Townsfolk petition against new one-way system (From Northwich Guardian)
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Townsfolk petition against new Northwich town centre one-way system
10:30am Wednesday 8th February 2012 in News
FRUSTRATED motorists have set up a petition against Northwich’s controversial new one-way system.
The gyratory through the town centre started on January 29 for an 18-month trial but residents and businesses are already calling for it to be scrapped.
Northwich man Ian Gibbons, 28, set up the online petition on Saturday.
“This isn’t the sort of thing I would normally involve myself with but there seems to have been no warning about it for anyone and I can’t see any sense in it – it’s causing chaos.”
Northwich Town Council discussed the gyratory at their meeting on Monday after receiving a plea for help from Northwich Fireplace Centre.
Owner Paul Harris said the one-way system was making it almost impossible for potential customers to access the showroom, located in the Bull Ring, and the company had seen a dramatic loss in trade, with sales down 60 per cent on this time last year.
Clr Paul Dolan said: “I’ve been approached over the weekend by a number of residents concerned by the one-way traffic flow.
“There was a minor accident on Thursday night, which may or may not be related, and on Saturday there was what amounted to gridlock in the town centre – I understand the police had to get involved to unblock it.”
He said that Cheshire West and Chester Council’s (CWAC) highways department were having a feedback meeting about the system on February 13 and a two-month review was also in the pipeline.
For more information, ring CWAC’s highways team on 0300 123 7036.
For more information about the petition visit ipetitions.com/petition/scrap-the-new-northwich-one-way-system/signatures.
Comments(46)
sylvia2036
says...
3:12pm Wed 8 Feb 12
AntiNimby
says...
4:16pm Wed 8 Feb 12
if you want to drive around in circles or walk to town there is nothing stopping you.
AntiNimby
says...
4:25pm Wed 8 Feb 12
The town was gridlocked on Saturday and there have been several accidents so far in just one week, that's pretty damning.
widge
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7:22pm Wed 8 Feb 12
I agree that it's probably having a bad effect on the fireplace business for which they have my sympathy.
widge
says...
7:22pm Wed 8 Feb 12
I agree that it's probably having a bad effect on the fireplace business for which they have my sympathy.
widge
says...
7:25pm Wed 8 Feb 12
sylvia2036
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9:06pm Wed 8 Feb 12
100246
says...
10:02pm Wed 8 Feb 12
AntiNimby
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12:03am Thu 9 Feb 12
red1887
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3:06pm Thu 9 Feb 12
medic8
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6:01pm Thu 9 Feb 12
ouoftowner
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9:33pm Thu 9 Feb 12
John St
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9:39pm Thu 9 Feb 12
rubbishusername
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10:14am Fri 10 Feb 12
landy1992
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10:18am Fri 10 Feb 12
The lights at the Seafarer and Possibly Dane Street, Watling Street Junction could be replaced by a filter layout and the other sets of traffic lights rephased and synconised together to allow a more free traffic flow. Simple observation, without going into complicated maths to prove it, will show that if traffic on each ligh sequence is allowed to flow for longer, more traffic passes a particular point in a given time.
Give the system a chance, with some fine tuning it should work.
Many years ago Chester tried a similar idea at the Boughton City Road area, by the time it was starting to work they stopped using it, only to implement it a few years later as part of the overall system they now have.
nicksey
says...
10:38am Fri 10 Feb 12
They have probably scooted round the gyratory once whilst it was quiet and given themselves all pats on the back, whilst the people who actually live and work here have to put up with this diabolical, dangerous and pointless mess.
There are so many reasons why this does not work, they must be visually or mentally impaired if they cannot see this.
At every turn there are cars who whilst they are in the correct lane at that precise moment will have to change lanes moments later otherwise you either get sent around and around in circles or filtered away before you want to. It is a mess, every vehicle has to fight across lanes to get anywhere!
Then there are the side roads that join onto the gyratory. For example Navigation Road, you have to turn left at the bottom, but of course you are going into town (otherwise you would have gone the other way and onto Darwen Street), so you need to get across to the far lane to avoid being sent back up to Castle but the flow of vehicles in the first lane does not allow you to cross. When the light turn red the queue of traffic means that you still cant get out, what ridiculous madness this is.
If you are lucky enough to get out of Navigation Road and across to the correct lane, you then have to force your way out when the lights are green because the cars coming down Castle Street are blocking your path (not their fault, thats what the system forces them to do).
