Planning and traffic in Stafford.... terrible?

[tek-monkey]

You could take the western access road?

 

[Mr X]

I have to go a long way round to get to Sainsbury's...

[Edit: what tek said!]
Well I don't know where you live, but I have made the Western Access Road one way from Foregate Street to Doxey Road, so that 'northerners' can easily access Sainsbury's and the town centre. People may have to travel further in a lot of cases, but the idea is that if everyone can keep moving then overall people's journeys are quicker.

For anyone who still doesn't understand my reasoning behind my LOL campaign (lose our lights), imagine that at motorway junctions they decided to build the slip roads at 90degrees to the carriageway and install traffic lights. Nobody would get anywhere as the queue would build up many miles when the lights changed. Now just think about this on a smaller scale in the town centre and how long it can take to get anywhere!

 

[Florence]

Is the western access road the long arrow? That would work, but could I have a road for myself please, going from my house to sainsbury's?

 

[Mr X]

Is the western access road the long arrow? That would work, but could I have a road for myself please, going from my house to sainsbury's?

Yes but only if I can have some built straight from my house to Tesco, to the motorway, to B&Q, to that restaurant I went to a few years ago and hated, and straight into the market square.

BTW the long arrow is the WAR

 

[db]

sofa, you are becoming a little beligerent.. it's starting to look like you're taking any opportunity in any thread to argue with henryscat and it's getting tiresome..

clearly the bee in your bonnet has made you lose sight of the fact that you both want essentially the same thing: fewer people on the roads and a greater uptake of public transport..

 

[Sofa]

the bee in your bonnet

In my bonnet? Is henryscat a mate of yours, by any chance?

 

[db]

the bee in your bonnet

In my bonnet? Is henryscat a mate of yours, by any chance?

what on earth would make you think that?? if you look round the other threads (traffic management, sustainability, etc.) you will see that me and him/her have got in some quite heated exchanges, so i'm not sure where you got that from..

tbh for a long while i thought he/she was one of your green cohorts - as i say, you both have very similar desires with regards to getting people out of cars.. i have absolutely no idea why you think they're an "allie" of mine.. apparently just because you seem to get wound up by him/her lol..

 

[tek-monkey]

I think they should tax the hell out of petrol, that way they can reduce some traffic because people are too skint to drive, whilst simultaneously getting a massive increase in revenue to fund blowing up people who look funny.

 

[henryscat]

1, 2, 2A, 3, 4, 5, 5a, 6, 7, 8, 432, 433, are the routes which do not stop at the railway station, which includes most of the local routes. That's pathetic.

Turning this round.... Routes which do stop at the station: 9, 74, 75, 76, 101, 481, 490, 825, 880. This means people on or near Lichfield, Wolverhampton, Newport, Weston, Stone and Eccleshall Roads have a bus that stops outside the station. Yes, it would be handy if more buses stopped outside the station, but we're not bereft of ones that do. The other side of this is if you divert more buses round by the station that would likely be at the expense of other town centre stops that people might want to use.

Oh, yeah? Well here is a suggestion - not having to walk half a mile in all weathers from the nearest bus stop to the railway station might help, for starters.

Buses are deregulated and for the most part its up to Arriva, First, or whoever the route they want to take. If you didn't use a bus direct to the station, its not exactly a zillion miles from alternative stops on Bridge Street, Water Street, Earl Street or Chell Road. Certainly isn't 1/2 mile.

 

[Mr X]

To be honest, I'm not sure how we've ended up on this topic, and I can't help but feel I should leave sofa and henryscat to fight this one out, but as much as I disagree with a lot of what sofa is saying, he is definitely right here: that the local buses are useless: expensive, unreliable, inconvenient and the routes often not suitable.

1, 2, 2A, 3, 4, 5, 5a, 6, 7, 8, 432, 433, are the routes which do not stop at the railway station, which includes most of the local routes. That's pathetic.

