Funding confirmed for Western Access Road in Stafford

[kyoto49]

I have no children, but I'd happily look after the OHs kids if it meant I didn't have to work at the college anymore. Hell, I'm eying up a shelf monkey job at lidl at the min just to get out! I'd happily walk the kids to school and clean the house if it got me out of there, you seem rather sexest in your assumption it would always be the women staying at home. I'm all for equal rights, I'd happily stay home and Cook/clean.

Not sexist, realist!! Whilst you might be happy to do all the things you say you would, evidence suggests that not many men would do or want to it, not for years on end. I work in a place with 9000 employees, 80% men, and I doubt very many of them would become career house husbands. Doesn't mean none would, but certainly 50% of them wouldn't.

 

[kyoto49]

we could build enough road infrastructure to support car dominated travel however it is very expensive and nobody wants to pay for it however for economic reasons believe it is important capacity improvements take place at the worst hot spots

Get real, car usage has been growing for years, the population is increasing massively, and the road infrastructure can;t cope. When Stafford and all the roads in are gridlocked, what's your solution, double decker roads, tunnels? We need to start moving away very quickly from the old fashioned notion of more care means we need more roads. Our priorities have to be more people so we need to find more sustainable solutions for getting them fron point A to B.

 

[henryscat]

we could build enough road infrastructure to support car dominated travel

We already have a transport infrastructure that has made car the dominant mode. It isn't feasible or desirable to build that amount of road capacity, in fact it is patently bonkers. Colin Buchanan illustrated that in the Traffic in Towns report submitted to government in the early 60s.

 

[henryscat]

Stagger work days, would sort loads out. Better school buses would help too, only pussies got a lift when I was there!

A major problem as far as travel to school goes is parental choice which means kids are travelling ever increasing distances to school so instead of being able to walk to the nearest school their parents are driving them miles to a different school.

 

[cj1]

We already have a transport infrastructure that has made car the dominant mode. It isn't feasible or desirable to build that amount of road capacity, in fact it is patently bonkers. Colin Buchanan illustrated that in the Traffic in Towns report submitted to government in the early 60s.

however increasing capacity at strategic points is a cost effective way to reduce congestion and minimise its economic impact

 

[henryscat]

however increasing capacity at strategic points is a cost effective way to reduce congestion and minimise its economic impact

Not really. Roads are hideously expensive. If that money was invested in public transport and cycling it could do an awful lot. The road network in general is only at or above capacity for a relatively short period each day as it is inefficiently used. National road pricing would address that but politicians lack the balls to go near it.

 

[tek-monkey]

Not sexist, realist!! Whilst you might be happy to do all the things you say you would, evidence suggests that not many men would do or want to it, not for years on end. I work in a place with 9000 employees, 80% men, and I doubt very many of them would become career house husbands. Doesn't mean none would, but certainly 50% of them wouldn't.

Its a free market, whoever makes the most money should be the one to keep working. I know very few couples though where they make enough to buy a house on just the one persons wages, so its rent for life or both work. In some cases, many in fact, it is rent for life and both work.

 

[kyoto49]

Its a free market, whoever makes the most money should be the one to keep working. I know very few couples though where they make enough to buy a house on just the one persons wages, so its rent for life or both work. In some cases, many in fact, it is rent for life and both work.

No-ones disagreeing with that!! Anyway, it's hypothetical cos it'll never happen!

 

[Jonah]

Because back in the real world it is women who do most of the childcare even now, it is women who mostly sacrifice their careers to bring up children, so it follows that should only one partner in a family work it will be the man. It won't be like this in every family, and I'm sure all the men on the forum are rushing to tell me they do 50% of everything associated with rearing their children, and I'm sure some do, but having listened to 13 years worth of male dominated conversation where I work, I'm damn sure very view men would give up work permananetly to bring up their families. Course I could be completely wrong

It's a shame you feel that way. You obviously don't work with enlightened men.

 

[kyoto49]

It's a shame you feel that way. You obviously don't work with enlightened men.

Your not wrong there Today the conversation was about if they'd ever ironed. All said no, it was the wife's job!

 

[Kickstart]

but if a journey is less than 3 miles and around Stafford, why not walk or cycle.

Most of the time for 3 miles a car is massively quicker. Even in rush hour with the heavy traffic on the A518 (seemingly due to Tesco junction being very badly implemented) it would be far quicker for me to drive from Derrington to the station than it would for me to cycle (and cycling down the old railway line is a shorter distance, and a fairly flat easy cycle).

3 miles each way is a 2 hour journey for most people to walk. A big chunk of the available time.

Get real, car usage has been growing for years, the population is increasing massively, and the road infrastructure can;t cope.

