We don't need no stinkin by-pass 2

As a follow on to my timed journey I did another, recall it took about 6 minutes to get from the 30 zone to the island. This time:

Fire -  Arthur Brown: 2:54
Carol of the Bells - Arthur Fiedler: 1:13
Love Shack - B52s: 3:58 in (just as the "Bang bang bang on the door" started)

So call it 7 minutes... that was to get to the start of the 30mph from which I took my last reading.

In then took:


Love Shack - B52s: 1:25 (the remainder of the 5:23)
Venus - Banarama: 3:39
Walk like an Egyptian - The Bangles: 3:20
Where's Your head at - Basement Jaxx: 1:50 in

So call it 10 minutes. That's 17 minutes total to travel 1.3 miles. I've been in worse.

As an example a different night I turned the corner at the island with 1:40 on the music and reached the Mitton Street entrance at 2:50. Just over a minute to travel 0.1 of a mile. No-one turning right into the station or Baldwin Road, no-one broken down - just traffic coming down from Gilgal and not always in the left 'priority' lane, but due to the curve in the dark you can't distinguish which lane they're in so everyone stops just in case.

Now sure some sections are worse, however I would like to point out that for those trying to get from Stourport proper towards the Worcester Road and back there is no other route available that either doesn't go in the totally opposite direction, down country lanes, or lead back to the same point from another direction.

Let's face facts - we're not going to get a bypass from the dual-track to Hartlebury Road any time soon and the 'by-pass' via Discovery Road leading to Mitton Street will do nothing if not make things worse and this has been the known situation for over 30 years yet what's been done about this section of road... they've put a sign up on the entrance to Gilgal warning of merging traffic.

Recall that at either end of Gilgal we have a lane that can travel at the full speed travelling around an inside bend being joined at the outer side by traffic that can't travel at the same speed while negotiating the tight inner turn. The natural line that the fast-moving traffic takes is to switch lanes in both cases as they come around the turn as this is the straighter course. Stop them!

Extend the damn dividers so you can't cross the lanes on the corner, but only once you're on the straight. If that's too expensive edge the cross-hatchings in unbroken white lines rather than the broken ones which supposedly means you can't travel through them. I doubt that latter will have much effect, but it's an attempt at least and hardly expensive - they need remarking anyway as they're starting to fade.

Save the Forests and the problem with Big Society.

From Neil via WFA comes a stock reply from out MP with regard to the proposed sell-off of our Forests. According to our representative (or at least representative to the 37% who voted for him) the issue at stake "is not one of ownership" but rather what's done with the forests. It seems from his point of view he doesn't care who owns it provided that it is "protected and managed" and that "current access to the public must be maintained".

And how exactly will that be managed? If the Forestry Commission is set up as a regulatory body for this why take the management away from them. If they don't handle this it will be up to "Big Society" to challenge the owners in the courts.

Unfortunately it seems a product of the same flawed thinking that got all our utilities and public services privatised - public bodies cannot be run at anything other than a loss. Why not? As someone said isn't it amazing how our utilities were suddenly able to make money once privatised, what was stopping them doing what they do now back then?

The theory behind this sell-off, beyond the quick cash and the pitiful yearly saving (£10m/year Forests, £6m/year Parliamentary food/drink subsidy) is that the new owners will want to keep the place well-maintained in order to attract visitors, who in turn will pay the car-parking fees and purchase things from the snack/gift shop. Excellent - now what's stopping the Forestry Commission from doing that?

Don't give me any rot about how as taxpayers we fund it already and thus shouldn't pay 'extra' for its use. Look at what the private public transport services receive on top of the fees they charge us; the fees for driving licences and passports paid to government departments we fund etc. There seems no problem for charging us for services provided by departments or businesses we already contribute to.

Some may think that entire concept unfair anyway - why should I pay both my private health care and your NHS treatment; why should I pay to use my car and for you to use public transport; an attitude that seems to pervade throughout the Conservative Party. A desire it seems to return to the good old days where only those who could afford it were educated; where only those who could afford it received health care etc. Oh wait these will all be taken care of by the "Big Society" or 'charity' as most would rename it.

