Traffic, whispers, and roads

20 minutes to get through Stourport this morning that's from the queue to get to the bridge up to Vale Road. I'm glad I left early due to it being a bit nasty yesterday too, but I expected that then - the sun was shining. No seriously it's the low sun; turn a corner in town and chances are the sun will be there to greet you, add that together with roads that could be more reflective only if they actually buffed them up and you find you're trying to see through a 6-inch sliver of windscreen topped and tailed by gleaming whiteness. Amazingly cars have a tendency to slow down when it's like that. This time however no sun; no morons parked next to the cashpoint, despite the vacant parking bays slightly further up the road; no police; no ambulances; no fire-engines; no roadworks, other then the ones we already know about; just what I like to call SVOT - Sheer Volume Of Traffic. No doubt something somewhere was causing a hold-up and people were using the town as a giant rat-run to points elsewhere as they always do.

On sort of the same topic, I've heard whispers that representations have been made to remove the pedestrian crossing in Bridge Street whilst the bridge works are ongoing. I can understand why people would want this as they're a PITA, but I'm going to have to side against it. Not just for the fact that it would make crossing Bridge Street more dangerous then it already is, but for the simple fact that it should have been unnecessary to even have to consider this move to start with.

Firstly someone fiddled with the lights last year, now it stays red for longer and the time between allowed reds has been shortened. Anecdote - I came over the bridge and pulled up to the queue that had stopped because of the pedestrian lights, the lights turned green, we moved off, by the time I'd got to the lights they were red again; I hadn't even got to the front of the queue.

Secondly if you stick two sets of lights close to each other it doesn't take a giant intellect to realise you should link them together. Picture this - traffic from the town flows over the bridge past the roadworks, the lights turn red, at the same time the pedestrian lights turn red (if activated). Now the traffic in town trying to reach the bridge is stopped, but who cares? They can't get anywhere anyway as the roadwork lights are also red. Meanwhile the traffic is clearing past the roadworks, the other side switches to green and they start to flow. By the time they've got to the pedestrian crossing it's switched back to green, and the town side traffic just trundles down to wait at the bridge. Damn how hard is that to work out?

Finally if someone got their finger out and put a bloody underpass under the bridge closer to the town, rather then next to the river, then stuck a ramp on both sides, nobody would have to use the pedestrian crossing at all. I bet that's not part of the 'Bridge Refurbishment Plan'.

Okay I mentioned that the road crew appeared to be replacing the decorative bricks, I'm not 100% sure now though. They're still working on the same spot they started at and seem to be digging deeper then I thought would be necessary to just replace the top layer of bricks. Might be they're just being thorough, which would be nice. I'll wait and see though.

One last point - potholes. The pothole at the top of York Street at the Lion Hill junction has reappeared, I'm surprised as when they last filled it in they took their time, did it at a low traffic point, square cut the hole, refilled it, tarred it, and pounded it all down. Anyone reading that with a growing sense of incredulity are right, they shoveled something down it poured some hot tar over the top and then probably just jumped up and down on it for a bit. The surface has now gone and whatever they filled it with has washed out along with excess material making it larger and deeper then it started at.

Next if you have cause to turn right from Areley Common onto the Dunley Road watch out for the nice string of holes along the give way point, they've only completely renovated this area not that long ago, even closing one section down so they could cut out a corner of grass verge and surface it. Of course nobody gave a thought that they might look to the rest of the road while they were at it, not even the bit they'd already closed off. "Weren't on the quote was it mate."

Little point in mentioning the top of Bridge Street, anyway that'll all be sorted come next Spring as part of the bridge refurbishment, though as someone said to me "I wouldn't be surprised if they just stopped short of that point"

Ah well watch your tyres folks.

PS Worth a mention, a sudden strange dearth of delivery vans outside Ye Olde Crown Inn at peak times.