Bridge Street redux

Traffic was back up to Chadwick Bank last night so a 2 mile queue affecting a bunch of people who might not even be heading into town and past the lights. They weren't working on it yesterday when they were set up and they weren't working on it last night so we had a traffic light system up protecting... well nothing.

I travelled the 12-14 miles around (instead of 2-3) and it only took 10 minutes more then my normal travel time, however that will change as everyone decides to go that way instead of sitting in the queue. The sticking points being the turn-off to Ombersley and the turn out of Holt Heath, which just weren't designed with the level of traffic in mind.

The workers were there this morning though and kudos to them they had someone manually setting the traffic lights on Bridge Street and I fairly whizzed through, what the chances that they'll be doing it tonight though I don't know and besides all that'll do is help the traffic from Hartlebury Road out.

Oh and the previous lot of works did patch the holes on the Worcester Road entrance past OGL, well sort of, kind of; it's less likely to take your wheels off now, but it's still bumpy as hell. Best bit is that it's damp, it was damp yesterday and it's damp today and that suggests they've got a leak which means they're going to dig it up again.

[Additional -What fun sitting on the bridge. The traffic came through as normal from the town and cleared our set of lights. They turned green and one car set off around the cones at which point they turned red again; no joke, no exaggeration.

After the standard wait they changed again at which point the learner driver at the front stalled slightly, nevertheless a few cars got out until a big flashing maintenance truck decided to turn into Raven Street and had to take up both lanes to do it, by the time he'd got out of the way we were back to red.

Waiting and the last of the cars cleared our end and then pulled into their left to allow room for the wailing ambulance to get past, our lights turned green and two cars managed to get through before the ambulance got up to them; got a reprieve in that at this point I finally managed to get past the damn things.

Coming back we've got a built-in delay point in York Street as all the traffic is turning left on the wrong-side of the road and the longer vehicles can't turn left without two lanes at normal times, and no-one seems to be enforcing any form of parking restriction opposite the bus-stop so yes once again traffic is queuing in the left-hand lane to drive past the lights and cones blocking it because they can't wait in the right-hand lane and yes once again if a bus dares to stop in the designated bus-stop wider vehicles are stuck regardless of permissions to move.

It's a farce.]

Bridge Street works ahoy

They've just set up the lights on Bridge Street and disabled the pedestrian crossing. The coned area covers the length of road from the crossing up to the corner of York Street on that side. It appears the other controlling set of lights is in York Street, which presumably indicates a three-way with another in New Street I'll know more later.

Anyway the good news is that feedback is already apparent with traffic from York Street leading back to Lion Hill, blocking off Mitton Street in the process, and back into High Street into which the traffic coming up Bridge Street is heading. Enough vehicles or some blockages in High Street and nobody will be able to move.

Of course Mitton Street is naturally jammed and this in turn will foul-up the OGL island and lead to a wonking great queue in Worcester Road. You'll get people from Minster Road trying to shortcut it via Lombard Street/Lickhill Road to Lion Hill or Moorhall Lane to New Street leading to queues down the narrow lane and blocking the relief valve that is Raven Street.

Hmm remind me of the Tesco documentation and the estimates of queue length for a set of lights on the mouth of Severn Road 3, 4, 7? I can't quite recall.

[Update - Yes it's a three-way set of lights, and I've just been asked "What the hell is going on?" it's half-four and the queue is apparently stretching from the OGL island past the Titton Cafe and around the corner. ]

Income Tax backlash

So apparently some MPs have woken up to the fact that these 'wonderful' changes to the income tax bands are going to hit the poorest sections of the wage earners, only taken them a year to spot. It's all okay though as these people have supposedly been getting more and more in benefits over the last few years and it'll all be fine when we get the other 80% of people eligible for tax credits onto the system. Would that be these tax credits; why yes it would.

The figures bandied about in the BBC article are £18,500/annum and a maximum loss of £232/annum. My figures are break-even at £16,504.82/annum and a max loss of £181 at £7,455; so not that different.

The laughable bit is that instead of allowing people to keep earned money at source the government seems to expect them to apply for some of it back; which introduces a whole new level of bureaucracy or stretches the existing system.

Now playing with the figures I've already shown that for the median values the government is losing £1,300 over the range, the bottom earners are loosing money and the top earners gaining over £788. So can we fiddle the values about to give the top earners their dosh and boost the middle range of values?

How about this:
Note no negative axis, everyone gets more the top earners at £718 (so a little off the previous) and the loss to the government is £1,000 over the range (so more money to them). My values are quite simple: An allowance of £5,500, 10% bracket up to £2,200, 22% bracket up to £38,000, and 40% over that. Everyone gets more money, but you don't get that steady rise from £17k to £39k that I think was the whole point of the change.

Ouchie

It is a truth universally upheld that the softest toilet paper in the world becomes as sandpaper if you're going to the loo every 15-30 minutes.

