tenthofjune

I’m curious…

How many pieces of silver did it take for Bolton Council to betray the people of Bolton to the Manchester Congestion Tax?

No doubt, they are labouring under the delusion that “we’ll get a share of the money, but it won’t affect Bolton�. Well, it might not affect the councillors who work in Bolton, but it certainly will affect thousands of council tax paying, (and don’t forget voting) residents of Bolton who do work inside the M60. A clear case of “I’m alright Jack�.

Flawed

The congestion charge scheme is flawed for one very important reason: it wrongly assumes that motorists have a choice. We don’t. We still have to get to work, but the public transport alternatives simply do not exist. This is not London who enjoy a co-ordinated transport system, we instead have the GMPTA. It is therefore nothing more than an additional tax on the motorist. The motorist has already paid several times over in the form of road tax and one of the highest fuel duties in Europe. It is not our fault that successive governments have squandered this money rather than using it to provide a decent public transport system.

Since I work flexitime, it would seem sensible to alter my hours from 8am-4pm to 10am-6pm to try to avoid the charge and ease congestion, but since the evening charging period lasts until 6:30pm, it is clear that the GMPTA’s aim is to maximise income rather than ease congestion.

Expect queues of parked cars just before 9:30am around Manchester, as people hang back before crossing the M60, then an increase in speeding and road rage just before 4pm as drivers race to get out before the charging period starts. This along with several other issues were put to the representatives of the GMPTA at a Salford Chamber of Commerce meeting – not a single question could be answered.

Before anyone compares me to Jeremy Clarkson, I would point out that I would love to use public transport to get to work. I live around the corner from Blackrod station, and work right next door to Clifton Station. The journey time should be around 25 minutes, except for the fact that only one train stops at Clifton each morning. In order to connect with this train, I would have to leave Blackrod the night before. I have contacted GMPTA regarding this lack of service, but it is clear from the excuses in their replies that they have no intention of rectifying the situation.

Metrolink? What Metrolink?

Finally, much hype is being made of money being used to extend Metrolink. Since Bolton is one of the few areas that will never benefit from this, why should we be forced to pay the same as other areas who have the option of using it?

An edited version of this post has been published as a letter in the Bolton News.

I was relieved to read in the Bolton News that the ridiculous chicanes installed on Crown Lane in Horwich, are to be removed.

The full details of the decision can be read here, but the summary reads:

Residents of Crown Lane/Station Road have had a longstanding concern about the speed of all traffic and volume of heavy goods vehicles, using this route. In August 2006, following a consultation and public meeting to discuss the options, an experimental scheme was introduced in the form of two chicanes and a 7.5 tonne weight limit. At the end of the first six months of operation, local residents were consulted to determine their views on the operation of the scheme. This report summarises and comments on the concerns expressed, both in response to the introduction of the scheme, and in response to the consultation. Having considered the comments made in response to the latest consultation and by those who have submitted formal objections in writing, the Director of Environmental Services recommends the Executive Member to agree to the removal of the chicanes on Crown Lane, Horwich, to the north of Vale Avenue and on Station Road, Blackrod, at the M61 motorway bridge. The Director further recommends that the Planning and Highways Committee be requested to confirm the Experimental 7.5 tonne Weight Limit as a permanent Order.

Not before time! This is not some back road being used as a rat-run, it is a classified road (the B5238) and forms a vital link between Horwich and Blackrod (and the A6). You only have to look at the chaos caused when the A6 was closed by roadworks, the alternate route via Chorley New Road and De Havilland Way ground to a halt.

If traffic calming is required, then two mini roundabouts at Vale Avenue and Moss Lane would achieve this, (Moss Lane is going to be getting a lot busier, since the Council approved the building of a large number of apartments there), but that would of course cost a lot more money.

We all know that fuel is that bit more expensive at motorway services, usually a few pence more per litre, and the prices in the Burger bar are higher than on the high street, basically because they have a monopoly as there is no local competition, but this weekend I saw one example which can only be described as taking the piss:

A pasty will cost you about 75p at your local bakers, a sausage roll about 40p, but Tebay services were charging £2.25 for each of these. That represents 3-5 times the price.

I’d always regarded Tebay as different to the large chain services, but they have gone down in my estimation.