You get to the bottom of the hill after giving way, or not, to those coming down castle street who think it is their right to go as far as they can in the left hand lane and then force their way in at the last minute, because presumably they are more important than those patiently queuing.
You swing right over the bridge and squeeze alongside the traffic that came down Winnington Hill at a fair lick, because their way is straight on without any reason to give way (again not those drivers fault, its just how it has been designed). The bridge as we know is just wide enough for two vehicles but I have seen some close calls on the bridge so far as the ones coming from castle have to swing out to the right to cross the bridge.
Now that you are on the bridge you have to prepare for the bullring traffic lights which will probably be on red. You need to move to the left soon, but of course the traffic lights have created a queue of traffic to your left so it is now your turn to push across to the left at some point here or outside the bus stops to get over to the left to head for the town centre car parks.
Castle itself is now gridlocked as drivers try to cut the corner by going up Navigation road and then Darwen Street, only to find that they are queing up at the top of Darwen Street to join Chester Road at the Blue Barrel, those wanting to turn off Chester Road onto Darwen street are now struggling because they cant get past the parked cars and this queue of waiting vehicles.
Chester Road itself is gridlocked because it now has to carry a greater volume of vehicles than before, this is because some of these vehicles used to travel from the Bullring, over the bridge and up Winnington Hill, now they can't do that so end up part way up Castle Street and rather than coming back down Castle Street and then up Winnington Hill, they continue up Chester Road and turn right at Moss Road to get to their destination. More cars on Chester Road and more of them turning right onto Moss Road equals Castle gridlock.
What an unbelievable mess, so come on those who are responsible, stand up and tell us why this is so much better than how it was before.
What does Northwich Town Council have to say about it now, they seem to have gone very quiet about it.
nicksey
says...
10:39am Fri 10 Feb 12
rubbishusername
says...
12:13pm Fri 10 Feb 12
fishsta
says...
12:25pm Fri 10 Feb 12
widge
says...
1:27pm Fri 10 Feb 12
The traffic flow (or otherwise) doesn't seem to have changed very much at all really.
Regg
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2:56pm Fri 10 Feb 12
WHS
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6:34pm Fri 10 Feb 12
WHS.
WHS
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6:36pm Fri 10 Feb 12
WHS.
WHS
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6:36pm Fri 10 Feb 12
WHS.
WHS
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6:36pm Fri 10 Feb 12
WHS.
widge
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7:48pm Fri 10 Feb 12
INEEDTOSAYTHIS
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2:00pm Sat 11 Feb 12
INEEDTOSAYTHIS
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2:00pm Sat 11 Feb 12
lornabritland@hotmail.co.uk
says...
4:46pm Sat 11 Feb 12
I think its time the council woke up and smelt the coffee, I would be more concerned about how the traffic is going to get over the single lane bridge that links winnington to barnton!!!!!! Maybe use the the old I.C.I. site at Winnington as a Park and Ride!
Daniel18
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5:33pm Sat 11 Feb 12
nicksey
says...
6:06pm Sat 11 Feb 12
As for me it is a complete nightmare that was not needed. I used sat nav today to travel to a particular address that involved passing through the town centre ( I did already know how to get there but was interested to see what would happen). Of course my sat nav does not know that there is a new system in town, so it calculated the most direct route which came out at 1.3 miles. I was then of course forced into 'the mess', my sat nav recalculated the route at 1.9 miles. So adding another 0.6 miles to my journey. 0.6 miles of my time, my fuel. my money. Multiply this over my journeys through the town over just the next year or so, then multiply this by all the other road users and you will start to understand the scope of the wasted time and more importantly wasted fuel, wasted money and increased polution that 'the mess' has created.
Not exactly environmentally friendly, not exactly financially friendy, not exactly time friendy. A complete waste of time, resources, money and costly to our environment. The council should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves, and thats before youn even cost in the amount they have spent to create 'the mess' in the first place.
Unfortunately it is the amount they have spent already creating 'the mess' that means that they will be reluctant to admit that it is wrong and fatally flawed and will do anything to pretend that it is good for Northwich and to retain it now it is here by using the excuse that it is needed for the future development of Northwich, complete and utter nonsense!
