25-02-2013, 12:50 PM
When I used to live in Farnborough I used to travel to London quite often at weekends. This used to take me along the A316.
The A316 used to be a reasonable road.
Once they put traffic lights on the roundabouts it used to add half an hour to my journey. The traffic used to flow freely on the ordinary roundabouts but not on the ones with traffic lights. It was bad even at weekends.
I took to going out on the M40 and round the M25 in order to miss it.
Close to where I used to live there was a cross roads that locally got a bad reputation for long waiting times.
One day someone jumped the traffic lights and swerved into a metal box that contained the controls.
They installed builders traffic lights and it was a whole lot better.
A few months later new ones were installed and it was bad again.
Eventually they got the phasing done correctly.
The only good traffic lights I have seen on a roundabout were part time so that they were only on when there was a lot of traffic from one direction.
The reason I used to leave on the A40 was that you could get out on to the motorway more quickly.
They used to have CCTV on the roads and manual control of the phasing form the monitoring room.
There are just too many councils that will not pay the extra for the automatic phasing that usually goes unnoticed by drivers that can be seen if you get out and walk. It looks like a slug trail running across the traffic lanes often with a small bit of street furniture by it.
The A316 used to be a reasonable road.
Once they put traffic lights on the roundabouts it used to add half an hour to my journey. The traffic used to flow freely on the ordinary roundabouts but not on the ones with traffic lights. It was bad even at weekends.
I took to going out on the M40 and round the M25 in order to miss it.
Close to where I used to live there was a cross roads that locally got a bad reputation for long waiting times.
One day someone jumped the traffic lights and swerved into a metal box that contained the controls.
They installed builders traffic lights and it was a whole lot better.
A few months later new ones were installed and it was bad again.
Eventually they got the phasing done correctly.
The only good traffic lights I have seen on a roundabout were part time so that they were only on when there was a lot of traffic from one direction.
The reason I used to leave on the A40 was that you could get out on to the motorway more quickly.
They used to have CCTV on the roads and manual control of the phasing form the monitoring room.
There are just too many councils that will not pay the extra for the automatic phasing that usually goes unnoticed by drivers that can be seen if you get out and walk. It looks like a slug trail running across the traffic lanes often with a small bit of street furniture by it.
