M74 Extension goes ahead

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Postby Apollo » Mon Mar 28, 2005 6:03 pm

Strike Team's probably summarised the view from a refreshing point without pro or anti bias, both of which I've got bored listening to in news-bites since last week. Both the Greens (by whatever name) and the government/council have probably exceeded their annual drivel quotas for the year over the past few days.

Add to that view the cause of so-called rush hour congestion rooted in employers lack of flexibility in working hours (real or otherwise), and the planners deliberate acts to impede the flow of traffic (to cause positive discrimination towards public transport no doubt), and it becomes clear that congestion is already purposely designed into the system.

Road narrowing pinch-points, speed bumps, bus lanes, parking restriction, street closures etc. If you're out of your car, taxi or bus, look at how many 2 lane roads, and more, have grown restrictions that mean the whole road comes to a halt when one vehicle stops, as there is not even the option of it pulling in to the kerb, allowing the remainder of the traffic to pass.

This weekend, a local holiday resort was in danger of grinding to halt as its tourist season opened for Easter. In its infinite wisdom, the council chose this weekend to scrape and resurface the single road that leads in to and out of one end of the town. There is no alternate road, and the residents have all had to park their cars on the footpath, as they have no off road option.
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Postby Captain Brittles » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:10 pm

I agree with Apollo when he points out the deliberate choking of traffic by the road planners. There are many cases in point where junctions are re-designed and re-laid out in a traffic impeding manner. Right hand turns are a case in point - where one lane is decreed to be used only for a r/h turn - thereby impeding and slowing up forward moving traffic - which usually is of a far greater volume. This has the effect of reducing a two lane road to one. Whats the point ? What was wrong with one lane being used up only if someone was turning right ?
Another deliberate example of officials slowing up traffic movement is the so called 'quality bus corridors' and the No.62 Faifley to Baillieston through the east end being the part I'm most familiar with. Here in the name of 'improving' the bus service travelling times, officialdom in its whacky wisdom decided that the bus drivers need not attempt to pull over to uplift and allow passengers to alight, they need now only stop at the new custom built stops which protrude out into the carriageway - in front of all following traffic thereby by (as Apollo says) stop everybody. Before these 'improvements' of course they rarely pulled into a bus bay - prefering to leave the back end sticking out and causing traffic stoppage and creating a road safety hazard. Obviuosly when the whackos dolled out tens of thousands of our hard earned dosh to fund these new bus stops it was because they listened to the drivers and nobody else.
Who benefitted from this madness ?
In fairness the passengers have had a few minutes shaved off their journey time but the biggest winner has been a private company who will be increasing their profits at the ordinary motorists's expense.
If there is an alternative reason I'd like to hear it.
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Postby escotregen » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:27 pm

Appollo I don't see how Strike Team's is a 'refreshing point' or without pro or anti bias. His piece was strongly (and self-justifying) pro-car, with a bit of a qualifying caveat at the end. He presumably lumps people like me in as "anti-car extremists" because I use a "simplistic argument" that more roads cause more traffic (although actually I said more motorways)... the language you use often says much about your argument.
To point out that it is people and not roads that cause more traffic is just semantics, if we want to play that game we could continue with "well it's people that cause more roads." I don't want to go down that road :) cause it's pointless.
As I said earlier in this thread, our entire system is unsustainable. The cosy convenient, but costly, car-travel to work, school and leisure system that Strike Team describes, is the one that is increasingly taking us into an unsustainable and eventually unstable system. The only even likely scenario that could alleviate (not cure) this path to crisis is a significant, sustained and comprehensive shift in public investment and public policy away from private car facilities and onto public transport. By significant, I mean providing a public transport system that is so dependable, safe, clean and affordable that middle class (car-owning) people will actually be willing to use it in preference to their cars for at least most of their routine commuting journeys. What a long way we are from that.
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Postby lordsleek » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:39 pm

The big problem is that it is a viscious circle. In some areas public transport is inconvenient or non existent. If we had an efficient system preferably on the rails, freight might start to move back to the railways. Once that happens we will have fewer HGVs on the roads improving travel times for all including buses which should then be able to attract more passengers. Both systems removing cars from the roadways so that on the occasions you do need to use your car it is not a chore. The argument that more motorways create more traffic is probably true but not necessarily perpetual. Its been 20 or more years since I had a job I could get public transport to and don't think I don't miss it. :?
eeeeeewwwww whats that!
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Postby Apollo » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:42 pm

The problem is there is no real transport policy anywhere in this country. You might find one or two little islands of sanity somewhere on this island, but as long as the government sees cars and lorries as a cash cow to be milked dry, all the well-meaning discussions in here are only so much air re-arrangement.