Vicsfan
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6:28pm Sat 11 Feb 12
Vicsfan
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6:28pm Sat 11 Feb 12
100246
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4:41am Sun 12 Feb 12
Please reconsider the possibility of opening the road for a long term solution. This would vastly reduce the traffic over the bridges in the town
Daniel18
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2:38pm Sun 12 Feb 12
Just give the system a chance its only been in place a few weeks!
INEEDTOSAYTHIS
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4:20pm Tue 14 Feb 12
INEEDTOSAYTHIS
says...
4:20pm Tue 14 Feb 12
nicksey
says...
3:26pm Mon 20 Feb 12
There are at least 3 stories/pages/thread
s (whatever you want to call them) on the Guardian website with comments discussing this one way system.
34 people have commented across the 3 most commented on pages. out of these 12 are in favour of the system and 22 are against it. I have not taken into account letters to the editor against the system in these figures.
I make that about 35% in favour and 65% against. I would call that a majority against, wouldn't you?
You can not get away from the facts, this system does not work, it certainly has no advantages over the old system and it is going to cost all of us time and money, it will be unfriendy to the environment, potentially dangerous and we were not given any choice in the matter.
I cannot see any benefits to it only problems and the majority tend to agree. It needs to go, and soon.
INEEDTOSAYTHIS
says...
2:07pm Fri 24 Feb 12
INEEDTOSAYTHIS
says...
5:18pm Fri 24 Feb 12
Ianard
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9:24am Sun 26 Feb 12
Ianard
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9:25am Sun 26 Feb 12
AntiNimby
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8:03pm Mon 27 Feb 12
nicksey
says...
8:38pm Mon 27 Feb 12
Venables Rd was solid all the way back past Sainsbury's up to the roundabout.
Chesterway was solid back to the roundabout, which meant that traffic along Leicester St was at a stanstill. A complete nightmare, the whole one way system was gridlocked. What a mess!
centreoftowndweller
says...
12:15pm Tue 28 Feb 12
John St wrote:I agree with a very sensible comment above by John St. There is no point in having a one way system with so many traffic lights in operation which cause the congestion. Brilliant idea of reversing the one way past the cinema and installing a mini roundabout at the seafarer junction or some other system where lights are not required. The lights at London Road junction should be on constant filter to the left unless they are stopped by pedestrians crossing. Also the junction at Chester way where it constantly flows left up to castle and then lights hold up the traffic to turn right onto Castle St. The road that is blocked by red and white plastic edging can be used to create a constant flow from the left onto the right hand side of the road and keep the traffic flowing constantly down castle hill onto the left hand side of the road. If the traffic is kept constantly moving all the way round then it won't be congested when trying to get into the correct lane and the horn blowing may be reduced. Overall the road layouts are not being used to their full capacity as some roads are blocked by red and white plastic edging. It would be a good idea if the council paid for a good specialist designer for traffic flow and pay the extra cash to get this sorted properly and efficiently instead of relying on the general public to complain a thousand times before you put something right. It would be more cost effective in the long run and stop complaints flooding into the highways department. There is no point in trying to scrap the system, the council will dig their heels in. The only way is to provide positive feed back to change it for the better. There are a lot of frustrated comments above and I agree that the system is shambolic as it stands but with some intelligent fundamental changes it could turn out to be a better system. I am sorry for Paul at the fireplace company, I have bought a fireplace from there in the past and was given good quality and service. It would be a shame if he were put out of business. The only positive thing out of all this is if he can hang in there, the new marina development with car parking at the old floatel will provide ample parking and foot fall for his business. There are going to be massive changes in Northwich whether people like it or not so the only thing we can do is to adapt and try to suggest postive changes rather than going against the grain. One last comment is would someone at the council, please put in a give way grid at the junction of Navigation Road so that it is possible to get into the right hand lane without being given the finger!!
The whole purpose of the one way system - as I understand it is to improve traffic flow. Why then do we still have to have FOUR sets of traffic lights around the gyratory to stop the traffic at regular intervals. No wonder its not working. What are the traffic engineers thinking of? The London Road Junction lights are necessary but the other are not! Reversing the one way past the cinema would remove the need for lights at the Bull Ring and a mini roundabout could replace the lights on the Seafarer junction. Come on - get a grip and sort it out!
I Gibbons says...
11:03am Wed 8 Feb 12
http://www.facebook.
com/groups/200676833
364432/
I understand a written petition is also in the works by members of the group, Facebook group so please join the discussion with them too!
http://www.ipetition
s.com/petition/scrap
-the-new-northwich-o
ne-way-system/