A current 'disaster' roundabout is the Black Cat one on the A1 near St Neots. Southbound traffic almost all wants to take the Westbound exit onto the A 428 across to the MI and Milton Keynes. Almost all the Northbound traffic wants to go straight ahead up the A1 that they are already travelling on. It is almost inpossible to cross this roundabout South to North; a few weeks ago it took me 25 minutes to go a mile up to the roundabout and get across it. No help to traffic flow at all - needs some peak time traffic lights IMO! I don't thank anyone for creating that one.
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Probably a result of road developments nearby that have taken place since the roundabout was put there. May be a case for a 'new road layout'. Personally I favour small one-way flyovers in places like that. There's a 'temporary' one, very useful, for traffic joining from Kew or Richmond, at a roundabout on the A4 between Hammersmith and Chiswick, near Chiswick House, whose name I can never remember. It's been there since the fifties or early sixties, a prefab steel thing that's a bit bumpy to go over but perfectly all right. I bet it only took a week or two to put up.
Of course these days some idiot would be sure to insist that it had to take three years to build and cost more than Wembley Stadium.
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The Hogarth Rounabout, Lud. Unique in my experience but it works very well.
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Thanks DHM. Amazing I can't remember its name because I used to live on the Chiswick High Road side of it around 1960 and worked for a short time in a paint spray shop (sprayer's mate, not much fun despite the free milk, left to teach at a school in Streatham which was even less fun but worse paid) at the top of Chiswick Mall on the other side of it, crossing the road there on foot every day for a while.
Do you agree though that the flyover, which is still sound we hope, must have been quick and cheap to build? Sounds as if that A1 roundabout could really do with one.
I've just remembered that there's one at the top end of the Old Kent Road too.
Edited by Lud on 28/06/2008 at 16:15
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>>near Chiswick House, whose name I can never remember.It's been there since the fifties or early sixties,
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As DHM said - Hogarth is the name. ( as listed on Google earth)
Prior to the "tin flyover" as in my household we call it, IIRC there were some very nasty accidents to truckers.
Driving eastwards and lulled into a trance from way west and suddenly a roundabout looms. Rather than tipping the rig on its side straight over seemed a better option.
Accross the middle of the roundabout was a glass roofed pedestrian subway.
I too worked near Chiswick roundabout and watched the flyover evolve including rerouting the trolley bus wires.
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There are lights on the roundabout now, five years old or more, affecting all traffic except cars and light commercials using the tin flyover. They work fairly well but you may have to go through two lots which can take a couple of minutes, up to five on those summer weekends. There's often a lot of dodgy lane-changing there too.
Of course the artist William Hogarth lived in a house in the grounds of Chiswick House and the roundabout is named after him.
Edited by Lud on 28/06/2008 at 16:59
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Agree with that AS.
That junction is hell to cross Northbound, of course it could do with a few more plantings and camouflage really, as you can still see anyone coming round the corner just before they hit you.
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My personal favourite is the five small roundabouts on one big roundabout at Heathrow - Hatton Cross.
The big roundabout is also "dual carriageway", so you can go round it clockwise or anti-clockwise and it works.
Did Mr Blackmore design that as well? My belated congratulations to him if he did.
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Mini roundabouts are a great invention - well, not invention really, just a smaller version of a........roundabout.
A bad mini-roundabout is the result of bad traffic planning, not the mini-roundabout concept.
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Nearly T-boned at a mini-roundabout a few months back.
Going straight on, I decide to observe the roundabout to a point which means a serve to the left, then right to carry on.
As I swerve left, guy behind assumes I'm turning left and starts to overtake.
I swing back to the right and things get very close.
The moral of this story is don't follow so damn close.
If he had kept a proper distance, there would be no collision danger, whatever the rights or wrongs of my driving.
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