The concept that the paid-for services will upgrade their equipment and thus sell the old stuff off to the cheaper services who in turn will sell there's on to the charities is humourous to consider given the shelf-life of so much equipment. The results of such an experiment is already known - stratification of society. Those at the bottom will have little opportunity to rise given their poor education and poor health; while those at the top need to do very little to maintain their own standards - how much work does Lord Sugar have to do, how much Paris Hilton? So long as you don't squander it away you and your immediate descendants are set.

This is what the Conservatives are slowly working toward and all with the connivance of the Liberal Democrat so desperate for power.

Millfields estate repair work

As mentioned the three builders were set to repair their own areas of the Millfields estate though not at the same time as originally planned due to council interference. It does however get better (hah) in that in at least one case the work has been subdivided up into sections.

The rough situation is that Builder A does work in Section 1, Builder B then does work in Section 2 then Builder A works in Section 3.

Other than causing a huge amount of disruption in that each contractor has to deliver, remove and store equipment multiple times; the biggest joke is that the first section that is being worked on is/was the main entrance that every other contractor will have to drive through and over to reach their own section.

To emphasise they're repairing and resurfacing a road and then driving all the heavy machinery over it.

Makes you want to cry.

Govermental forward thinking

Consider the following:

Police launch new crime mapping website
Site is advertised in all major newspapers and on all major channels
Site crashes under heavy load.

Seriously what did they expect - just a few people to pop on after the announcement. This would be as if Blizzard's servers crashed the day Cataclysm was released due to "unexpectedly heavy traffic".

Not only can't you access the maps, it seems to have taken the entire police.uk site with it; so no server-load balancing there then.[Update - my mistake police.uk is only the mapping part the main site is /www.homeoffice.gov.uk/police/ ]

Not a clue.

Incidentally I note this is my 2011th post.

The fix being worse than the problem

A couple of old ones. I mentioned some time ago the depression after the resurfacing of the bridge as you come out of town that wasn't suited towards motor vehicles and not that clever for cyclists. Our local Labour Cllr. Shaw took that up and the section was resurfaced some time ago. Again as mentioned at the time rather than simply fix the depression that entire section is now depressed. It's still like that and I swear it's getting worse.

To my mind this makes no sense the entire footing on which it is based is artificial, non-natural, how can you even have a depression - it's not as if the soil has sunk below it. Also recall they received an award for this entire job.

The second one is just before The Rough alongside the meadow. Prior to the resurfacing water would also form across the surface at this point. Since the resurfacing it does the same, but in greater quantities.

I'm still curious as to what form of quality control is undertaken on these jobs.

Vari-coloured street lamps

Here's a puzzler. Street lights tend to be of the old yellow sodium style, this applies to both the metal poled and the concrete poled versions that run along the Dunley Road. However some time ago the concrete set running from past the Rough towards Areley Common were replaced with higher metal posts the light emitted from these new heads can only be described as 'pinkish'.

Recently the set of concrete posts running in the other direction were also changed; the light these emit - white.

So we coming from the town we now have run white, pink, yellow. Do our council not specify the colour; do they just buy a job lot, have white heads become cheaper since they bought the pink heads?

I'm not complaining - the white heads are excellent and it's almost the equivalent of daytime driving now; but why are the pink ones still up?

[Update - another point is that the high-vis white lights occur when there are street lights on both sides of the road  whereas the lower intensity pink lights overlap a stretch when they exist on only one side]

Building and road work

The old petrol station site on Vale Road has now been cleared for the sheltered accommodation to go up and Jim tells me of the road closure on Wilden Lane. The official report states that it's for three days between the 31st and the 8th and extends for the entire length. On the one hand that may mean less traffic from Hartlebury Road,  on the other the same as they simply come down from the A449.

The work is listed as Highway Maintenance/Improvement. Seeing as I simply don't use that road anymore due to the poor state it's always in it will be interesting to see what will be done.