Perhaps a cable car could be run entirely on stable chalk?

I do realise most of this is rather fanciful. But I am genuinely concerned that unless something bold is done, Ventnor will ultimately have to be abandoned.

The Graben would impact the road for vehicle usage, pedestrians would still be able to cross. So, more likely, a back-to-back bus service would be used there. Upper Ventnor would likely gain a few extra local services to compensate for increased difficulty accessing the same in lower Ventnor.
Access to the schools (which are in Upper Ventnor) would be more of an issue.
Back to the discussion around the rail line, it is already built for rail and is good condition and can be shared with water usage.
The stations would likely be of the unmanned type as is typically what Network Rail suggest for lower volume stations, branch lines etc these days.

 

[yoyothehobo]

Looking at the Lidar of Ventnor, the best use of any money would be to relocate the entire population to somewhere not in a massive landslide

 

[Meerkat]

The north/east facing route to Shanklin is the one threatened by the most recent movement of The Landslip... And even if it can be reopened for through traffic in the coming weeks or months (currently uncertain) its long-term future is sealed. In many places the route is too precarious and goes through an area where land movement is an inevitability... It's not a question of whether it becomes permanently impassable, but how long before that happens.

How far back and how far down is solid ground?
Where I am going with this is could you build a viaduct with piers down to solid rock that goes round to Shanklin?
Or do you have to build a tunnel, and in which case how far back does that have to be - 'just' avoiding The Landslip or all the way to the back of Shanklin?

 

[cinders&ashes]

How far back and how far down is solid ground?
Where I am going with this is could you build a viaduct with piers down to solid rock that goes round to Shanklin?
Or do you have to build a tunnel, and in which case how far back does that have to be - 'just' avoiding The Landslip or all the way to the back of Shanklin?

Hmmm, an interesting idea but why would anyone entertain doing that or completely relocating the town and building a new one (per yoyothehobo's point above) when the train line could be reopened?
In my time living in Ventnor, movement was an issue - it caused numerous properties inc some close to my house to become unviable and ultimately demolished and affected house prices for those remaining, but the impact on the roads wasn't significant that I recall, these seem more recent.
On where a tunnel would need to go, I guess some direct route to upper Ventnor would be solid ground if the rail tunnel is unaffected, but that would be a costly works. Be as well to establish a sea connection to Shanklin or beyond.

 

[Meerkat]

Hmmm, an interesting idea but why would anyone entertain doing that or completely relocating the town and building a new one (per yoyothehobo's point above) when the train line could be reopened?
In my time living in Ventnor, movement was an issue - it caused numerous properties inc some close to my house to become unviable and ultimately demolished and affected house prices for those remaining, but the impact on the roads wasn't significant that I recall, these seem more recent.
On where a tunnel would need to go, I guess some direct route to upper Ventnor would be solid ground if the rail tunnel is unaffected, but that would be a costly works. Be as well to establish a sea connection to Shanklin or beyond.

A railway can not replace a road - a town must have decent road connections.
a sea connection would be hopelessly slow and unreliable

 

[Basil Jet]

A railway can not replace a road - a town must have decent road connections.
a sea connection would be hopelessly slow and unreliable

ISTR the Norwegian city of Bergen was only reachable by rail or by sea until relatively recently, and it didn't seem to do it any harm.

 

[cinders&ashes]

A railway can not replace a road - a town must have decent road connections.
a sea connection would be hopelessly slow and unreliable

It'd only replace roads insofar as they replaced the railway, reducing the traffic volume and bus routes to Shanklin and Ryde 9and Wroxall if the Wroxall road were to close).
There'd still be 1-2 roads to Ventnor (inc the Wroxall route to upper Ventnor). Unless freight returns to IW rail, this would all have to enter Ventnor via the remaining roads.

 

[yoyothehobo]

I doubt anyone would really entertain the idea of any new massive geotechnical works such as a tunnel to Ventnor. Access from the north is not the issue, its what Ventnor is built on that is the problem and that is all going to be heading down to the sea over time. I have read it is the largest urban landslide complex in western europe and i can imagine getting home insurance getting tougher and tougher in the coming years.

 

[Meerkat]

It'd only replace roads insofar as they replaced the railway, reducing the traffic volume and bus routes to Shanklin and Ryde 9and Wroxall if the Wroxall road were to close).
There'd still be 1-2 roads to Ventnor (inc the Wroxall route to upper Ventnor). Unless freight returns to IW rail, this would all have to enter Ventnor via the remaining roads.

The place is already a bit of an isolated backwater, without proper road connections it will die.
This is when it gets political - the significant cost of doing something may make little economic sense, but 'abandon town to die' is unacceptable.
Where does traffic to/from Ventnor actually want to go? If its mainly Newport then improving the Whitwell route (maybe using the Ventnor West branch north of the tunnel) would work, otherwise if the coast route is unviable something will have to be done to secure the Wroxall road, with a Wroxall bypass, and congested times for the residents of upper Ventnor.

 

[PTR 444]

The place is already a bit of an isolated backwater, without proper road connections it will die.
This is when it gets political - the significant cost of doing something may make little economic sense, but 'abandon town to die' is unacceptable.
Where does traffic to/from Ventnor actually want to go? If its mainly Newport then improving the Whitwell route (maybe using the Ventnor West branch north of the tunnel) would work, otherwise if the coast route is unviable something will have to be done to secure the Wroxall road, with a Wroxall bypass, and congested times for the residents of upper Ventnor.

While not the most economic option, the best bet for traffic would probably be to build a modern road tunnel next to the existing one, then bypass Wroxall to the east before linking up with the A3020 east of Whiteley Bank. Failing that I suppose you could make the Whitwell Road a dual carriageway.

 

[AlastairFraser]

While not the most economic option, the best bet for traffic would probably be to build a modern road tunnel next to the existing one, then bypass Wroxall to the east before linking up with the A3020 east of Whiteley Bank. Failing that I suppose you could make the Whitwell Road a dual carriageway.

That's a decent route, but you'd be better off carrying on with a slip road onto a roundabout on the A3020, and then an underpass under the A3020 to join Canteen Road a quarter of a mile north (to help distribute traffic flow).

 

[PTR 444]

That's a decent route, but you'd be better off carrying on with a slip road onto a roundabout on the A3020, and then an underpass under the A3020 to join Canteen Road a quarter of a mile north (to help distribute traffic flow).

You could even go further and continue the link road round to Morton Common so that Sandown and Shanklin are bypassed.

 

[AlastairFraser]

You could even go further and continue the link road round to Morton Common so that Sandown and Shanklin are bypassed.

Unfortunately there's a solar farm and golf course in the way.
Although, you could get to the A3056 in Apse Heath to provide a western bypass of Shanklin.