Badly Planned Road Changes
Discussion
I just wanted to ask if there was anything that can be done about a council that seems to be destroying perfectly fine road layouts.
I live in Sutton, South London/Surrey border. There's lots of construction going on around the main town centre and as usual a lot of the road layouts and junctions are having alterations made. But they just don't make any sense to me.
There's 3 examples I drive through daily that have either slipped through the planning process, OR whoever is in charge of roads just doesn't have a clue.
The first is the road outside the station. There used to be a pedestrian (Pelican) crossing (1) with traffic lights directly opposite the entrance to the station. They've removed this, but left the crossing there, repaved the road and put bollards up. Now you have a Zebra crossing without the markings or lights either side. They're then re-installed the pelican crossing about 50 metres down the road on the brow of a hill just before a sharp left turn. (2)
Then further down from that there's a T junction, again with Pelican crossings. This leads out on to a one way system with traffic flowing straight (2) or left (3). And then the new traffic joining the straight section (1). The lights are timed so that the straight-on traffic and joining traffic (lines 1 and 2) - the lights are all amber at the same time. There's no wait period and I see buses and cars going through the amber lights going straight over with left turn traffic departing onto the road at amber also. Accident waiting to happen? Maybe not. But I almost got ticketed for jumping a red light here when it wasn't - I went through on Amber but because the police vehicle was also seeing am amber light on his side he didn't believe me. I had to physically demonstrate to them what I was talking about and they let me go after a warning to slow down.
Then the third example.
Another T junction but this one has 2 separate problems. They've made the straight on part (3) 2 lanes instead of leaving it as 1 single lane, but this means the buses going left (1) no longer have enough space to get round the bend if anyone is occupying that second lane. This then causes traffic to back up through no fault of anyone's but badly designed roads.
The second half of this is that the left and right traffic ( lines 1 and 2) at the T junction is all controlled on the same sequence. So when traffic is going straight over (3), the traffic going left is also stopped because the right turn traffic is being held. When the straight is red, both left and right are then green. This just makes no sense to be held at a red light turning left when there's no pedestrians because the right hand traffic is stopped.
I've added photos of the junctions from Google Maps with the markings on them. They're not perfect and I'm sorry if they're a little messy.
I'm really worried about what other changes the council might do, these roads all seem to have changed over the last 3-6 months except for the station one which was done about a year ago along with the lights timing change. There's already been 2 deaths at the new crossing, one just this week where someone was crushed by a lorry. Is there anything that I can do to highlight these problems to anyone who can fix them? I'm not saying I know more about road design than the council, but the changes made just make no sense at all.
I understand this may be the wrong type of subject for the roads sub forum so please feel free to move it to general.
I live in Sutton, South London/Surrey border. There's lots of construction going on around the main town centre and as usual a lot of the road layouts and junctions are having alterations made. But they just don't make any sense to me.
There's 3 examples I drive through daily that have either slipped through the planning process, OR whoever is in charge of roads just doesn't have a clue.
The first is the road outside the station. There used to be a pedestrian (Pelican) crossing (1) with traffic lights directly opposite the entrance to the station. They've removed this, but left the crossing there, repaved the road and put bollards up. Now you have a Zebra crossing without the markings or lights either side. They're then re-installed the pelican crossing about 50 metres down the road on the brow of a hill just before a sharp left turn. (2)
Then further down from that there's a T junction, again with Pelican crossings. This leads out on to a one way system with traffic flowing straight (2) or left (3). And then the new traffic joining the straight section (1). The lights are timed so that the straight-on traffic and joining traffic (lines 1 and 2) - the lights are all amber at the same time. There's no wait period and I see buses and cars going through the amber lights going straight over with left turn traffic departing onto the road at amber also. Accident waiting to happen? Maybe not. But I almost got ticketed for jumping a red light here when it wasn't - I went through on Amber but because the police vehicle was also seeing am amber light on his side he didn't believe me. I had to physically demonstrate to them what I was talking about and they let me go after a warning to slow down.
Then the third example.
Another T junction but this one has 2 separate problems. They've made the straight on part (3) 2 lanes instead of leaving it as 1 single lane, but this means the buses going left (1) no longer have enough space to get round the bend if anyone is occupying that second lane. This then causes traffic to back up through no fault of anyone's but badly designed roads.
