Manchester Says No To Congestion Charge...

79% of the vote says NO, we don't like being bribed into being guinea pigs by heavy handed
DoT bullyboy tactics! Yay!!

Maybe everyone in this rubbish country of ours has been pushed into a corner now and whilst
weary and bitter feels there's nowhere else left to go but to fight back? Here's hoping a clear
message has been sent to London. Mind they're blind to the rotten old electorate or chattering
classes.

I'm not trying to be political but am a frustrated motorist whose 'pips squeaked' a while back!!

Andrew

Fair do's, they were promised a new, improved, super efficient all-singing all-dancing transport system in exchange for paying the proposed charge. It seems they weren't prepared to wait 50 years for it to arrive, assuming it wasn't cancelled in the meantime.

Derek

Hurray, a vague glimmer of sanity! I'd rather sit in traffic than pay a congestion change, but Bristol is pretty self regulating really unless there are major problems on surrounding motorways. They are still proposing controlled parking here, but that is also lunacy.

Hi

As someone who does over the Dartford bridge / under the tunnel a couple of times a week and who has to now to pay £1.50 for a service that was promised to be free when paid for (that was about 15 years ago I think) I don't really believe the transport promises either.

BTW where is the logic of the arguement that removing the Dartford toll charge will increase congestion. Is it me or is that plain rediculous. I can't understand in these green looking times how having thousands of car sitting waiting for the crossing every day is green. Rant over!

Tony

Nothing to do with congestion charges, but Boston voted a group called "Boston Bypass Now" into power on the council last year. They've already given up on any idea of getting a bypass, but they have attacked the traffic problems in a common sense way.

I've always though that the idea of traffic lights on a roundabout is an anachronism. In Boston they had the added embuggerance factor that they were inevitably out of phase with the lights on the approach roads with the result that traffic flow was non-existent.

The new council has switched off all the roundabout traffic lights for a six month trial, the result is that traffic is now moving smoothly. It's often the simple solutions that are the most effective.

Derek

Weird, didn't know this concept ever existed at all, always thought a roundabout is an alternative to a traffic-light junction. Who and why has ever created a roundabout WITH traffic lights?????

cheers
G

Oh, I know, some commitee at a Council probably...

G

They love traffic lights round these parts - had a bulk purchase discount from the manufacturer!!

Yep, virtually every roundabout has them at points around it and EVERY side road junction
(no matter how significant it is) about 100 yards apart have lights too so you're never out of
3rd gear before having to stop again and of course they're all phased by the 'civil engineers'
deliberately to disrupt the smooth flow of the traffic to deter anyone wanting to use the road
in the first place...

Andrew

This post has been edited by Andmcit on December 13, 2008 06:46 pm

The Boston ones had (have, but they're covered up now) the lights controlling the entrances to the roundabouts, as George wrote it doesn't make sense and defeats the object of a roundabout.

The two roundabouts in question are sited at each end of Boston's only bit of dual carriageway, the John Adams Way. This is the original "bypass" which the then council, composed of local shopowners, decided would pass through the town rather than round it so they wouldn't lose trade!

Derek

We have traffic lights at roundabout syndrome here in Bristol, I must say it does seem to make things run a bit more smoothly at peak times but outside peak times its a right PIA, There are also a couple of places where dithering drivers (usually with the wife in the passenger seat) could be a real nuisance are I guess somewhat safer from that particular hazard now This time last year I very slightly tapped a focus on the rear like that, the cars in the outside line were actually going, but no, the focus guy had to stop dead in his tracks.

This year we sem to have "dig a hole in the middle of the road then leave it there for months on end" frenzy which I find particularly annoying. Water people and also electric upgrading their systems.

This post has been edited by DrTim on December 14, 2008 04:53 pm

Slightly off topic but who cares? There is a new building site on some land adjacent to the West Cheshire Hospital in Chester. Traffic in and out of the hospital is controlled by lights. The new junction into the new site is controlled by lights. Now, it surely doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that it might be an idea to phase these two junctions so that traffic actually moves at some point. Not for Cheshire Highways engineers it doesn't. They switched on the lights a week ago at the new junction and traffic was clogged coming out of the Hospital which had a knock on effect on the traffic getting into the Hospital! Anybody see a problem yet? Yes - AMBULANCES! There is an emergency use only exit from the Hospital - it got so bad at one point they had a security bod controlling ambulances in and out via this exit! Needless to say, there was an engineer on site nearly all of the next day trying to sort it out. Muppets!

London is a much more pleasant place to be after the introduction of congestion charging (hides under desk).

In Southampton, we have a little spur motorway, the M271, which connects from the main docks road up to the M27. At the top, there's a roundabout to interchange onto the M27. It used to have no lights, and ran very smoothly, unless you were coming down from above (Romsey). From there, at peak times, you could get very stuck because traffic was flowing past both from opposite onto the M27 towards Portsmouth, and from the West from the M27 heading into Southampton. The highways agency installed traffic lights, which caused traffic queues right down the slip road and sometimes almost half a mile up the M27, which was neither desirable, nor particularly safe. Now they're widening the M27 (causing horrific congestion) to provide a dedicated "going to the M271 lane" on which people can queue to their hearts content. All this for the 5 bloody people an hour who come from the other side of the junction......

Ah yes, I know that M271 junction well. Used to do it every day - and luckily stopped just after the first lights started going up. It seems to be worse every time I pass it now (once a year or so).

My XM and I live pretty much directly at the other end of the M271

I used to work very near you then - half a mile or less west just off the dual carriageway whose number I can't remember. It was a few years ago now though.

Was driving a BX at the time. Coming off the roundabout at the bottom of the 271 to go west was great fun until they put that speed camera behind the road sign just after the slip road finished. I was amazed how many new BMWs and Mercs etc could not manage 0-60 off the lights as quick as my 14 year old BX (19TRS) - and so were their drivers Alas the speed camera put pay to that joy when they put it in.