Wednesday 21 July 2010

It's time for a link road

There are more vehicles on the road than ever. I'm afraid that I don't have any statistical data to confirm this but my gut feeling is that we own more cars. My family didn't own a vehicle until I was about ten. Since then family members have multiplied and so has vehicle ownership. So this trend makes me think that the amount of traffic on our roads is going to increase.

When I have discussed Lancaster's traffic problems I have generally agreed with protestors to a bypass in the sense that Lancaster's specific congestion problems will soon be back where they were if a link road were built. I should point out that I feel they would more rapidly worsen without the link road.

Yesterday I travelled through Lancaster. I crossed the Skerton bridge which may be a bottleneck for traffic except that traffic is usually not much better on either side of the bridge. Yesterday the lane to the motorway was significantly busier than the lane to the city centre and I have noticed this many times.

So the argument about Lancaster's traffic problems not being resolved by a link road have been holed. There are times when it is obviously the case that bottlenecks are caused by vehicles travelling to the motorway.

There is one further point that I would make. Serious accidents have been caused on this bridge as HGVs move lanes to get into the lane for the motorway. I remember one accident in which a car was pushed off the bridge into the river.

It's time for a link road.

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2 comments:

  1. Have you noticed that the loudest protestors against the link road live on the Lancaster side of the river, within easy reach of the motorway?

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  2. I have noticed addresses close to the proposed route. In all fairness I have met people on this side of the river who don't want the link road, but when asked if they want this route if it is the only one available then the vast majority have said that they do.

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