Turning this round.... Routes which do stop at the station: 9, 74, 75, 76, 101, 481, 490, 825, 880. This means people on or near Lichfield, Wolverhampton, Newport, Weston, Stone and Eccleshall Roads have a bus that stops outside the station. Yes, it would be handy if more buses stopped outside the station, but we're not bereft of ones that do. The other side of this is if you divert more buses round by the station that would likely be at the expense of other town centre stops that people might want to use.

I notice a pattern here: all the local buses (except 9) don't stop at the station. Why would people from Wolverhampton or Lichfield want a bus to Stafford Railway Station, when they have their own? It is people who live in Stafford who would want a bus to the station.

 

[basil]

I think they should tax the hell out of petrol, that way they can reduce some traffic because people are too skint to drive, whilst simultaneously getting a massive increase in revenue to fund blowing up people who look funny.

Like it.....

 

[highguyuk]

Well I'm glad its not just me who gets seriously annoyed by all the lights and the highways dept thinking another set of lights will solve all the problems.

I while ago someone suggested the Stafford 'ring road' should be one way, and after some serious thought I actually think it would work. Thing is, by making the majority of town centre roads one way in a clockwise direction you can remove most sets of lights and instead replace them with filters (like the Stone one-way system). You would need to keep pedestrian crossings in there somewhere (but as henryscat pointed out you don't get stopped every time), but for most of the time traffic can flow straight onto the road where they want to be. New junctions (such as the inevitable new junction on the Queensway at St George's would not be such a problem either. It also means on heavily congested areas of roads eg Newport Road, Chell Road the road capacity is doubled effectively.

Anyways, see what you think? Would this work? Of course the council would never agree to it: 'but where are all the traffic lights' they would ask as their brains struggle to work through how cars might get across town without being stopped every 30 seconds. They would then return to their next 'stroke of genius': to install traffic lights at every side turning 'to ease traffic flow'; and to pedestrianise the entire Eastgate Street - South Walls area (btw i made those two up, but for all I know they might be planning these!).

http://i.imagehost.org/0752/staffordoneway.jpg

I could talk alot on this thread, but it does look like Sofa and Henryscat do just want to argue. Makes interesting reading, and on the whole I agree with Henryscats POV.

Anyway, reason I quoted this post. I think you'd make Queensway 2 way. No purpose to making it 1 way. Ensures Lammascote road traffic heading towards the M6 doesn't cut through Corporation Street to get there.

 

[db]

i think any kind of one way system would be a nightmare.. one of the reasons i was so glad to move back to stafford from oop north was the hideous one way systems in sheffield and leeds..

they're a nightmare to drive around - take one wrong turn, or miss your exit, and you have to loop all the way round until you get back to where you want to be! i suppose this wouldn't be quite as bad in stafford, since it is smaller (plus a better local knowledge means one could probably find another route down various side streets) but still, i'm not a big fan..

 

[BBC]

Planning and traffic in Stafford.... terrible?

By the number of posts on the forum and letters into the local papers, it would certainly appear that the people of Stafford have got issues with the traffic/road planning in our town.

So, who and where are the people responsible for making these decisions on the Council tax payers behalf? Can anyone even name them??

Why doesn't someone from the Council's Highway planning department come out and respond to all these comments/criticisms and provide some kind of explanation/justification for their plans and actions.

Instead all they seem to do is hide behind Councillors quotes! Not good enough.

Come on Riverway, lets finally hear from the people accountable for these decisions that are causing so much debate!

 

[darben]

Planning and traffic in Stafford.... terrible?

By the number of posts on the forum and letters into the local papers, it would certainly appear that the people of Stafford have got issues with the traffic/road planning in our town.

So, who and where are the people responsible for making these decisions on the Council tax payers behalf? Can anyone even name them??

Why doesn't someone from the Council's Highway planning department come out and respond to all these comments/criticisms and provide some kind of explanation/justification for their plans and actions.

Instead all they seem to do is hide behind Councillors quotes! Not good enough.

Come on Riverway, lets finally hear from the people accountable for these decisions that are causing so much debate!

Well said!

Maybe we should all badger our councillors until they get bored of us and tackle the planning department as an elected council should.

