PROOF that Hereford is stuck in the 1600's

[Biomech]

I was going to post this yesterday but ran out of time;

 

Yesterday, I took a drive to B&Q and back. The Heart of Oak roundabout was gridlocked because of the traffic backed up from the top/tesco end of Edgar street.

 

It took 14 minutes to travel (S) on Edgar Street. - 0.4 miles that is, which, at the speed limit of 30mph, should take 48 seconds.

It then took 60 seconds to get from the Tesco roundabout to the middle of the new bridge - an equal 0.4 miles.

 

Now you might think 14 minutes isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things. But that's 17.5x longer than it should take.

 

 

To put that into perspective, that is the same as driving to London NON STOP and it taking 2 days 2 hours and 10 minutes instead of the 2 hours 52 minutes calculated by Google

 

Horse drawn carriages of the 1800's travelled at an average speed of 4mph. That would put a journey in from Hereford to London at 1 day 11 hours 15 minutes.

 

At these various "pinch points" around Hereford, they have created traffic delays so sever that;

 

AT HEREFORD TRAFFIC SPEEDS AN 1847 HORSE AND CART WOULD BE 25% FASTER

[Biomech]

Oh the other thing I noticed was that the new third lane is nearly always mostly empty. The amount of traffic heading on the A49 greatly outnumbers that going towards Whitecross Road.

I noticed that the 2 left lanes (A49) were so chocka-block that they effectively block access to the new third lane because everyone in front is going down the A49 so those wanting to go to Whitecross have to sit behind the normal A49 traffic anyway until they can get into the new lane right at the end.

 

The car behind me at Pizza Hut was next to me at the Tesco roundabout, proof, again, that the traffic has not been improved.

[dippyhippy]

And you argument against using a horse and cart is.....??

Seriously though, you are correct. It's ridiculous that day to day journeys take this long.

And you are also correct about the way traffic bunches up, which may be another reason why people keep hap-hazardly swapping lanes.

[silent bull]

You think it's bad now,

wait till the 'link' road is built

I really do wonder about the sanity of our councillor's.

I'm still trying to work out what the 'relief' road on the Ross road is relieving? ?

[ragwert]

Oh the other thing I noticed was that the new third lane is nearly always mostly empty. The amount of traffic heading on the A49 greatly outnumbers that going towards Whitecross Road.

I noticed that the 2 left lanes (A49) were so chocka-block that they effectively block access to the new third lane because everyone in front is going down the A49 so those wanting to go to Whitecross have to sit behind the normal A49 traffic anyway until they can get into the new lane right at the end.

 

The car behind me at Pizza Hut was next to me at the Tesco roundabout, proof, again, that the traffic has not been improved.

 

They should of done a traffic study to see exactly how many vehicle actually go down Whitcross Road from Edgar St or better still ask me,someone who uses roads around Hereford every day as the answer is hardly any.

People who want to go Whitecross area from Holmer Rd use Grandstand Rd.Why the hell would they want to go all the way down Edgar Street to do so.

[dippyhippy]

Excellent point Will!

If you know Hereford at all, you'll know to avoid this at all costs!

I regularly travel from the Aylestone Hill area back to Whitecross, and avoid Steels roundabout like the plague!

[JudSawyer]

People who want to go Whitecross area from Holmer Rd use Grandstand Rd.Why the hell would they want to go all the way down Edgar Street to do so.

Depends where you live, obvs, but I live near the blind college so when I go to Sainsbury's I go down College Rd, down the railway bridge and right past Tudor's, past Pizza Hut, on down Edgar St and then into the new 3rd lane, no problems for me. Before the new third lane opened and the lights were out and it was gridlocked, I did try going down Grandstand Rd etc to Sainsbury's but incredibly, the traffic was even slower that way.

[Steve Major]

Depends where you live, obvs, but I live near the blind college so when I go to Sainsbury's I go down College Rd, down the railway bridge and right past Tudor's, past Pizza Hut, on down Edgar St and then into the new 3rd lane, no problems for me. Before the new third lane opened and the lights were out and it was gridlocked, I did try going down Grandstand Rd etc to Sainsbury's but incredibly, the traffic was even slower that way.

The reason the 3rd lane was gridlocked when they first opened the new lane was because they had temp traffic lights in place and on top of this they were totally out of sequence, hence the gridlock, northbound traffic flowed ok because at that time there were no lights in that direction, there is a real simple solution to this lot and hopefully the new lights out group may get a trial traffic lights out because I think it has been proved over and over again that its much better with no lights, this is the case in several cities and other studies. 

[Biomech]

Now Jud, you get to sit in the A49 queue until you get to the end of Edgar street where you might be able to move over into the empty new lane :D