Forum Topic

Traffic lights to be removed

Driving back home on Saturday night, I came across a news item on Radio 5 in which a local councillor was discussing the removal of some traffic lights in the Borough of Ealing to allow for smoother traffic flow. He said that some traffic lights held up the traffic unnecessarily whereas mini-roundabouts would be better. So where would that be?

Robert Worley ● 6357d31 Comments

The Council's plan seems to be to turn-off the traffic lights at seven junctions in the borough for six months. However the Government's Department for Transport has yet to agree to the trial.The story is not on the Council's web site - so it must be true then.

Eric Alan Leach ● 6357d

No clues as to which lights they have in mind yet?

Susan Kelly ● 6357d

Susan,Just to let you know this was discussed at the last Cabinet meeting on 7th April.  You can see the paper here with all the details:http://www.ealing.gov.uk/ealing3/export/sites/ealingweb/services/council/committees/agendas_minutes_reports/cabinet/20may2008-15may2009/_7_apr_09/Item_16_-_Schemes_to_Relieve_Traffic_Congestion.docAs is usual with these things go straight to the table at the back.  We are spending #130K on some small schemes to reduce traffic congestion because the Residents' Survey showed that congestion is a big issue for a large proportion of people in the Borough. 

Phil Taylor ● 6357d

Some money could be saved by removing the mini roundabouts on The Avenue and reusing the signs elsewhere.The roundabouts are as much use as as the Maginot Line was. Amazingly there seem to have been none or very few accidents at these junctions. I think the traffic departments of the police and council would be surprised at the inefficiency of the signage, and also the revenue gained if a police officer were stationed along the road with a radar gun.

Alan Brainsby ● 6357d

Thanks, Phil. Interesting. Of the ones that affect me most: there have definitely been more traffic jams since the lights appeared at the junction by Acton Town station; and the lengthy delays at the Popes Lane/South Ealing Rd caused by non-existent pedestrians are a cause of much local tooth-grinding.

Susan Kelly ● 6357d

The Popes Lane/South Ealing Road lights were "upgraded" in a Plus Bus initiative about 6 years ago. The consultancy was not interested in my comments about their effectiveness in speeding the 65 bus or indeed speeding anything. We'd paid they'd collected their money and yes you do sit there for a long time while invisible pedestrians cross. Its been raised in the Taylor era in the last couple of Area Committees.....a sort of kinda study thingy but no action for this and The Grove/The Green. Funny isn't it how Boris gets things moving. There may be a problem. Indeed there is a problem. Are there any traffic/highway engineers in Ealing? Our Freedom of Information Act request for a structure of this department submitted on 26 March 09 has produced no results and this after the max search duration of 20 working days. oops

Arthur Breens ● 6357d

Aren't the "pedestrian" phases to allow red light jumpers to clear the junction?It might seem too much trouble to have traffic lights which sensed the amount of traffic and also had request buttons for pedestrian phases.

Alan Brainsby ● 6357d

As a pedestrian who frequently has to cross the Popes Lane / South Ealing junction I come at it from a different perspective.  If you are trying to cross both roads the only way to do it in one go is sprint diagonally.  Not very safe either. If there is a problem with 'invisible pedestrians' then the phasing also needs to be changed to allow visible pedestrians to actually get across.

Gillian Healey ● 6356d

I quite often pass there as a pedestrian as well as a driver and see no need to do it all in one go.

Susan Kelly ● 6356d

I do if there's a 65 at the bus stop ...

Gillian Healey ● 6356d

The 8 May Ealing Gazette has now revealed the locations of the list of seven junctions. Three are in Southall, two in Acton and one in Hanwell.I know the two in Acton very well. What worries me about the Twyford Road/Creffield Road junction, which is on the list, is that it is very close to The Japanese School.However my biggest worry on the list is the junction of Bollo Lane and Gunnersbury Lane, where Acton Town Tube Station is situated. The current traffic light controlled junction takes ages to get through when driving north along Bollo Lane - but at least its reasonably safe for pedestrians. Who is old enough to remember what this junction was like before traffic lights? I am and it was awful and dangerous.Ealing Traffic Supremo Councillor Millican is quoted in the Gazette as saying that this six month traffic light suspension is 'not a huge sum of money'. At an estimated cost of £200,000, one does wonder exactly how this significant amount of money might be spent on something residents actually wanted.At a well attended EBSCAG open meeting on Transport issues in the Town Hall on 8 May, Noel Rutherford, Ealing Council's Director of Built Environment told us all that the traffic light turn-off initiative was an example of 'Ealing leading the way..'. Leading the way to what one might speculate.

Eric Alan Leach ● 6351d

Noel Rutherford says that "Ealing is leading the way...!" and Eric asks, "To what?" As far as road safety is concerned the way in Ealing has been lost and a long time ago.  Officers in his department should be disciplined over their involvement/lack of involvement in the safety issues surrounding the "Lammasgate" affair and the inaction at the Lido Junction and Church lane /Uxbridge Road junction. Who is the officer responsible for road safety? And if there isn't one then that is where this £200,000 should go. You'd get two for a year for that sum. It just seems incredible to me that with a burgeoning population 305,000 in 2001 to 349,000 last year that there has been so much inaction in this area of road safety. But of course Ealing is leading the way. Perhaps I'm just not seeing it and have been looking in the wrong direction. Rutherford Millican Taylor Townsend Donnellen and Tonk please advise.

