Traffic lights start to fail.

They came on line sometime Friday afternoon and as of yesterday the uppermost red light has failed. In terms of usage they are definitely weighted towards the Mitton Road side. I sat at the Severn Road exit watching nothing driving up that side until finally they registered that fact just in time to stop the traffic.

So far I've driven through the main Mitton-side set 19 times and on all but two occasions they've either been red or switching from red with queues forming in the right-hand lane back to the Chinese takeaway. So not bad but that's with only the normal levels of traffic and without the addition of both a superstore and a new housing estate being added next year.

On the plus side the new bridge is indeed open and is a pleasant enough short-cut with the wait at the lights not being far too dissimilar to waiting at the island. Of course one has to sit in the queue to reach the turn-off in the first place and once this new route becomes established as an alternative no doubt queues will start to form up from here too. Likewise in theory this provides an alternative to Vale Road and the dreaded Gilgal, with the only downside being trying to get out of Discovery Road at the other end.