Well surprise, surprise, Sat Nav is once more being blamed for the idiocy of a driver who blindly follows it into a dangerous situation. This 20 year old student narrowly avoided being nominated for the Darwin Awards.

Sat Nav is no different to a road atlas, both have map errors, but no-one hears of them being blamed for the driver deciding to follow a back lane across a railway level crossing, so why do people follow Sat Nav instructions without question? If the Sat Nav told you to turn left, half way across a bridge, would you comply?

It’s just another example of ‘not my fault’ attitude.

When I first got my TomTom Go 500, I tried the 1 month free traffic trial and found it to be next to useless, failing to warn of two major traffic jams. I later changed phone to a Sony Ericsson k750i which fails to provide wireless data for the TomTom (it worked OK with my Powerbook and Palm T|X).

Now that I’ve got a new phone which provides wireless data again, I decided to try the traffic function again. Unfortunately, the system remembers that I’d used my free trial, so I had to pay €39.

1st May

The first thing that showed up was ‘lane closed at Blackrod – delay 0 min’. Now there have been roadworks on the A6 at Blackrod since mid-March, but they finished last week. I presume this is still showing because they’ve got some roadworks data which is out of date.
Read more…

This morning I sat in crawling traffic on the M61 between Junctions 5 and 3 (roughly four miles). Just as I got to junction 3, there are two Variable Message Signs (VMS), proudly stating

“QUEUE CAUTION”

You don’t say!! I wondered what I had been doing for the past four miles. Talk about stating the bleeding obvious.

Far more useful would be to give some real information about WHY we are stuck in a queue, and maybe we could make a decision about which route to take, and maybe the cost of these signs could be justified.

The people who brought you Metcheck have come up with a traffic website: keepmoving.co.uk.

It looks a very exciting venture, but I think they need to iron out a few bugs:

Today there is a major incident on the M6 Southbound with the motorway closed. Now while keepmoving have a column on the left of their page showing this, and the graph on the right shows that the M6 is far and away the most requested information on their phone line, the motorway specific data in the centre shows no problems. Click here for a larger screenshot.

This morning on a 30 mile motorway journey, there were three separate occasions where unnecessary congestion was caused when traffic was forced over into the third lane due to HGVs overtaking other HGVs.

Now I appreciate that HGVs have just as much right to overtake as other vehicles but on each of these three occasions, the overtaking HGV was not making any progress past the other vehicle, meaning that it was needlessly blocking the second lane and should have moved back over into the first lane. In each case, the road was clear after passing this blockage; none of these instances was on a hill either.

In this country we seem to accept this ridiculous situation, but the Germans have a much better idea on their Autobahns: On certain places such as steep inclines and during peak times, vehicles over 3.5 Tonnes are prohibited from overtaking. It works well and keeps the traffic flowing.

There was a multiple pile up this morning on the M62 between Junctions 6 and 4. Unfortunately, according to the map on the Highways Agency “Traffic England” website, this section of motorway does not seem to exist. As you can see from this screenshot, they’ve even had to put the warning triangle hovering over an apparently non-existent motorway:

It also shows the M57 between junctions 1 and 2 as an A road (makes it look like part of the A5300) and the A5300 is shown as a stub. The correct map should look like this:

I have also taken a look around and according to this map the M65 only goes as far as junction 8. Junctions 9 through to 14 are missing. I’m sure the residents of Burnley, Nelson and Colne would disagree.

UPDATE: 26 Sept 2006

Noticed today that the M57 between junctions 1 and 2 is now correctly coloured blue. The M62 is still missing between 6 and 4 but it’s a start.

UPDATE: 15 Nov 2006

According to David Butler of the Highways Agency:

The reason these junctions do not appear is that they are maintained and repaired by the Local Authority – Liverpool City Council.

This means that the Highways Agency are unable to collect data for that section of Motorway , which in turn would provide the real time information for the Traffic England website.

But that doesn’t explain why the M62 between J4 and J6 is completely missing. Fair enough if they don’t have information to display, but they should at least show a greyed out road.

Yesterday, an accident caused the M61 to be closed northbound between junction 6 and 8 (there is no junction 7). Not surprisingly, chaos ensued on the surrounding roads, including the A6 and A6027 and while that is to be expected, this was further compounded by the total lack of any police presence to direct traffic.
When was the last time you saw a police officer directing traffic? Do they still do this? Are they still trained to do this?