Drivers in worse jam as traffic plan fails

[Satch]

What a surprise.

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article3897780.ece

"Motorists are wasting more time sitting in queues on motorways and A-roads because the Government has failed to meet its key target for reducing congestion.

Delays have increased on the 100 key routes on which ministers promised three years ago to make journeys more reliable.

The Department for Transport attempted to bury its failure to meet the target by quietly releasing the figures yesterday in a large batch of reports on congestion.

The motorways pledge is the most important target because delays affect the entire population, either directly or through the cost to the economy of lost working time.

The failure is particularly embarrassing for ministers because the target was criticised for being too weak when it was announced. A fall in journey times by a single second could have been trumpeted as a success."

 

[DaveK]

Reasons for motorway jams
1. Paddy and mick sharing one shovel at road works for which very little urgency is expressed.
2. Treating every motorway accident as a crime scene and conducting minute investigations that seem to do little to stop the same type of accidents happening time and time again.
3. Deliberate reduction of road space available to the motorist by councils who turn 4 lanes in to two with big ghost islands in the middle, unused bus lanes and traffic calming measures that are nowhere near schools, shops or housing.

 

[robert.saunders]

Nothing to do with the amount of cars on the road then

 

[DaveK]

You have four lanes, two in each direction. You remove two of them. You are putting the same amount of traffic on half the road space. Result ( as happened in my toy town ), queues of traffic where previously there had never been queues. Council then opens mouth and screams.." we need a congestion charge to stop this queues ". You couldn't make it up.

 

[Ade B]

Reasons for motorway jams
1. Paddy and mick sharing one shovel at road works for which very little urgency is expressed.
2. Treating every motorway accident as a crime scene and conducting minute investigations that seem to do little to stop the same type of accidents happening time and time again.
3. Deliberate reduction of road space available to the motorist by councils who turn 4 lanes in to two with big ghost islands in the middle, unused bus lanes and traffic calming measures that are nowhere near schools, shops or housing.

Can I add tailgating idiots who run into each other for no reason and cause the accidents...

Congestion in the SE is a fact of life - one of the reasons I go everywhere I can by bike.

Ade

 

[DaveK]

I will add Utility companies who are not being fined under the present rules as they should, for over running their alloted times re road works.

 

[robert.saunders]

I will add Utility companies who are not being fined under the present rules as they should, for over running their alloted times re road works.

Blame the Newts

 

[rf065]

You have four lanes, two in each direction. You remove two of them. You are putting the same amount of traffic on half the road space. Result ( as happened in my toy town ), queues of traffic where previously there had never been queues. Council then opens mouth and screams.." we need a congestion charge to stop this queues ". You couldn't make it up.

I have to agree, as soon as a dual carriageway has a few accidents round our way, the councils answer is to paint hatched lines over half its width and reduce it to a single carriageway. In one fell swoop, they create a line of traffic that travels at best, 35mph instead of 70mph and adds more time to every journey. And thats only outwith peak times, as then, it becomes stationary.

Russ

 

[DaveK]

It wasn't even based on accident rates in my neck of the woods. They just decided to hatch mark and build bus stop islands here, there and everywhere, removing half the boroughs usable road surface over one year .

 

[st4]

It wasn't even based on accident rates in my neck of the woods. They just decided to hatch mark and build bus stop islands here, there and everywhere, removing half the boroughs usable road surface over one year .

I've seen this in Scotland. A section of dual carriage way in Ediburgh had 2 lanes going each way. Now one lane has chevrons so its two going one way, 1 the other. 1/4 lanes just lost. Why?

Some silly traffic calming schemes get set up so rather than having a normal road, its singe track in sections, with the pavement extend out onto what was road space, so cars have to stop to give the oncoming car priority. Whats wrong with a normal road?

And on top of this they talk about CC schemes, I'll say that, they have some nerve.

 

[jamesmc]

I guess if traffic is barely moving then the powers that be would deem that as a traffic calming success.

Speaks nothing of how calm the drivers caught up in all this might be though!

 

[robert.saunders]

Blame the LGVs

 

[andy_k]

similar thing around here, on the A21, the one bit of dual carriageway between us and Tunbridge Wells (about 20 miles) which gave a valuable overtaking space has now become one lane

On a bad day it can add 20 minutes or so to the journey

Andy

 

[Biscuit]

You have four lanes, two in each direction. You remove two of them. You are putting the same amount of traffic on half the road space. Result ( as happened in my toy town ), queues of traffic where previously there had never been queues. Council then opens mouth and screams.." we need a congestion charge to stop this queues ". You couldn't make it up.

but this can only be a cause of traffic congestion on its own if then adding lanes in isolation is a solution.
when they added a lane to the M25 J13 to J16(-ish) no real solution, add in the extra lane and the variable limit you get some purchase on the issue.

as others have said the increase in car numbers is the central cause, until the delays get so bad it makes us think twice about driving (or public transport becomes a viable alternative ...oink oink flap flap) traffic will be bad in the UK and especially in the South East

 

[Kamisuma]

I will add Utility companies who are not being fined under the present rules as they should, for over running their alloted times re road works.

Worse still is the inability of utilities to co-ordinate planned works on the same stretch of road!!

 

[rf065]

Worse still is the inability of utilities to co-ordinate planned works on the same stretch of road!!

This has been trialed on numerous occasions over the 30 odd years I've been involved in utilities and frankly, it has never been a great success.
If you want to lay pipes & cables through a green field that has nothing in it, fair enough. But pick any high street with 100 years worth of existing utilities already there and it just becomes unworkable. The major utility companies already use "no dig technology" wherever possible, and keep disruption to a minimum, but sometimes there is no other way but to excavate.

Russ

 

[NW_Merc]

It wasn't even based on accident rates in my neck of the woods. They just decided to hatch mark and build bus stop islands here, there and everywhere, removing half the boroughs usable road surface over one year .

Where was this?

 

[DaveK]

The road from Prescot to St Helens for starters. It was dual carr right down to toll bar but not any more. Then there's the missing lanes along side Sherdley park, turned in to bus lanes for a service that operates only twice an hour .

 

[NW_Merc]

I've driven down there many a time and never have I seen a difference.....besides if you have your own car you don't have to follow everyone else, there are several routes into that area