Anyway as you can tell I'm back; yay? The only good(?) thing to come from this is my trousers feel baggier and the lack of sleep has gifted me with two additional gods for the pantheon - Tekneos God of Music "All music is one and we are many"; and Scypian Goddess of Shopping "The correct choice is the one I've just made".

Bad thing is that I obviously had to reschedule some stuff I had planned at the weekend for next weekend and then got a poke from Invisible about a planned p.o.t. meeting next Saturday; bloody typical.

Groan

Paying my dues at the moment and I'm expecting big things once I retire to the Big Bathroom in the Sky and kneel before the Great Porcelain God Hruggh what with all the offerings I'm making at the moment; may even get me a larger garden from his brother Fanglemork come judgement day.

Unpleasant night

Feeling a bit punked (more later) I decide to continue my quest to clean my PVR down and watch a film I recorded not long ago. Started up in the middle of my regional news, "huh" I thought and fast forwarded. A couple of minutes in (record time) and I'm thinking "huh" again; at this point I notice the time bar is almost three quarters over. Yep my wonderful box had started to record in the middle of the news and stopped when it received the PDC-type signal at the start of the film I wanted to record. Joy!

Ah well I'll try another, a shorter film this time. Half-an-hour in and I think "How can they wrap this up in the remaining half-hour?" I bookmarked my position and fast-forwarded to the end. Yep good old Five had stuck a news section in the middle and this had obviously split the film into two sections on the EPG and I hadn't noticed.

I'll try an Horizon instead. Now I kind of like Horizon, it's the best science programme on non-satellite TV. Not really that great a recommendation as it's the only science programme on TV, but it holds a small place of honour for me as it has a tendency to think the same way I do. Often the programme makes an assertion, I perk up and say "Yes, but", and then the programme does exactly the same thing - I respect that :-). The only let-down is that despite the question being asked it then does little to try to answer it.

The example from the show I watched sums it up. Examining the claims made by 'organic' food the levels of pesticide were measured in a range of foodstuffs (which the programme failed to specify as to how they're grown) and found only 3% had levels of pesticide above the government limit. "Yeah but how do we know those limits are really safe?" I asked and got echoed.

Well it hasn't been proven that the levels are dangerous, i.e. nobody's knowingly been harmed at the current levels. The organic farmer made the correct point that we've no idea what a combination of pesticides do, and this was mildly backed up by old B&W footage of volunteer test subjects being fed a dilute dose of one pesticide. Sadly Horizon didn't follow up on this and stamped 'organic' foods claims as "unproven".

Still feeling off I had an early night. Woke up at 2:30, thought "urgghh" wondered what woke me up and tried to get back to sleep with no success. Too hot and too thirsty, and probably why I woke up in the first place, I go and get some water. Swill it around, spit it out, sip some of it; repeat and back to bed. Still no sleep and I think "No this isn't right... ah I know what this is". So I get up again and adopt the worshipful position at the loo and make several offerings to the Great Porcelain God Hruggh. One sore throat and a very mild nosebleed later I down some more water and finally get back to sleep feeling a lot better and a lot lighter.

Not got a clue what caused it, but other then a sore throat and the feeling my nasal passages have been scoured I'm feeling fine now.

This means nothing to me

Oh Vienna; really going to have to get that damn song out of my head. Anyway in my alter ego as the bad news elf I spot two shiny new signs up on either end of Bridge Street warning about work commencing on the 7th April. No indication what this work is, who's doing it, or what it'll affect.

Over to the Worcestershire Hub and as you might expect the Temporary Traffic Light report has nothing in it because it only deals with March, likewise the Road and Lane Closures document and the Weekly Roadworks report. It's also outside the scope of the Quarterly Roadworks report and even the dynamic roadworks search is displaying nothing except the ones that were done last year. Although it does have a lot of "No Info Available"'s the only things displayed on the 'interactive' map are the previous works.

So a big applause to the Worcestershire Hub for keeping everyone so well informed of future events ah big softie that I am I'll try again for the next couple of days it is only the 1st after all.

Now for those outside the area remember this is the nice shiny newly resurfaced road; so presumably this is footpath work and not digging up the road stuff, because if it is... I don't think people will be too happy.

[Update - the board tells us the works are for six weeks, I'm reminded that they knew that Bridge Street was going to be dug up and thus were only supposed to lay down a 'temporary' road surface, and the WHub is still thinking it's March]

[Update 2 - Huzzah the WHub is now in April and we get:
45700125 From Bridge Inn to York St/New St/High St Bridge Street Stourport on Severn 02/04/08 19/05/08 Laser Civil Engineering.

One assumes that someone showed some sense in not having the two sets of work overlap hence the delay to the 7th. Also note not Severn Trent Water so possibly the footpaths?]