So, I wrote to Highways/LCC, and...

[All that jazz]

Living top side of Leeds I'm fairly regularly up Kirkstall Rd in the evening rush hour (quicker than trying to get through Headingley) but the traffic lights where Morrisons is often clog up. I found the root cause of this issue is the set of lights at Morrisons themselves only let about 10 cars through into Morrisons and it quickly backs up. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the lights coming out of Morrisons are on a separate sequence to the lights coming out of Halfrauds opposite, therefore the left filter lane into Morrisons from Kirkstall Rd could be set up to go to green at the same time as the set coming out of Morrisons although it did occur to me that the reason they stayed on red was possibly because of the 'green man' automatically activating whenever the lights were at red.

So, I fired off an email to LCC Highways Traffic Light dept the other day stating all this and also mentioned that if it was down to the 'green man' perhaps they could be reprogrammed so that the green man only comes on if someone physically presses the button, as I've never actually seen anyone crossing there.

A reply was received a short while ago :

"Thank you for your email. Sounds like a good idea. As you say, it is the pedestrian green holding off the traffic. But we will look into making it dependant on pushing the button.

We will check the feasibility based on existing equipment/cabling and the cost implications."

Well strike me down with a feather! Someone at the council actually thinks common sense plan is a good idea! Of course I am not naive enough to believe it will actually happen as there will undoubtably need to be 300 consultations about it before they will even consider giving it the 'green light' but certainly a step in the right direction.

Edited by All that jazz on Thursday 26th April 12:59

[Glade]

Excellent... I use that a lot.

[supersport]

It is quite shocking to know how many junctions are set up quite badly and the appalling effect this has on traffic. Unfortunately the departments responsible for these things often are extremely under manned and can't keep up with a major city.

Still amazing to actually get a response, just need them to get round to it.

[blueg33]

In some places they do the opposite - reprogramme the lights to cause congestion and then use the congestion to justify a case for road charging (Bristol Council, you know who you are)

I recall a few years ago at Hanger Lane on the North Circular, changing the timing fro one set of lights by about 20 seconds reduced the average delay for drivers on the principle road by 5 mins.

Good to see a council reacting

[supersport]

blueg33 said:

In some places they do the opposite - reprogramme the lights to cause congestion and then use the congestion to justify a case for road charging (Bristol Council, you know who you are)

I recall a few years ago at Hanger Lane on the North Circular, changing the timing fro one set of lights by about 20 seconds reduced the average delay for drivers on the principle road by 5 mins.

Good to see a council reacting

The councils were told that they were not allowed to do that anymore, but I really think that many of them are so incompetant that that's what happens anyway, almost by accident.

I do know that here, there are only one or two guys that can sort out the sequencing and so in many cases it ends up getting left until someone shouts loud enough about it.

I also remember them putting the lights on the Hanger Lane roundabout and made bugger all difference, it was still a car park in the evenings.

[PGD5]

Interesting read, and good to see you got such a reply tbh. Fingers crossed something comes of it

Maybe we should all give it a go?


How many times have each of us sat at red lights while nobody moves in any direction, even when the roads are not busy?

Or when a set of lights do let you go, but the next set 500 yards up the road are timed to bring you to a halt once again (regardless of approach speed)

[bobda]

The sequencing of all the lights around that retail park is dreadful.

[balders118]

It really is dreadful at the moment! I often drive past Morrisons on my way back from work but never stop there becuase it's quicker to drive past my house to Sainsbury's and go back again, than it is to stop on route at Morrisons because of those awful traffic lights! And god forbid you want to go into Halfords!

[BlueMR2]

If you are coming out of town you can turn left at the 2nd set of lights rather than the first. So you can go round the back of Halfords without sitting in the queue by Morrisons. Same road as when you go down from Headingley and straight across which can save time. Probably quicker if you want to get to Morrisons too as you can barge your way across when the lights change.

[All that jazz]

balders118 said:

It really is dreadful at the moment! I often drive past Morrisons on my way back from work but never stop there becuase it's quicker to drive past my house to Sainsbury's and go back again, than it is to stop on route at Morrisons because of those awful traffic lights! And god forbid you want to go into Halfords!

Chris, Halfrauds is okay because they are on a separate sequence and change for you fairly quickly once you've driven over the induction loops.

Just to update the thread, last update received on Thursday last week -

LCC Traffic light bloke said:

We have spent a while considering your suggestion. It is complicated as the order of the staging and the way some stages are demand dependant means we cannot simply run the left turn. My colleague has worked on it, but before making a final decision I want to look at it on site myself. I’ve not been able to do this yet – and am away next week on leave. So plan to get there the week after, and will give you a fuller response then.

[All that jazz]

BlueMR2 said:

If you are coming out of town you can turn left at the 2nd set of lights rather than the first. So you can go round the back of Halfords without sitting in the queue by Morrisons. Same road as when you go down from Headingley and straight across which can save time. Probably quicker if you want to get to Morrisons too as you can barge your way across when the lights change.