Largely because there has been negligible investment in the roads, certainly on the trunk road network for the last 20 years. Much of the investment that has happened seems to be put at making traffic flow worse.

Off the top of my head I cannot think of any road change in Stafford over the last 20 years that has improved traffic flow. Few road closures to make things worse and a few badly designed junctions to provide access to new developments.

Despite high taxes private cars manage to be relatively cheap compared to subsidised public transport.

All the best

Keith

 

[proactive]

A major problem as far as travel to school goes is parental choice which means kids are travelling ever increasing distances to school so instead of being able to walk to the nearest school their parents are driving them miles to a different school.

Here here. Remove all choice, send kids to shite schools, force us all to eat veg all day, sap all the remaining joy out of life and Nick Clegg for prime minister.

Here's to a future well worth having.



Or maybe not

 

[Jonah]

Off the top of my head I cannot think of any road change in Stafford over the last 20 years that has improved traffic flow.

The only one I can think of is putting the two islands at the top of Radford Bank. When they were first put in it did improve the flow of traffic out of Baswich Lane but this has now been negated by the extra traffic on the roads.

I remember when getting out of Baswich Lane with the traffic lights in place was nigh on impossible.

 

[proactive]

The only one I can think of is putting the two islands at the top of Radford Bank. When they were first put in it did improve the flow of traffic out of Baswich Lane but this has now been negated by the extra traffic on the roads.

I remember when getting out of Baswich Lane with the traffic lights in place was nigh on impossible.

True but that really is about it. The problem is that to do anything that would meaningfully prepare our road system for the future amount of housing it will need to support would be prohibitively expensive and require the demolition of quite a bit of the housing that already exists.

That leaves us with pointless improvements such as the western bypass, that will achieve nothing.

 

[Prawn cocktail]

Another very bad area, is what used to be White Lion Street. Try coming across there at peak times, it can take an age to just come through that part of the town. You have the Wton Road, Lichfield Road and what's coming off Queensway all trying to cross that one junction.

 

[Gramaisc]

The only one I can think of is putting the two islands at the top of Radford Bank. When they were first put in it did improve the flow of traffic out of Baswich Lane but this has now been negated by the extra traffic on the roads.

I remember when getting out of Baswich Lane with the traffic lights in place was nigh on impossible.

That was done a good bit more than twenty years ago.

The Silkmore Lane / Lichfield Road traffic lights were also replaced by a roundabout, at around the same time...

 

[kyoto49]

The only one I can think of is putting the two islands at the top of Radford Bank. When they were first put in it did improve the flow of traffic out of Baswich Lane but this has now been negated by the extra traffic on the roads.

I remember when getting out of Baswich Lane with the traffic lights in place was nigh on impossible.

And therein lies the problem of continuous road building, it solves the problem to start with until the extra traffic generated negates the positive impact and we are effectively back to square one.

 

[kyoto49]

Here here. Remove all choice, send kids to shite schools, force us all to eat veg all day, sap all the remaining joy out of life and Nick Clegg for prime minister.

Here's to a future well worth having.



Or maybe not

Are there any shite schools in Stafford? I mean, I'd argue, certainly in terms of high schools, that they are all much of a muchness, maybe Walton gets better results, but then it takes fewer children from the lower socio-economic groups and has a lower percentage of children on free school meals. Kind Eddies, Balfour, Weston Road, not much between them, all provide a decent comprehensive education. Suspect Rising Brook is at the lower achievement end of our schools, but I know a girl 2 years ago who got 11 A*'s going there, so it can be done.

Given that, it makes no sense for kids that live in the catchment area of King Eddies & Weston Road to go to Balfour and vice versa, yet this is very commonplace. It's like a merry go round and I'm convinced it's because of a 'grass always seems greener' mentality rather than any actual 'real' difference between the schools.

One only has to make a journey in the rush hour in the term time and then compare to the school holidays to see what a massive difference there is in volume of traffic, almost all generated by kids travelling unnecessarily round the town to get to a school that is the same as the one near them that they could have walked to. It's madness

 

[Prawn cocktail]

And therein lies the problem of continuous road building, it solves the problem to start with until the extra traffic generated negates the positive impact and we are effectively back to square one.

I understand where you are coming from, really I do. I just feel that with the extra houses being built we could do with extra capacity. Just say a good proportion of the people from the new houses work out of town, this means that too get out of the town they have to come through a good part of it. If we had some form of relief road they could bypass the towns roads completely.

I personally would favour a road system that gives easy access to both motorway junctions from all areas of the town.

 

[tek-monkey]

In my experience its because the boundaries for primary schools are not the boundaries for high schools, and kids want to go where their mates are. When I went to Weston I had mates that should have been at Balfour really, but we'd been at the same first and middle schools and they wanted to stay with people they knew rather than start again.