Sheffield Council - Do they take fixing pot holes seriously?

[frededwards 10]

"Many people did not like or understand the bus pre-signals and queue management strategies employed. That does not mean that they failed to do what they were expected to, only that people did not understand their purpose."

 

Signals whole raison etre is to inform, instruct and direct. If they lacked sufficient clarity so to do, the signals were not fit for purpose.

 

Therefore the signals have failed to meet at least three key objectives.

Edited December 17, 2012 by frededwards

[Planner1 428]

"Many people did not like or understand the bus pre-signals and queue management strategies employed. That does not mean that they failed to do what they were expected to, only that people did not understand their purpose."

 

Signals whole raison etre is to inform, instruct and direct. If they lacked sufficient clarity so to do, the signals were not fit for purpose.

 

Therefore the signals have failed to meet at least three key objectives.

The purpose of signals is to tell road users when to stop and when to go. They did that perfectly well.

[WallBuilder 10]

The signals in question worked in instructing and directing but weren't good at informing I suppose. Car drivers merely saw them as a hindrance but then car drivers tend not to like anything that gives greater access to public transport and the idea to hold ttraffic back so it wasn't stationary through the shopping area was never going to be brilliant as the roads are just so busy all day every day now.

[sedith 19]

The worst one i know of is Loxley Road, it's nothing more than a cart track and final stretch going up to High Bradfield is downright dangerous!

[Trekker 10]

today,s `all about cash... not to spend more about... serving.

[frededwards 10]

""Many people did not like or understand the bus pre-signals and queue management strategies employed"

 

"The purpose of signals is to tell road users when to stop and when to go. They did that perfectly well. "

 

Make your mind up!

[Planner1 428]

""Many people did not like or understand the bus pre-signals and queue management strategies employed"

 

"The purpose of signals is to tell road users when to stop and when to go. They did that perfectly well. "

 

Make your mind up!

People did not understand why the signals were there and why they were seemingly held there for no reason that they could see.

 

There is no legal sign that can tell a driver "You are being held here as part of a queue management strategy that will actually smooth your journey, so don't be concerned that you can't see any particular reason why your signals is at red, your journey will overall be smoother for your short wait here"

[Captain_Scarlet 10]

People did not understand why the signals were there and why they were seemingly held there for no reason that they could see.

 

There is no legal sign that can tell a driver "You are being held here as part of a queue management strategy that will actually smooth your journey, so don't be concerned that you can't see any particular reason why your signals is at red, your journey will overall be smoother for your short wait here"

Sweet summer child, you believe all that stuff don't you?

 

---------- Post added 19-12-2012 at 11:10 ----------

 

The Council work in similar ways to any large organisation. Projects have a project manager.

 

You and others label the Woodseats scheme a fiasco, but I would like to understand what makes you think that. The project actually delivered everything it set out to do, so what would make you think that anyone should be disciplined or fired for achieving all the project deliverables

What most of us have said many, many times is that the goals were wrong, thus the results also were. The re-re-engineering of the junctions and the continuous traffic problems show that the last three projects have failed to deliver.

 

Many people did not like or understand the bus pre-signals and queue management strategies employed. That does not mean that they failed to do what they were expected to, only that people did not understand their purpose. Perhaps that was the Council's failing, that they possibly didn't explain it as well as they might have.

You're right, we didn't and don't understand, many of us still disagree with them. Who's right? Whoever wants buses AND normal traffic to not be needlessly held up should be the right person. Fairness, equality and transparency should be pencil pushers' goal.

 

Woodseats was not just about one set of signals, it delivered many different types of improvements through the area and was part of a much wider corridor based project.

The 'corridor' is quite narrow, two lanes wide in fact, two lanes less than what the road is just before and after Woodseats. I absolutely love the lights at the juction with Abbey Lane, I adore the one way streets preventing people from avoiding Chesterfield Road and I cannot live without the pedestrian crossings that don't change when I want to cross.

One point that you need to remember is that the project was started under a Labour administration and the Lib Dems never liked it. It is therefore not surprising that they decided to change some aspects of it when they came to power.

I can't disagree with that, changing management mid-project is never a bad thing.

[the fonz 10]

you believe all that stuff don't you?

 

'All that stuff' as in network management?

 

Every major city in the country uses that approach, and it works, it stops the cities going into gridlock. The Highways Agency use it as well.

 

People rant on and on about congestion but they have no concept of how bad it could and should be without these interventions.

 

Congestion is a problem, a growing problem as the nations roads just cannot cope with the amount of traffic.

 

I personally think planner 1 is playing down the political angle on the Woodseats scheme, it was removed as a points scoring exercise by the new Councillors , as happens with many contentious council schemes when the opposing party comes into power. I guessing that if the political power hadnt changed then the scheme would still be in place.

[Andy C 85]

'All that stuff' as in network management?

 

Every major city in the country uses that approach, and it works, it stops the cities going into gridlock. The Highways Agency use it as well.

 

People rant on and on about congestion but they have no concept of how bad it could and should be without these interventions.

 

Congestion is a problem, a growing problem as the nations roads just cannot cope with the amount of traffic.

 

I personally think planner 1 is playing down the political angle on the Woodseats scheme, it was removed as a points scoring exercise by the new Councillors , as happens with many contentious council schemes when the opposing party comes into power. I guessing that if the political power hadnt changed then the scheme would still be in place.

 

In the case of Woodseats, the scheme has been modified rather than completely removed and in my opinion, as a bus passenger, is an improvement.

 

Before the bus lane came to an end at some traffic lights where the lanes merged and buses were, at peak times, given priority by the lights. The only problem was sometimes traffic from the Woodseats bottleneck were queuing back through the lights.

 

Now the bus lane continues all the way down to Woodseats Library with no lanes merging, this is much smoother and efficient and causes much less delay to buses. The only flaw with the new layout is cars wishing to turn left onto Abbey Lane are sometimes forced to cut across in front of buses.

 

One thing the old scheme did achieve was holding the traffic queues outside Woodseats so it wasn't solid through the main shopping centre. This makes no difference to journey times but makes it more pleasant for shoppers on Woodseats.

 

At the end of the day though, the main issue at Woodseats is there is more traffic than road capacity, only answers I can see are:

 

1 - ban parking throughout Woodseats and make it a 4 lane road (2 lanes each way), this would of course require a shoppers car park to be built somewhere.

 

2 - divert traffic a different route into town.

[Litotes 63]

Reported 4 seperate potholes last weekend - as yet nothing done...

 

So much for their response rate being brilliant.

 

Guess I don't live near a councillor

[mjhal 10]

Reported 4 seperate potholes last weekend - as yet nothing done...

 

So much for their response rate being brilliant.

 

Guess I don't live near a councillor

 

i told them the depth of the hole was 50mm , they then have to come out within 24hrs --which they did