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Traffic lights


Gary

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The lights at Cockhedge only operate when traffic has already built up - and stops the situation where traffic snarls up on the roundabout and blocks exits. At least that's the theory.

Rest assured Steve I have been sat in lengthy traffic queues from one side of the roundabout caused by the lights, with hardly any other vehicles entering the roundabout from the other directions!

Makes my blood boil!

Amazingly since I started this thread the lights have not been switched on when I have been passing through!

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Surely that is why Warrington needs a comprehensive bus service ,operating  as a public service & at times not just restricted to office hours but at times to cater for all working people in the borough. Maybe out of town car parks could be set up near industrial areas & any parking charge could include the cost of  a return bus ticket to any other part of town for work purposes.

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If "road space"  is congested, we need a "managed" system - just as you need an orderly evacuation system for a stadium or a liner, rather than a disorderly one that costs lives. So, the obvious solution is to reduce the cost for those consuming least road space, as in a bus; and compensate by increasing the cost for those consuming more road space, as in car (especially driver only). A bus could take 50 or so cars off the road, but they need to be free to be attractive. They also need to operate on a network basis that takes folk close to where they want to go (similar to the underground); and this also requires assistance from the planning process to locate essential venues close to main bus routes. The value of taxis and mini-buses shouldn't be ignored either. Then there's the issue of commuting distance - if around 25,000 folk commute into our Town each day, and the same number commute out, think we need to ask why folk (at least those in the same line of work), don't secure the jobs in their home Town?

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If "road space"  is congested, we need a "managed" system - just as you need an orderly evacuation system for a stadium or a liner, rather than a disorderly one that costs lives. So, the obvious solution is to reduce the cost for those consuming least road space, as in a bus; and compensate by increasing the cost for those consuming more road space, as in car (especially driver only). A bus could take 50 or so cars off the road, but they need to be free to be attractive. They also need to operate on a network basis that takes folk close to where they want to go (similar to the underground); and this also requires assistance from the planning process to locate essential venues close to main bus routes. The value of taxis and mini-buses shouldn't be ignored either. Then there's the issue of commuting distance - if around 25,000 folk commute into our Town each day, and the same number commute out, think we need to ask why folk (at least those in the same line of work), don't secure the jobs in their home Town?

 

Ahhhh such a vision of Utopia....or is it communism. Maybe every town should have a tractor factory to provide the jobs then we can all work in Warrington :)

 

People don't want buses; they want cars, they want their own space and their own transport. Buses by an large are a throwback to a byegone era; classed alongside steam engines, Ford Corsairs and black & white TV's. With the exception of the hospital routes, the buses are mostly all empty during the day but I would reckon that even if they offered free bus travel; people would still choose their cars.

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Obviously a statement of the inevitable consequences of more car usage isn't getting through to Baz; so he'll remain in denial until the day he can't get out of his drive due to traffic queues ! Nowt to do with Utopia or Communism Baz, merely a rational response to a given situation IE: too many vehicles (certainly in urban areas) for the road space available. Now if you've got a better solution, other than demolishing every building in Town and tarmacking over the lot to provide a multi-lane car park - I'd be interested to hear it.

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Obs, the government need to wise up along with local politicians and realise that we need more roads to carry more traffic...... spending £50billion (for a start) on a railway line to get someone to London 20 minutes quicker than they do now is pure madness.... the money would have been better spent on motorways and bypasses.... Our council has long let this town down by not pushing for and building some form of cross town bypass.... cars aren't going to go away overnight, we need to accommodate them or start raising the driving age and lowering the age when a license can be taken away; ban drink drivers for life etc....

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At only 2:30 this afternoon the traffic was gridlocked around Cockhedge roundabout.  

 

A big problem is Midland Way isn't wide enough to cope these days, especially since the entrance to the multi-story was added.  Today I saw cars, which simply wanted to go straight ahead, stuck behind cars waiting to go into the multi-story.

