Rodbourne's Bridge Not Too Far
Congratulations to Network Rail for completing the work on the Rodbourne Road bridges a whole week ahead of planned, for reopening tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Swindon Borough Council's enlightened plan to open the bus gates on Penzance Drive certainly did a lot for drivers in the evening rush hour.
On several occasions in the past few weeks, Swindon Centric has been stuck on Wootton Bassett Road in the rush hour crawling towards Mannington Roundabout with hundreds of others. The cause of the logjam was the opening up of the Penzance Drive bus gate at the Wootton Bassett Road end, clearly no-one had retimed the lights being triggered by a small number of cars every few minutes, turning from Penzance Drive east towards Kingshill, meaning all vehicles heading east and west on Wootton Bassett Road had to wait for the lights to change every minute or so to accommodate the small number of drivers taking advantage of the opened-up bus gate. Once past this spot, the traffic flowed fine.
Genius.
A bus gate designed (traffic signal-phasing included) for a bus every five minutes will operate very differently (and alter the flow of traffic on nearby roads for the worse) if you throw a constant flow of cars at it instead and don't account for that with altering the phasing software.
As far as Swindon Centric and Swindon's buses are concerned, Network Rail can shut Rodbourne Road again if it wishes, just please let SBC remember that bus gates are designed for buses and not cars. Don't just cover the 'bus only' signs up and hope for the best.
1 comment:
I agree that having the bus gate onto WoottonBassett Road did not work as the timing was not correct but the bus route onto Rodbourne road should remain poem. Time and again we are forced to sit for hours trying to get out of our area onto the great western way as it is the only exit for the outlet village, a huge number of houses and several large stores and small ones. The new McDonalds adding to the pressure. To have one exit is beyond ridiculous.
It would be good if they trialled leaving the Rodbourne bus gate open and seeing how it would effect traffic flow as it could help reduce the snarl up caused by the new roundabout in Rodbourne that does not work coming from town and give us an alternative route to get out if we don't want to go along the great western way.
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