Our local county council is determined to force through a park and ride scheme near where I live. Now I am in favour of well designed park and ride schemes, but this one's a real pigs ear.
The plan relies on a complex set of traffic lights being installed on a roundabout on the A12 trunk road. The public meeting I attended last night was of the unaminous opinion that gridlock would ensue for miles around as soon as the lights were activated. Now the council say that the consulting firm they hired has run a computer simulation and that everything will be fine. The meeting felt that if the consultants had bothered to get in a car and drive round the area over a period of time they would see that their computer simulation is rubbish.
My cynical view is that a computer simulation can be fudged to give the answers the client wants.
OK, here comes the question. Have any backroomers had any experience of a full set of traffic lights being installed on a busy trunk road roundabout? Did gridlock ensue or is it working like a dream?
Phew! Long post for me.
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OK, here comes the question. Have any backroomers had any experience of a full set of traffic lights being installed on a busy trunk road roundabout? Did gridlock ensue or is it working like a dream?
Just outside my office is a three-laner which goes around the famous Jan van Riebeeck roundabout (called 'traffic circles' here, BTW!).
When the lights (Called 'Robots' here, BTW) are either broken or have been put into flashing red mode (ie, becomes a stop sign) or flashing amber (give way - called 'yield" here, BTW!) everything goes hunky dory.
When the lights are 'working' [sic] everything takes twice as long.
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Manila ditto. Guess the developing world's got it hands down again.
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OK, here comes the question. Have any backroomers had any experience of a full set of traffic lights being installed on a busy trunk road roundabout? Did gridlock ensue or is it working like a dream?
Yes (although not sure a trunk road) - the A316 going from West London to the M3. It used to be bad until some wise soul decided to put traffic lights on all the roundabouts. Result - gridlock all the time even when traffic isn't too heavy.
On a slight tangent - what is the point of putting traffic lights on r'bouts? Isn't it a case of belt & braces?
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I think traffic lights are needed on some motorway junction roundabouts, just to slow the traffic down which is coming off the motorway. Drivers travelling at 70mph around these roundabouts are stupid and give no chance for other vehicles to enter the roundabout. If you see what I mean!
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Reminds me of the story, true or not I don't know, of the early days of the M1, before speed limits, when a hitch-hiker who had been conveyed at 100 mph for the previous hour and a half, said thanks to the driver and stepped out at the end of the motorway.
Only to find that the car was still travelling at 30 mph.
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Godfrey
I don't know where the scheme is but I'd like to, being a regular user of the A12.
One roundabout that could meet your criteria is the Army & Navy in Chelmsford which has been considerably worse since the lights went up. Not sure if it's enough of a trunk road.
"My cynical view is that a computer simulation can be fudged to give the answers the client wants." - Of course it can !!
Matthew Kelly
No, not that one.
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The traffic lights on the Army and Navy seem to be an attempt to give the traffic coming out of Baddow Road a chance. Before, it had none.
In my experience lights are required on roundabouts where the roundabout is physically too small for the volume of traffic or where the traffic flow is not fairly evenly balanced between the roads coming onto it.
But they are a last resort and are better only used at peak flow times, not 24/7.
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Matthew
The roundabout concerned is the Martlesham Heath A12, A1214, C36
roundabout. Listening to local radio this morning the meeting made the news headlines. Also on the local radio the council spin machine has gone into overdrive.
Godfrey
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That's not the one by Toys R Us & Tescos is it ?
It's over where the propellerheads (no offence intended if you are one) work for BT, I assume.
Matthew Kelly
No, not that one.
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Not many BT left at Adastral park as it is now renamed. Vacant space being taken up by outside hightech companies.
Park and Ride in Colchester is stupid. The parks are almost in the centre so you can walk instead of taking the bus. Ipswich has got in right at the existing one off the A12 by Tesco West of Ipswich.
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Yes it's the second roundabout on in the Lowestoft direction from the BT Adastral Park roundabout.
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Research carried out a few years ago found that park and ride schemes increased the use of cars. It reckoned that significant numbers of people avoided driving into cities because of parking costs rather than traffic - these people would have used public transport for the whole of their journey and the car would have stayed on the driveway.
The park and ride scheme made it more conveniant to take the car for the first part of the journey - the worst part if you live out of town - and then bus it from the park and ride. Thus a car on the road that wouldn't have been there.
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Apparently a lot of these actually drive out of town to the park and ride, then bus the whole way back in, rather than queuing for six buses that turn up together full!
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