How to waste Council Tax payers' money
Posted: Sat 09 Jan, 2016 10:40 am
An old hobby horse of mine, which I don't think has its own thread but just mentioned on related ones.
About 2 years ago the timings were altered for the evening rush hour on the traffic signals at the junction of Wood Lane with the A61 Leeds/Wakefield Road at Rothwell, adjacent to the jaw bones. The result is that most weekday evenings the queue of southbound traffic (90+% of the volume at this time) trails back almost to Stourton Gyratory and almost always to the split of the A639 to John O'Gaunts a distance getting on for a mile.
This, combined with a ridiculous setting for the morning rush hour by the Highways Agency contractor Amey of the M621 southbound junction 7 off-slip lights, has led to the ridiculous situation of yellow hatches been painted on what is almost a semi rural roundabout. The roundabout in question being the one to facilitate access/egress to the two phases of Leeds Valley Business Park that straddle the A61 on Bell Hill.
So where is the waste of money? Well the council, presumably prompted by Arriva, have identified this as a hot spot for bus service delays and have decided to install a bus lane. Now as I'm usually on a bus on this section of road at that time I can confirm there is a delay. It takes 6-10 minutes most evenings to get from the freight depot exit to through the Wood Lane lights. The timing varies dependent on how many people abuse the dual carriageway by ignoring the queuing traffic and flying up the outside lane before doing 540 degrees (one and a half times) round the office park roundabout. The fact it is dual carriageway does make it relatively easy to install a bus lane but there is the cost of road markings, signage and cameras to enforce it to consider.
Back to the lights. Prior to the alteration in timings the congestion did occasionally reach current levels, this was usually due to a fault in the lights which I reported and had confirmed was fixed by Leeds UTC and observation. As mentioned, in the evening rush hour 90%+ of the volume of traffic is southbound on the A61. The lights are 4-way if you include the rarely used pedestrian cycle(its even more rural than the roundabout). The 3 cycles are egress from Wood Lane and northbound only on the A61 allowing right turn into Wood Lane which both command about 25% of Green each and both ways on the A61 whci gets the remaining 50%. 90% of the traffic gets 50% of the light, meanwhile by default the continuing northbound A61 gets 75% when you add on the 25% it also gets for the right turn. My observations suggest that when the Wood Lane egress turns red the worst scenario is a vehicle just pulling up to the lights, similarly when the right turn from the A61 goes red a vehicle just pulling up is stopped and of course there is no problem for traffic continuing northbound. So other than southbound traffic all traffic other traffi almost always easily clears these lights in the first green cycle they encounter. What is the risk of altering the timing of the lights such that they MAY have to suffer a 2nd cycle?
Bus Lane Comments page but as this is likely to disappear at the end of the consultation period of only one week(next Friday)
Consultation Letter
Plan 1
Plan 2
About 2 years ago the timings were altered for the evening rush hour on the traffic signals at the junction of Wood Lane with the A61 Leeds/Wakefield Road at Rothwell, adjacent to the jaw bones. The result is that most weekday evenings the queue of southbound traffic (90+% of the volume at this time) trails back almost to Stourton Gyratory and almost always to the split of the A639 to John O'Gaunts a distance getting on for a mile.
This, combined with a ridiculous setting for the morning rush hour by the Highways Agency contractor Amey of the M621 southbound junction 7 off-slip lights, has led to the ridiculous situation of yellow hatches been painted on what is almost a semi rural roundabout. The roundabout in question being the one to facilitate access/egress to the two phases of Leeds Valley Business Park that straddle the A61 on Bell Hill.
So where is the waste of money? Well the council, presumably prompted by Arriva, have identified this as a hot spot for bus service delays and have decided to install a bus lane. Now as I'm usually on a bus on this section of road at that time I can confirm there is a delay. It takes 6-10 minutes most evenings to get from the freight depot exit to through the Wood Lane lights. The timing varies dependent on how many people abuse the dual carriageway by ignoring the queuing traffic and flying up the outside lane before doing 540 degrees (one and a half times) round the office park roundabout. The fact it is dual carriageway does make it relatively easy to install a bus lane but there is the cost of road markings, signage and cameras to enforce it to consider.
Back to the lights. Prior to the alteration in timings the congestion did occasionally reach current levels, this was usually due to a fault in the lights which I reported and had confirmed was fixed by Leeds UTC and observation. As mentioned, in the evening rush hour 90%+ of the volume of traffic is southbound on the A61. The lights are 4-way if you include the rarely used pedestrian cycle(its even more rural than the roundabout). The 3 cycles are egress from Wood Lane and northbound only on the A61 allowing right turn into Wood Lane which both command about 25% of Green each and both ways on the A61 whci gets the remaining 50%. 90% of the traffic gets 50% of the light, meanwhile by default the continuing northbound A61 gets 75% when you add on the 25% it also gets for the right turn. My observations suggest that when the Wood Lane egress turns red the worst scenario is a vehicle just pulling up to the lights, similarly when the right turn from the A61 goes red a vehicle just pulling up is stopped and of course there is no problem for traffic continuing northbound. So other than southbound traffic all traffic other traffi almost always easily clears these lights in the first green cycle they encounter. What is the risk of altering the timing of the lights such that they MAY have to suffer a 2nd cycle?
Bus Lane Comments page but as this is likely to disappear at the end of the consultation period of only one week(next Friday)
Consultation Letter
Plan 1
Plan 2