Arthur Breens ● 6351d

How does it cost £200k to switch some lights off?

Susan Kelly ● 6351d

The Lido junction seems specially designed for the culling of pedestrians.

Susan Kelly ● 6351d

If I remember correctly government organizations have to hire a certain number of disabled persons (3% ?).It seems in the case of LBE they are concentrated in the traffic department. No doubt others might disagree.

Alan Brainsby ● 6351d

I notice the one in Hanwell/Greenford is outside Brentside High school where there have been traffic accidents involving pupils in the past. What sense is there in doing this just to perhaps shorten the average car journey by a few seconds. These are our children's lives this council are playing Russian roulette with, all so that they can say they tried something. Perhaps we should ban pedestrians during peak hours so that cars can rule. The only way congestion will get sorted out is when the realisation comes that we simply have got too many cars on our crowded roads. This is a political pill that this council will not take out of the bottle let alone swallow.

Ali Khan ● 6349d

No doubt Ealing won't be among the first councils to put 30 MPH limits near schools. It will excuse itself om grounds of cost and also watching what happens in other boroughs.Five or six years ago I complained about pavement parking along Drayton Bridge Road, where Drayton Manor High School is situated.B*gger all has been  done about it. It doesn't need signage to say it's illegal. It just needs two wardens twice a week...

Alan Brainsby ● 6348d

Anyone know when this experiment is due to start?

Susan Kelly ● 6336d

It's not clear:http://www.ealing.gov.uk/press_releases/2009/april/pr1415.htmlHopefully we'll be told when and where and what criteria will be used to judge it them a success.

David Eales ● 6335d

Mr. TaylorPlease could you add a link to the "Residents Survey" which shows that residents, in my case Twyford Avenue, have asked for traffic lights to be removed.

Libby Kemp ● 6334d

Information I have received from someone who has worked for TFL is that the previous administration demanded that traffic lights controlled by TFL should be adjusted for maximum inconvenience and delay for motorists. It will take time to readjust all junctions.The same reasoning has been applied to the planning of the two new road bridges carrying the A40 Western Avenue over the railways east of Gypsy Corner, which were designed to carry three lanes of traffic plus cycle lanes and footpaths in both directions but reduced to two traffic lanes in each direction so as to be a dangerous traffic bottleneck.

Chris Bell ● 6334d

Any idea when lights will be removed or covered up?

David Archer ● 6329d

During the hours of darkness perhaps?

Eric Alan Leach ● 6328d

Questionnaires have been sent to the residents of Argyle Road/ Ruislip Road by Steer Davies Gleave on behalf of LBA to remove the lights there and add a roundabout.

Shirly Kakaiya ● 6198d

What's LBA?

Eric Alan Leach ● 6198d

Sorry - I meant LB of Ealing....

Shirly Kakaiya ● 6198d

I wonder how many readers are not aware that  Steer Davies Gleave call themselves 'Leading independent transport advisors'. (Until I Googled I thought steer meant dome bovine person like chair signifies an inanimate one.)So what happened to the council's own road engineers who in 1990-94  conviced the last Conservative led council that traffic lights were the better idea?

Graham Weeks ● 6197d

Are you sure it was 'the council's own road engineers?  -  it was that council administration which contracted out the borough's technical services including this service to US-owned Brown & Root (through its UK subsidiary Howard Humphries which they had taken over), the Ealing operation going under the acronym BRETS (Brown & Root Ealing Technical Services  -  geddit??!!??)  -  albeit they took on a number of engineers formerly directly employed by the Council (I knew some of them well and had dealings with them both as a consultant and as a resident).The contract has since pased to another large firm whose name temporarily escapes me.Steer Davies Gleave (aka SDG) are a fairly long-established and well-known UK transport consultancy firm, who have presumably been taken on for this particular project.The rump of the supposedly directly-employed Ealing council engineers and planners are in many cases (though not all) temporary staff on short-term contracts engaged through commercial staff agencies, many being Anzacs doing a year or two between backpacking tours (mind you, so are many of the staff the big consultancy firms employ, when they're not contracting out the work to smaller UK consultants like One's Good Self).

Chris Veasey ● 6197d

Was it Steer Davis Gleave who reworked the 65 bus route some few years ago and left us shelterless opposite South Ealing Station?

Arthur Breens ● 6197d

Can't remember which consultancy was involved in this one; but whichever, the responsibility rested  -  and remains  -  firmly with TfL and its Street Mismanagement Division. But Ealing Council could  -  and should  -  have pursued it vigorously with TfL once I and others had raised it publicly, but they didn't.

Chris Veasey ● 6197d

My memory is not good enough to be certain whether the traffic engineers in the early 90s were the council's of B & R's. I think the former probably.

Graham Weeks ● 6197d