Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
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by Lib Dem team on 11 April, 2014
We didn’t think putting a bit of paint on the road was too complicated – the Council’s pretty good at doing it without a huge amount of fuss (if it’s yellow lines then there’s the legal stuff to sort out, but it works).
The Highways Agency apparently take a different view. We’ve been pressing for a “Keep Clear” box or similar to help residents from the South Park Road Estate exit onto the motorway slip road and join Kingsway southbound. We had the news this week that, following our pressure, it’s being looked at.
It seems the first consultants looked at the proposal and were worried it would increase queueing onto the motorway. (Really? A “Keep Clear” box just giving a car’s-lenth of space to pull out?) So the Highways Agency have asked a “Spatial Planning Framework Consultant” to do some computer modelling. If that shows no problem, and if the Highways Agency are happy that the new light sequencing is working correctly, then they may be willing to put some paint on the road and South Park Road Estate residents.
Needless to say, we will not let this one drop!
6 Comments
What’s the betting the consultants are former employees of the Highways Agency. Why is it so many government employees have to retire before they can do any useful work?
Hurrah! It’s AWFUL trying to get out of the estate especially as many people fly up the outer lane of the motorway as if going to Gatley when really they are just trying to beat the queue. They absolutely won’t let you get onto the motorway.
Ruth, I doubt a Keep Clear box is going to prevent those people still doing exactly what they want. It does beg the question is the HA actually fit for purpose?
What about sorting out Gatley traffic lights and the problems faced daily by people trying to turn right onto Kingsway, traffic from Gatley regulary jump the lights and its not unusual for only one vehicle to manage to turn right before the lights change.
Come On Ian sort this out before you start another Campaigne.
Remember you are supposed to represent cheadle as well as Gatley
Roy
Hi Roy,
The kingsway junction is a tough problem we continue to work on. We’ve never pretended there’s an easy solution as the issue is too much traffic for the road space and no changing light timings is going to fix that. We’ve made improvements and will continue to do so (in the summer the right-turn lines will be moved slightly to help more traffic turn right safely, for example – that should make a significant difference.
As you’ll know, a right filter isn’t possible: it would cause much longer queues in other directions and the Highways Agency won’t allow longer queues onto the motorway for safety reasons.
We’re currently pressing for a proper study on the whole section of the A34 as we need to understand not how to play around with lights and lines but whether there’s a way to really cut the volume of traffic through the junction and that’s a much bigger problem.
The trouble with insoluble problems is that people will never accept they are insoluble. Therefore, more and more of our money will be wasted on them.