OT - what's your commute overhead ?

Sep 20, 2023 Last reply: 3 years ago 43 Replies
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alan_m

I no longer commute but around my area roadworks are a major source of unnecessary congestion. Lane closures and temporary traffic lights are put in place a week before any work takes place and left in place long after the work has finished. I guess it's one company responsible…

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Now the schools are back, etc, my 20 minute run to the office when I go in has become an hour. So a loading of 200% inefficiency. Mainly caused by a confluence of roadworks that create a nice gridlock around most of Birmingham. In fact it is so good it's hard to imagine it wasn't planned.



As a level of tolerated inefficiency, it's easy to see why the UK is so unproductive.


I no longer commute but around my area roadworks are a major source of unnecessary congestion. Lane closures and temporary traffic lights are put in place a week before any work takes place and left in place long after the work has finished. I guess it's one company responsible for the cones and lights and a completely different company for the work.

Even when it would be easy to remove cones when work has finished for the day or weekend they are left in place.

There is also a tendency that when roadworks are planned on one major route there will be roadworks on the alternative routes. :(

Have you considered a bike, scooter? In London, I gave up trying to drive decades ago.

Last time I used the A11 to Norwich the 'work completed Summer 2023' single lane section was still in place.

Have you considered nor bothering to live in London at all?

Work exists elsewhere and the difference between earnings and cost of living is far greater outside it.

Work?

The people are funny outside London.

I find this site:

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to be quite useful when planning a journey.

My satnav even wanted me to leave the M25 before the Dartford tunnel and rejoin it after a roundabout on the basis that this would be quicker than sitting in the queue.

Oh yes! Why are the 50mph roadwork speed limits still displayed on the section of A11between Four Wentways and the A14 junction when no work is underway other than the lay-by's being coned off?

>

F*ck nose.

The problem is, one tends to ignore them if there is no reason for them. Its more like Putins Russia every day

It's so you have to slow down and therebye have the time to admire the West Wratting / Six Mile Bottom wind farm. We moved away just in time to avoid that.

I wonder if it will be there in 5 years time. The world is full of the sound of crashing renewable energy companies.

I have seen notices saying that the cones have been left in place to allow the road surface to set before it can be driven over. Presumably that contractor had had enough of people using the contact number to complain about them.

That doesn't fit with the way they re-surface parts of motorways overnight, e.g. one night they replace a half-mile stretch of lane 1, then the next night they do a parallel stretch of lane 2, the progress along staggering the lanes over the course of a week or two.

If you didn't happen to drive along the affected stretch after midnight you'd never be inconvenienced, and they seem to do a very good job of it nowadays.

Notably the ones in Norfolk and Cornwall

I can only report what the sign said. Perhaps they use a different, but possibly more expensive, surfacing material for motorways.

Cornwall - the pasty duchy on the left hand side.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, Tim Streater snipped-for-privacy@streater.me.uk> writes

When unnecessary or out-of-date restrictions are left in place, would it be inappropriate to use FixMyStreet to highlight the situation?

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It'll be there. Whether it's working is another matter... It's amazing how often the odd turbine or two (or three... or half of them) aren't running in a windfarm.

Andy

It's more amazing how often in a dead calm three or four out of a dozen are still turning...chewing up leccy to save their bearings from going per shaped

I agree - no one is going to pay to dig up the massive concrete pads these things sit on.

I saw a program on you tube quite accidentally about the decommissioning of a north sea gas platform

They were going to tow it to a deep part of the ocean and sink it.

Greenpeace forced them to dismantle it and put it on a barge and take it ashore to dismantle it.

Total cost about the NHS budget for a year.

I understand why gas prices are so high..

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