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Interesting you should mention "some form of cross Town bypass", cos they built one, ie  Midland Way ! Think the term they used at the time was "Expressway"; within weeks, if not days of it opening, it was choker during peak hour use; which is why "the experts" claim, that such "new" routes merely attract more traffic, in a similar way to water funnelling down drainage routes. It was then further compounded by the introduction of numerous access points onto it EG: Leigh St and the Multi-storey car park, all with a set of traffic lights. So, the "more roads" argument, merely takes us down the road to demolishing large areas of buildings (no doubt including examples of our heritage!) and covering with tarmac.  "Our Town" Baz; this is a problem in EVERY Town and City; and the bottom line is; too many people/cars for the finite space available. And it doesn't just apply to our roads; the reasoning behind HS2 (which I don't necessarily support btw), is to combat "congestion"; the network hubs are seizing up, as the demand for usage outstrips supply; thus a commute to Manchester or Liverpool means your lucky to get a seat. You do mention however, some possibilities for "reducing traffic", and that would be to reduce the number of legally qualified drivers; which could involve such things as age limits, stricter testing, and termination of licences for persistent driving offences; less qualified drivers = less vehicles, assuming the Police could enforce it. Now if we move out of the urban environment, to inter-city road links; as with the motorways, again choker in peak times, and compounded by added junctions which allow use by local traffic. Sorry, I don't like it either; but we can't avoid the simple equation between infinite demand and finite supply. The last "experts" I listened to; came out with such stats; like the school run adds a 20% increase to peak traffic, so no surprise our kids are not getting enough exercise! Or, if every driver decided to use his/her car at exactly the same time, you wouldn't get as far as the end of your street. It's a s%£$ sandwich, and we've all got to take a bite !

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Unless you adopt some elitist system where only the well off can afford to have cars your stuck with the traffic we have.

 

However I wonder if actual the number of vehicles on the road has increased. The number of people home working and night working, has increased in recent years which should mean fewer cars on the road at peak times. lorries are larger and heavier now running 24 hours a day that has meant a decrease in the number of heavy vehicles on the road, the number of people using trains are up, so why is local congestion getting worse

 

Again I point out a one way system around Warrington would help ease a lot of the congestion allowing more filter lanes, reducing the number of traffic lights.

 

However during school holidays you can fly through the town at peak times

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Haven't got any data to prove it; but I think we can safely assume that the number of vehicles on our roads has increased over the years. In fact, I used the term "peak", but I've noticed high volumes "off peak", which suggests a change in "normal" 9-5 working times? A neighbour's daughter, just turned 18; passed her test and has now bought a new car - it's a "must have" item; so everyone gets one nowadays. As for your suggestions: yes, HGVs already tend to use the quieter early hours to do business. But, when driving around, have you noticed, that even when the roads are full of moving traffic, the number of parked vehicles around; just imagine if everyone used their cars at the same time.  As for your traffic management suggestions: yes, I believe "one way" systems could help provide the extra road space required, based on a clockwise radial system around the Town, but it's even more necessary to have some strategic control via CCTV and traffic lights.  The biggest cause of snarl ups imo, are at junctions; exacerbated by those drivers who enter the junction or roundabout when their exit isn't clear, thus blocking cross traffic when the lights change, their seems to be some kind of "your not jumping in the queue before me attitude" with some drivers, that causes them to tailgate the driver in front, thus not allowing cross traffic manoeuvres.  But, whilst we can  tinker with the management system, it still won't alter the fundamental inevitability in the demand/supply equation.

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In the beginning was the Preston by pass ,nice 3 lane motorway & not much traffic which could cruise along unhindered from one end to the other. That was nearly 55 years ago when there weren't many cars on the road ,but now even the poorest of families can have two or three cars helping to block the road outside their houses. Motorways are basically the same as 55 years ago with 3 lanes & one slip road on or off & no matter how planners try to widen motorways by adding lanes there is still only one lane to safely leave the carriageway from  so congestion is caused by so much traffic moving from however many lanes to the exit slip road ,& usually at the latest possible second.

I think one of the blights with traffic lights on roundabout though is ,in Warrington,some of the roundabouts  are not big enough for lights  so they are set to let just the minimum number of cars through at a time , but they don't  account for the thinking time for drivers to actually move forward so you finish up with slow traffic movements.Maybe traffic police who could think on their feet would do a better job.

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Steve, stuck at the lights for three or four cycles trying to get out of Tescos (turning right into town) the other week.... too many lorries coming through the town centre which then add an even bigger snarl up to the snarl ups already snarling up.....

One thing we won't do is give priority to letting more traffic out of Tesco onto already-congested roads. Indeed, before becoming a councillor I opposed the plan to do away with the northbound bus gate from Winwick Street so Tesco could remodel the junction to give them an extra exit lane. (Putting in the bus gates was a condition in the first place.)

However, when Winwick Road northbound is static, it could ta

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Steve, stuck at the lights for three or four cycles trying to get out of Tescos (turning right into town) the other week.... too many lorries coming through the town centre which then add an even bigger snarl up to the snarl ups already snarling up.....

We won't give priority to traffic leaving Tesco at the expense of through traffic. Before becoming a councillor I'd opposed (successfully) the plan to do away with the bus gate from Winwick St so Tesco could build an extra exit lane (the bus gate having been a condition of the original consent for store and stadium). (The officer promoting that has retired.) Having said that, when Winwick Road is static it could take two hours to get out of Alban Retail Park; the new junction going in will ease that problem but I am assured that exit from the retail park will still be secondary to keeping traffic moving on the A49.