 

[henryscat]

Maybe we should all badger our councillors until they get bored of us and tackle the planning department as an elected council should.

As far as I can tell from the Tory propaganda that gets shovelled through my door and the local rags, most local councillors are fixated by the idea of an Eastern Bypass which isn't the answer.

 

[henryscat]

Sat there in it tonight thinking "how much of this lot is just passing through?"

Less than you think.

Add up all the parking space in and around the town centre (not just public car parks) - within say half a mile.

How many of those want to depart early evening?

A bypass is of no use all of those cars when they all leave town in a very short space of time.

Even so, Stafford congestion isn't really that bad compared to other places.

Gotta be an easier way.......
In foreign counties

Shropshire?

I obviously meant "Countries" rather than "counties"
I left work just after half five and took half hour to get to my Dad in Castletown. I then had to take him out and the Newport Road was totally clear. Any occurrence at any time of day effects Stafford, being my point.

How many cars are parked in and around the town centre? What happens when they all depart in a short space of time? What does a a bypass do for them?

Yes, an M6 incident or similar is going to affect Stafford. Unless you close the motorway junctions completely there's no solution to that.

If the infrastructure isn't there to support the new develoments and hundreds of homes going up we is in BIG TROUBLE!

Infrastructure such as?

There is of course the question of is Stafford an appropriate place to shove thousands of new houses. I'd argue not, when there are huge swathes of brownfield land in the West Midlands.

I'm just using a bit of forward thinking rather than anything else. As much as Green Minded People would like it, when the town expands along with the population, bikes, buses and foot will not bethe solution.

If you put sustainability aside, "bikes, buses and foot" still have to be the solution.

Cars are a stupidly inefficient use of road space. Short of large scale demolition, it is not possible to provide enough road space to give free flow conditions throughout the day - to do so would be economically and environmentally bonkers.

 

[Dabbler]

Henryscat

I think I agree with you in part. I believe that 'bikes, buses and foot' are certainly part of the solution, but they cannot be the whole solution - and the planners must acknowledge this - since people are always going to want to use their cars - some will need to use their cars due to inadequate alternatives and of course, we shouldn't forget rail.

What we need, and what successive governments of all colours have not achieved, is a properly integrated transport policy. Until we get that, I don't think we will make a huge amount of progress.

In the meantime, and at a local level, people do need to consider alternatives to their cars, but I don't think we can ignore roads and development altogether.

We do need to apply common sense into the equation, so for example why can we not have traffic lights that operate at peak times, and why (sorry, mini rant approaching) do car drivers fail to recognise that when at a box junction, you should not enter unless your exit is clear - except when turning right? So,, the traffic lights at Asda, Queensway roundabout etc could all be peak time only, saving energy etc.

Road junction improvements need to be better thought through, and roadworks should be better co-ordinated (and delivered more rapidly) so that the same stretch of road is not dug up repeatedly.

I do agree that we will never have sufficient space to have free flowing roads throughout the day, that is a dream that will never be realised. My interpretation around infrastructure for the proposed new developments does include transport infrastructure, but more importantly covers things like schools, hospital facilities, doctors surgeries, dentists etc

I'll get off my soapbox now and try to concentrate on the work I should be doing!!

 

[Jackel]

Get rid of half the traffic lights , that'll sort it out!Traffic flow is impossible with that amount of lights. Also Pelican crossings , I did a survey of my own the other day when I was stopped at a pelican where two people crossed the road . But to allow this there were 12 cars queueing behing me and 7 the other way .Surely, having all these cars queuing is not good for the environment !!

 

[tek-monkey]

How many cars are parked in and around the town centre? What happens when they all depart in a short space of time? What does a a bypass do for them?

Yes, an M6 incident or similar is going to affect Stafford. Unless you close the motorway junctions completely there's no solution to that.

Well, a bypass would mean they **** off out of town and leave the central streets for us to deal with. If there is a motorway disruption at home time, you reduce the locals time wasted drastically as they don't have to conpete with the brum/manc direction traffic.