They can't even provide enough legislation to get a train timetable to integrate with a ferry timetable so that islanders can depend on them for their day-to-day livelihood, so what chance does does the rest of the country have?

Strike Team's point is only refreshing if not read as pro-car simply because it is not anti-car IMHO (one of the government's little sleepwalking spin successes: 'If you're not for us, you're against us').
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Postby martin » Tue Mar 29, 2005 9:21 am

Captain Brittles wrote:Here in the name of 'improving' the bus service travelling times, officialdom in its whacky wisdom decided that the bus drivers need not attempt to pull over to uplift and allow passengers to alight, they need now only stop at the new custom built stops which protrude out into the carriageway - in front of all following traffic thereby by (as Apollo says) stop everybody.

I've found a bit of research into this (at http://www.buspriority.org/bus_stop.htm ) - but it says that Bus Boarders (as they're called) are something of a waste of time on busy roads, because while they're good for passengers, the inconvenience to other drivers outweigh the advantages.
So what have GCC done? Put them on 'Quality Bus Corridors', which are all busy roads.
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Postby Apollo » Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:29 am

Maybe time to start a looney road mod thread.

The Captain will know these two: the wide road along Bannerman school, had 2 large islands installed years ago. I don't know the effect (on accident rates), but watching it at busy times, they appear to either cause all traffic to come to a halt when buses stop, or entice impatient drivers to nip ahead of buses just before they reach the island and block the road. It certainly doesn't look any safer (for the pupils) than when the traffic could flow freely.

Second, the island added at the Sherwood Garage, narrowing the road to less than 2 lanes, again bringing a main road to a halt when traffic wishes to turn right at either of the sides roads immediately adjacent to it. When traffic build up on one lane, it blocks traffic trying to turn right from the other lane too. As this only takes 2 cars, it's unfair, although valid, to criticise the following driver who has caused the blocking.

The only good thing about that one is the fuming bus drivers you see here, as they get a dose of the treatment they dole out further along the road, once they are in the 'Quality Bus Corridor'.
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Postby Fat Cat » Tue Mar 29, 2005 1:58 pm

I lived in Ruchazie when they started the M8. It didn't benefit the East End at all. The Cumbernauld Road is still a slow moving car park in the morning, more often than not. Cars and Nat Exp. Buses use the roads around Carntyne as a rat run. It hasn't benfited the local areas at all economically and it ruined Townhead. Also, the M80 isn't used at all by locals in Stepps (ask the haulage firm up there which road they use, the drivers all use the Cumbernauld Road). More roads = more traffic - everywhere.

And who exactly will get these 20,000 jobs Mr Gordon of GCC boasts? No construction workers, that's for sure (unless Albania is local!).
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Postby Captain Brittles » Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:18 pm

Apollo wrote:The Captain will know these two: the wide road along Bannerman school, had 2 large islands installed years ago. I don't know the effect (on accident rates), but watching it at busy times, they appear to either cause all traffic to come to a halt when buses stop, or entice impatient drivers to nip ahead of buses.
Second, the island added at the Sherwood Garage, narrowing the road to less than 2 lanes, again bringing a main road to a halt when traffic wishes to turn right


Yes I'm familiar with this stretch of road (remember the tram changeover just there where the school is now ......)
In all instances Apollo has described the designed restriction of free flowing traffic perfectly. The islands were deliberately laid down in the 90's right at the points where the bus stops were (I should mention that the positions of the bus stops have remained constant for almost 100 years as they were the original tram stops from 1906 ..... I know I'm a bore :wink:) and halt any reasonably minded driver from over-taking a stopped bus. Its a good wide road and this madness is a joke.
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Postby Strike Team » Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:32 pm

As I said earlier in this thread, our entire system is unsustainable. The cosy convenient, but costly, car-travel to work, school and leisure system that Strike Team describes, is the one that is increasingly taking us into an unsustainable and eventually unstable system. The only even likely scenario that could alleviate (not cure) this path to crisis is a significant, sustained and comprehensive shift in public investment and public policy away from private car facilities and onto public transport. By significant, I mean providing a public transport system that is so dependable, safe, clean and affordable that middle class (car-owning) people will actually be willing to use it in preference to their cars for at least most of their routine commuting journeys. What a long way we are from that.