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Steve, I was trying to get out of Tesco heading towards town where there was no tailbacks... all the traffic was trying to get out of town (and I can certainly empathise with that).....

 

There are too many traffic lights across the town which jam up the through roads and create the congestion and banging them onto roundabouts and retail parks make things even worse.

 

Only yesterday I was on Winwick road (heading towards town) and was at the roundabout turning right up Cromwell avenue towards Westbrook. The lights were on red and they stayed on red for over 2 minutes with NO traffic coming round across our path.... eventually the bloke in a 4x4 next to me just drove off through the red light towards town; followed by a stream of other cars.... this must have prompted the lights and they changed to green.....

 

Just at that moment, and before I had pulled away, three cars went through the red light across my path towards Longford!

 

The lights were obviously malfunctioning and again created tailbacks towards the motorway.... which then prompted the actions of the drivers to go through red lights creating even more dangers. Roundabouts should not have traffic lights on them because it is always the case that traffic seems to flow better when they are not working

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Census Point Coverage: A49 between A573 and Warrington boundary

 

In the year 2000 9516 vehicles were counted 45 cycles, 144 motorcycles, 7556 cars, 668 HGVs

 

In the year 2006 10965 vehicles were counted

 

In the year 2012 9234 vehicles were counted 23 cyclists, 65 motorcycles, 7374 cars, 435 HGVs

 

Census Point Coverage: A49 between A574 and A50

 

Year 2000 35491 vehicles 316 cycles, 238 motorcycles, 29224 cars, 1630 HGVs

 

Peak was in 2007 37841 vehicles

 

Year 2012 35961 vehicles, 67 cycles, 253 motorcycles, 29842 cars 1350 HGVs

 

Motorway traffic is down from 325 billion milles in 2007 to 302 billion miles in 2012, and has been static for the last 3 years

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The lights were obviously malfunctioning and again created tailbacks towards the motorway.... which then prompted the actions of the drivers to go through red lights creating even more dangers. Roundabouts should not have traffic lights on them because it is always the case that traffic seems to flow better when they are not working

 

 

Part time lights might be a good idea but not on the actual roundabout itself, that is just stupid.

 

The Cockhedge lights while doing a good job clearing traffic from Asda cause a huge build up past Sainsbury.

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It is a fine art. Roundabouts work well without lights up to certain volume, but then start to snarl up, and part-time lights (in theory at least) should help - but it might delay one route in order to free up another. As with the Bridge Foot new sequence and markings (after the initial cock-up over the remarking) - it may delay traffic coming from Wilson Patten Street but it helps traffic from the south which would otherwise snarl up that side, then back round the roundabout so Wilson Patten St would snarl up anyway. But we did have a major fault there last Tuesday morning and I've also seen the Cromwell Ave / A49 lights a few weeks back in the evening - I actually parked up and told queueing traffic on the A49 southbound that all the lights were on red and perhaps they might like to go through, but that's always dodgy encouraging people to go through on red!

 

I did once personally clear an A49 tailback southbound when they'd coned off the Tesco turn - traffic using the middle lane didn't work the detector on the lights so the lights "thought" no-one wanted to turn right; I stood there for best part of an hour telling people to go past, turn right and go round the Lord Rodney roundabout and back. It cleared the traffic - then the workmen rolled up, took a big plastic tube that I'd seen lying there, waved it in front of the detector and hey presto the lights for Tesco turned green....

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We won't give priority to traffic leaving Tesco at the expense of through traffic. Before becoming a councillor I'd opposed (successfully) the plan to do away with the bus gate from Winwick St so Tesco could build an extra exit lane (the bus gate having been a condition of the original consent for store and stadium). (The officer promoting that has retired.) Having said that, when Winwick Road is static it could take two hours to get out of Alban Retail Park; the new junction going in will ease that problem but I am assured that exit from the retail park will still be secondary to keeping traffic moving on the A49.

The people wont shop there. I certainly have avoided it because I know if I get in, it can take ages to get out. Not worth it, i'll just go elsewhere (or online). Ive avoided GS for that exact reason hence my original comments about most competitors for shopping having 2 set of lights from the nearest motorway to the shopping. When faced with 30 minutes to get from the M62 into town, people will go elsewhere.

 

Winwick road can be gridlocked back in peak sometimes back to Newton. Adding another set of lights I just cannot see how that will make matters better.

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Generally, you don't get gridlocked because of traffic lights (so long as they're working properly). They might delay how long it takes you to reach the next bit of jam. You only have to see the Mersey St / Church St roundabout to see how, without lights, thoughtless drivers can soon gum up a junction in all directions.

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