Waiting on the steps of the Victoria Art Gallery for it to open at 10.30 this morning, I spent some time observing work to finish off the road re-modelling that has been taking place outside.
It seems to have gone on forever. One of the workforce told me it’s what lies beneath the pavements slowing things down. Sorting out the utilities, I suppose.
Hopefully all will be finished soon. The roadworks are not helping with congestion at this point. The Victoria Gallery sits on a traffic ‘island’ along with the Empire Hotel and Guildhall.
On the Grand Parade side is a line of bus stops. Often, when you get a bus parking badly and with a line of cars on the other side, another double-decker cannot get through. It is a real bottleneck.
Time to install double yellow lines l think, to get rid of the cars and establish a free-flowing route for buses and delivery lorries. What do others think?
Yes cut out all parking at the Row number one priority. Then stop parking on Bridge street side of VAG.
Danger might be speeding vehicles set free from parked cars.
I quite agree Richard.
To be honest it’s another “ improvement” that’s not needed. The original pavements were wide enough. The double carriage width road allowed traffic to pass freely, even when the single yellow line along the outside of the Victoria Art gallery allowed much needed disabled parking. Now we have a lump of wide pavement, narrow road and an isolated run for bikes. Typical waste of our money
Council should be ashamed of this traffic chaos, spoke with several commercial drivers and not one spoke in favour of this ill thought by the LibDems once again.
I do dawn raids on Waitrose and the Market . Half the line of parking is for [un]loading deliveries from the Market and the 4 shops.
So leave things as they are. Most of the current congestion is due to the 3 months of street works along the station approach . Where is the Clock Great Western?] Thank you very much
Cities evolve and it can be a painful process! But the new cycle lane will be well used and welcomed by many.
Do private cars really need to access that area of the city anyway? That appears to be the crux of the issue. The c.11 parked vehicles on Union Parade in particular take up a full 2.5m lane. And one assumes the multitude of businesses there are not reliant on the occupants of just 11 cars.
As Guy says, change can be a painful process, but limiting car use in the city centre to those who really need it releases space for people to walk and cycle, and most importantly, get more active. The number of overweight people I see squeezing themselves in and out of cars is not a pretty sight 😟