Unfortunately public transport isn't an option for me. I have ME, and my walking distance is very restricted, physically overdoing it can leave me flattened foir days. My only travel option is my car, as long as I can park in close to where I'm going. I've tried to get a disabled badge before and been turned down, I'm currently jumping through the hoops to try and get one again. There are no shortage of others for whom the car is the only option, from arthritic old people to my neighbour who uses his Volvo estate to pick up newspapers each moring to sell in his shop. As has already been said, much of the congestion on main roads is due to deliberate traffic strangulation policies forced on us by Labour/LibDem politicians with a simplistic belief in "reducing car use" (but funnily enough they don't seem to be reducing their own car use).

One of the main proponents of anti-car policies is Transport 2000, an "environmental pressure group" that gets a large slice of it funding from the bus and train industry. Not content with getting huge subsidies from taxpaying citizens they are working to make life harder for the motorist and force us to use their hugely subsidised, privately-owned semi-monoply transport services. Most of Glasgow's trains and buses are now run by First Group.

What we need is freedom of choice, (and yes Escotrogen you are quite correct in saying that public transport services need to be attactive to potential customers), in place of the present state bullying of motorists and vast subsidies to big business.
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Postby Apollo » Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:14 pm

Those in control esp, of roads, have lost the ability to make a decision unless it is concerned with some rule ot policy that generates revenue.

We've just had 3 councillors and the Head of Roads for Argyle and Bute visit Rothesay to look at a temporary roundabout installed there while works were in place on the sea front last year. The paint has now worn away, and while locals know the former 3-way road junction is officially a roundabout, visitors don't, and if not alert, don't give way approriately. They also screwed up the zebra crossings at the pier and ferry exit, to the extent that the main road and ferry slip are jammed every time a ferry arrives as vehicles cannot leave easily. Regulars pray for someone to use one of the zebras to stop the traffic so they can get out. Of course, if they do, the stopped traffic quickly blocks the exit. Now that's planning.

Please forgive me if I laugh whenever I hear a politician use the words "Transport Policy".

Maybe they should all be sent to Milton Keynes.
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Postby Joan Burnie » Sun Apr 03, 2005 6:28 pm

I’ve been reading this thread and have come to the conclusion that most of the posters, bar a few don’t even live in Glasgow or the area mentioned. Just the usual mindless tat I hear at meeting's all the time.

On a further note I think some also like the sound of their own voices \ postings as experts on the authority of nothing.

How many of you live or work [don’t work] in the area? Mostly none I assume you all live Southside or Westend in comfort.

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Postby paladin » Sun Apr 03, 2005 6:46 pm

Joan Burnie wrote:How many of you live or work [don’t work] in the area? Mostly none I assume you all live Southside or Westend in comfort.

Joan B


I'll assume that I have a residence in the only Royal Burgh in South Lanarkshire (used to be in Glasgow) and it remains to be seen wether such a road will benefit the residents. If it puts £30K + on the value of my property then it is a good thing.
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Postby DasGutHerrDoktor » Sun Apr 03, 2005 10:01 pm

I too live in R-glen, approx 300yds from the station (which will be under the M74), so will be able to hear it as clearly as I can currently hear the trains, and am completely in favour of finally completing the link.

Its a shame they can't tunnel it under eglinton toll though, but I believe the railway got there first
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Postby escotregen » Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:16 am

See letter in todays Herald from an affected local resident. I couldn't have put in better myself i.e. 'More Motorways=More Car Journeys=Worse and Even More Unsustainable Future=Short-sighted Demand for Even More Motorways'
... and of course if a Scottish Executive commissioned report says the opposite to what they want to hear - the Executive just ignores it!
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/36556.html
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