Did a short trip locally last week, it was dark, pouring down and rush hour.
We came along a road with temp traffic lights....it was, frankly, chaos !
Did the same trip today in the light and got a better idea of the situation.
It's a major road, urban but without any cars parked, etc. The road is single carriageway each direction and each side would easily accomodate two buses, side by side.
The roadworks were a hole, against one kerb, about the size of large car.
You sat there on red wondering why you were stopped when there were the equivalent of three lanes between the hole and the opposite kerb. Of course, they'd managed to block the opposite kerbside lane with the traffic signal and it's attendant signs No sign of any men or machinery...of course.
Just another example of trying to keep the traffic from moving ?....I guess.
Ted
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Come to London ted. Temporary traffic light heaven, with white prefab cages surounding every little hole.
What they do here is severely restrict a main route, then go to work on all the surrounding rat runs at the same time.
Sheer administrative genius.
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Can anyone who digs a hole decide when they want to do it and set up traffic lights if they fancy it?
Or do they have to get permission from somewhere?
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Beyond the observed fact that they give preference to organisations that want to dig holes in stretches of road that have only recently been resurfaced, I think anybody can go and dig a hole.
This was proved years ago in that famous practical joke when some undergraduates (as students used to be called) dug a hole in Oxford Street I think and then left it there for weeks.
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Can anyone who digs a hole decide when they want to do it and set up traffic lights if they fancy it?
In broad terms yes. Ever since Maggie and her mates removed the power of local councils to control or regulate roadworks, any utility can dig up any ordinary road for any length of time and in practical terms not be touched for it. It was part of her free market ethos, aka jam for inefficient private monopolies then, road jams for us ever since ;)
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What they do here is severely restrict a main route then go to work on all the surrounding rat runs at the same time.
I wonder if Northamptonian road work planners (is there such a job, if so they got the wrong person) moved down South in recent years.
Whenever they've dug up the A45 (that keeps changing and moving by the way), without fail they have dug every single viable alternative at exactly the same time.
That hasn't happened quite so badly in the last 5 or so years so maybe Lud's area has the benefit of such expertise...good job too.
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A couple of years ago, our Auckland city council summoned all utilities companies and told then they had 6 months to do any repairs / maintenance along the main street, then there would be a 3-year ban on digging up the road. Ban ends next year, so it will be interesting to see how long the street remains driveable.
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Round our way, the exact opposite seems to be the case. Rather than put temporary traffic lights up for the slightest thing, the utility companies (and their contractors) regularly seem to believe that blocking off over half the road with a ruddy big hole does not justify spending the money on a set of temp. traffic lights.
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Seen in Ireland a few years ago:
Major roadworks on a main road. The entire carriageway in both directions ripped up down to soil level. Traffic drove along half a mile of dirt track.
No traffic lights, but a man with a Stop/Go board at each end.
No communication between the two men. Each just waited until there seemed to be a lull in the traffic and then switched his board to Go.
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Travelling to Kingston on Thames this morning along the boundary of Bushey Park from Teddington, London, I came to a stop behind a line of traffic at a standstill when this road is usually traffic free.
I could see in the distance a set of roadwork temporary lights showing red. Red for a very long time. They had stuck on red. Some numpties wouldn't go through, some did, but as we were not making sufficient progress I detoured through the park.
On the way back I took the roadwork route to see what it was. The temporary lights had been switched off by then. No hold ups in either direction. People giving way and passing during normal gaps in the traffic. The roadworks were unmanned and half across the road. Further along was a similar hole in the road and the signals redundant at the side of the road. And no tailbacks.
Unless the works are at or near a busy junction I cannot see their purpose on a normal single carriageway. Normal etiquette was maintained by all road users and no tailbacks occured. So why do we need to put up with rush hour delays, including public transport, because they feel the need to "manage" the traffic. It's wrong and should be seriously looked at by any organisation that needs to enter the tarmac to conduct operations.
And for those that think they were there to protect any workers, there were none and the whole scene was caged off and bollarded up to the hilt.
....Rant over......
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I feel a song coming on:
You'd think that people would have had enough of silly road works
But I look around me and I see it isn't so.
Some people wanna fill the world with silly road works
And what's wrong with that
I'd like to know
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