I've tried that, but there's not much between it and it depends whether you can hit the Kirkstall Rd/Kirkstall Lane lights and the BHS lights whilst they're both still on green. If you can then you've only got the Morrisons lights to wait at and these take a while for the right hand filter to come on anyway. If you hit them all at red as is often the case with their sequencing, then you can be sat there longer than it takes to just sit in the slip road from Kirkstall Rd. Believe me I've tried all possibilities . If you're heading past Morrisons up to Bramley then if the queue on the slip road is back to Kirkstall Rd, it is 9/10 quicker to go to the main site and turn left.

[telecat]

I love the "new" bus lane they are putting in. They tried that one back in the eighties. Widened the road from Horsforth down to the Inner ring road. Fell by the wayside pretty quickly as they couldn't widen it at the Sports centre or once they got to the bottlenecks before the Vue park and the Viaduct. Now they are widening the road even more but still have the bottlenecks. Back to the Future!!!!!!

[All that jazz]

telecat said:

I love the "new" bus lane they are putting in. They tried that one back in the eighties. Widened the road from Horsforth down to the Inner ring road. Fell by the wayside pretty quickly as they couldn't widen it at the Sports centre or once they got to the bottlenecks before the Vue park and the Viaduct. Now they are widening the road even more but still have the bottlenecks. Back to the Future!!!!!!

The current bit of bus lane past the Vue isn't that old, certainly not back to the 80s anyway. The more recent bit is the stretch alongside the Abbey and a bit further up towards Horsforth on the town side. That used to be a fairly decent bit of road but now it's monumentally fked up as cars now have to drive down what used to be the centre chevrons and ruts. The camber is all over the place and holding the steering wheel is like trying to wrestle with a python on some bits of it.

Of course in typical council fashion the whole idea of the extended bus lane through Kirkstall is so that the (empty) buses can get into town a few seconds faster - they don't give a fk that everyone else's journey will take an extra 5 mins and the queues will stretch back even further.

[telecat]

All that jazz said:

telecat said:

I love the "new" bus lane they are putting in. They tried that one back in the eighties. Widened the road from Horsforth down to the Inner ring road. Fell by the wayside pretty quickly as they couldn't widen it at the Sports centre or once they got to the bottlenecks before the Vue park and the Viaduct. Now they are widening the road even more but still have the bottlenecks. Back to the Future!!!!!!

The current bit of bus lane past the Vue isn't that old, certainly not back to the 80s anyway. The more recent bit is the stretch alongside the Abbey and a bit further up towards Horsforth on the town side. That used to be a fairly decent bit of road but now it's monumentally fked up as cars now have to drive down what used to be the centre chevrons and ruts. The camber is all over the place and holding the steering wheel is like trying to wrestle with a python on some bits of it.

Of course in typical council fashion the whole idea of the extended bus lane through Kirkstall is so that the (empty) buses can get into town a few seconds faster - they don't give a fk that everyone else's journey will take an extra 5 mins and the queues will stretch back even further.

Those "bits" were in existence back then and the Bus Lane extended nearly to the junction with Outwood Lane. The stretch by the Abbey also existed as the "Island" was smaller back then. It seems to be a "pet" project of LCC's Traffic dept that thy can't get a handle on.

[BlueMR2]

I remember reading a fairly recent paper (few years ago) with a number of departments listed and one of the points they were there to discuss was working out how to make car journeys into town longer.

[evilmunkey]

o.p. I work for that department and use that section of road every day and evenig. trust me it is being taken seriously aand is going to be implemented very shortley. its been driving be nuts for a while and i have brought this up myself too

[Glade]

When you get out of morrisons and turn right, so you are at the lights to turn onto the A65. Right for leeds centre, left to go to horsforth...

The left hand turn signals change green slightly after the right hand turn.

I don't get it.

I actually think you could turn left while the A65 traffic turns right into morrisons without a problem, and go even earlier.

[All that jazz]

Glade said:

When you get out of morrisons and turn right, so you are at the lights to turn onto the A65. Right for leeds centre, left to go to horsforth...

The left hand turn signals change green slightly after the right hand turn.

I don't get it.

I actually think you could turn left while the A65 traffic turns right into morrisons without a problem, and go even earlier.

The reason for this is probably the same reason for the Morrison's set - the pedestrian crossing green man comes on. I've suggested that the green 'men' only activate if someone presses the button, not every time regardless of whether or not someone is waiting to cross.

[Glade]

Ah yes... people crossing when walking along the A65, infront of the urban bean headed horsforth to leeds.

And I've wondered if there would be a problem with cars "Backing up" because usually the next light will be red because cars are going up the hill towards headingley.

Massively complicated!!

[PaulHogan]

I've always thought those lights could be improved: amazed you got a constructive reply from the Council. Of course what we really need down the valley is another vehicle bridge over the river and canal.