The second half of this is that the left and right traffic ( lines 1 and 2) at the T junction is all controlled on the same sequence. So when traffic is going straight over (3), the traffic going left is also stopped because the right turn traffic is being held. When the straight is red, both left and right are then green. This just makes no sense to be held at a red light turning left when there's no pedestrians because the right hand traffic is stopped.
I've added photos of the junctions from Google Maps with the markings on them. They're not perfect and I'm sorry if they're a little messy.
I'm really worried about what other changes the council might do, these roads all seem to have changed over the last 3-6 months except for the station one which was done about a year ago along with the lights timing change. There's already been 2 deaths at the new crossing, one just this week where someone was crushed by a lorry. Is there anything that I can do to highlight these problems to anyone who can fix them? I'm not saying I know more about road design than the council, but the changes made just make no sense at all.
I understand this may be the wrong type of subject for the roads sub forum so please feel free to move it to general.
Edited by ashleyman on Monday 25th April 00:25
Good luck with the London Borough of Sutton - greenie paradise!
My mother lives in that area - motorist misery on the whole. (Or is that up the hole?) Hateful sh*thole! It was quite good when I lived there in the 80s/90s!
Wouldn't move back there, even if I could afford to.............!
My mother lives in that area - motorist misery on the whole. (Or is that up the hole?) Hateful sh*thole! It was quite good when I lived there in the 80s/90s!
Wouldn't move back there, even if I could afford to.............!
Judging by Reading's amazing knack of converting junctions that worked perfectly well with traffic lights which cause congestion, I suspect you're in trouble.
Interesting that RBC purposefully create lots of congestion, and are one of the councils outside of London at the forefront of congestion charging
Interesting that RBC purposefully create lots of congestion, and are one of the councils outside of London at the forefront of congestion charging
I'm coming to the conclusion it not bad planning but deliberate, it's the politicians putting short term gain against what's actually really needed & already working.
Air pollution is the latest big thing but yet we're lowering speed limits (so vehicles petrol or diesel run inefficiently) putting in more traffic lights shutting off the rat runs so traffic has nowhere to go but on the main roads which can't cope then (in London at least) they've reduced the Road capacity for private & commercial buildings by a 1/3 in the last 10 years.
Then a politician will come along saying that the traffic levels are too high we're going to add another TAX sorry (despite the fact you're already paying because you're using more fuel) I meant charge, for those people who have to use the roads despite it not being anything to do with the road user or them being able to have any say.
Cause/political ambition & effect/more traffic misery = Motorist pays & get vilified as the villan rather than the victim, which is what they are.
Air pollution is the latest big thing but yet we're lowering speed limits (so vehicles petrol or diesel run inefficiently) putting in more traffic lights shutting off the rat runs so traffic has nowhere to go but on the main roads which can't cope then (in London at least) they've reduced the Road capacity for private & commercial buildings by a 1/3 in the last 10 years.
Then a politician will come along saying that the traffic levels are too high we're going to add another TAX sorry (despite the fact you're already paying because you're using more fuel) I meant charge, for those people who have to use the roads despite it not being anything to do with the road user or them being able to have any say.
Cause/political ambition & effect/more traffic misery = Motorist pays & get vilified as the villan rather than the victim, which is what they are.
ashleyman said:
I've added photos of the junctions from Google Maps with the markings on them. They're not perfect and I'm sorry if they're a little messy.
Posted links don't appear to be working (formatting error?). Try:http://s31.postimg.org/ezb7zgnll/Screen_Shot_2016_...
http://s31.postimg.org/z1gb4coe1/Screen_Shot_2016_...
http://s31.postimg.org/4b7h0mdmh/Screen_Shot_2016_...
Red Devil said:
Posted links don't appear to be working (formatting error?). Try:
http://s31.postimg.org/ezb7zgnll/Screen_Shot_2016_...
http://s31.postimg.org/z1gb4coe1/Screen_Shot_2016_...
http://s31.postimg.org/4b7h0mdmh/Screen_Shot_2016_...
They were working the other day but don't seem to be up anymore. Your links just show ? marks. I'll re-upload.http://s31.postimg.org/ezb7zgnll/Screen_Shot_2016_...
http://s31.postimg.org/z1gb4coe1/Screen_Shot_2016_...
http://s31.postimg.org/4b7h0mdmh/Screen_Shot_2016_...
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