How to travel through town

The town is small, four main roads cross through the town centre; one leads to a bridge, one falls back into the town and two join up after a time apart. Everything feeds into everything else; a hold-up here leads to a stop there. The bridge is now undergoing major structural repair, probably for the first time since it was built in 1870, this would be of no concern if a second bridge existed; it doesn't. The next nearest bridges are 3 miles upstream and 6 miles down, the roads leading through them are convoluted to say the least. We're the main artery, we're getting a by-pass, we've been getting a by-pass for the last 30-odd years. Some of it's in place; the cheap parts, the parts that the authorities can get others to pay for when they plonk down a new housing estate "Sure you can get permission, you just need to add this bit of road in first". The expensive stuff, the new bridge, that we won't see for a while.

So they've started the work, it's been on the books now since last July all scheduled for August this year. Just goes to show how well they know the town, the carnival is held on the first Saturday of September and passes right over the bridge. Some juggling later and signs go up telling us that the work will start on "Sep 06" wonderful is that the 6th of September or just September this year? Doesn't matter anyway according to the local paper, which has actually deigned to notice us, they've yet to get a contractor in.

September passes and the signs are just amusing now, new ones replace them with a fixed date of 24th October, this is what we're told, this is what we know. The week before and they're digging in the road, planting traffic sensors, they place one at a time picking the lunchtime or evening rush hour to work, but still proper sensors our hopes soar.

The lights are put in on the 23rd, temporary ones until they can fix permanent ones, these stand in pairs side-by-side fixed down in concrete buckets awaiting life. The temporary's stand until the evening of the 24th when they're removed and the permanents are lit. They stand incongruously next to each other, a pair at either end; why do we need four? One of each pair has a sensor presumably monitoring the traffic flowing through the works, the other... who knows. Already one light has burnt out.

They seem to be working the traffic is flowing, this is an illusion; it's half-term the children are playing away from school, the flows are half of normal. The police claim to be monitoring the parking, they do; on some days. On others people park, as people now seem to park, wherever they choose. The traffic has built up this week, the police still seem scarce, but the traffic flows seem no different to when the signals were gone, perhaps the signs on the outskirts of town are having an effect, perhaps people aren't using us as a shortcut to other places. Who knows, let's see if it stays like this.