[BBC News] Plans for £4m black spot solution

[Shit3hawk]

I think it looks ok except for the access road to the car park. That'll cause problems for people approaching from the South and trying to cross over.

 

Commonsense would to be to drive all the way around the Ovalabout and then turn off in to the carpark from the south bound lane, or is that to easy

[triskelion]

I know, spend the 4 million relocating the government departments that don't need to be in douglas, out of douglas, reducing conjestion and parking problems considerably.

This is kind of a myth really. Those departments that deal directly with the public (ie. benefits, student grants, tax people, etc) are best placed in Douglas because the public transport and road networks understandably converge there. Most Government staff do not work administrative roles in Douglas. The Department of Home Affairs, for example, has somewhere in the region of 530 (full-time equivalent) employees, but only 18 of them work in administration in Douglas. Its a similar story with all the other departments really.

 

As for re-installing a Douglas-Peel train line, that would constitute a major capital project. Given the small returns likely, it would be a very poor investment and would probably take relatively few cars off the road. Ultimately, it just isn't well placed to serve commuters, as the line is often too far from homes, which are understandably built near the roads. If those with practical access to buses used (ie. most of the people living on or near Peel road - wait, which gets most congested in the mornings?) them, we would have a much stronger solution. Buses are much cheaper to run, don't require huge capital investment and can operate on our current infrastructure. They are more environmentally friendly too.

 

As WTF, points out, Douglas ultimately isn't a car-friendly town. In fact, this is the case with the centres of most towns in the World, and as a result a lot of them are now banning private vehicles from gaining access.

 

That aside, the obvious flaws in this proposal (not least that traffic along Peel road will still be obstructed, which was the problem all along) have been described in this thread with admirable clarity. I urge all of you to get in touch with you M'aitch Kays.

[WTF]

I know, spend the 4 million relocating the government departments that don't need to be in douglas, out of douglas, reducing conjestion and parking problems considerably.

 

 

As for re-installing a Douglas-Peel train line, that would constitute a major capital project. Given the small returns likely, it would be a very poor investment and would probably take relatively few cars off the road. Ultimately, it just isn't well placed to serve commuters, as the line is often too far from homes, which are understandably built near the roads. If those with practical access to buses used (ie. most of the people living on or near Peel road - wait, which gets most congested in the mornings?) them, we would have a much stronger solution. Buses are much cheaper to run, don't require huge capital investment and can operate on our current infrastructure. They are more environmentally friendly too.

 

 

 

also, the train would cross the road where the problem is!! you may as well stop the traffic for 4 buses instead? YES, bus lanes to give buses unimpeded movement which would make them quicker than driving yourself and more appealing?? you may even get paying customers on them then instead of just geriatric freeloaders and school kids. they could loose less money??

[thesultanofsheight]

I urge all of you to get in touch with you M'aitch Kays.

 

And what will they do?

 

It seems to me the DOT has only one brief, and that is to slowly bring this Island to a standstill. The fact that a £4m plan to rebuild a roundabout has even been submitted as a serious idea says it all - I think most people in positions of responsibility would have gone "f**k that" and put the plans in the bin but not the DOT with its brief to waste as much taxpayers cash on expensive and totally useless projects as it can.

 

As for the guy at the top on the basis of recent events he's clearly untouchable so what is your MHK going to do? He's too busy answering letters about dog sh*t and scratching his arse with a pencil.

[Frances]

convenient if like most you finish work at 17:00 (!) or otherwise have to hang around until 17:45 for a bus which will get me home at twenty to seven. If I drive home in the car I am home just after 17:30, using the bus I'd still be sitting in the bus shelter at that time twiddling my thumbs.

Your quoted times are for a Port St Mary destination from Groves Rd - assuming you can't get the 17:08 express from town arr 1754 then you have a 1715/1720 from Groves Rd to psm 1812 - ok not as fast but somewhat better - obviously a Goves Rd starting point saves 10mins or so of the grind down Peel road - if a bus lane could be provided here then the bus times for all would be greaty improved

[Slim]

Shouldn't the old railway line be re-instated, with commuter trains? £4m would go a long way towards that, and it would take a lot of the traffic off the roads.

 

At the very least, tarmac the whole thing so it can be used by road cycles.

[Keith]

How much does it cost to park all day in Douglas? Do most people have private car parking provided? I'd guess not, but then, I've never worked in Douglas, so I'm assuming most of the 9 to 5 workers park in the car parks at £6 per day (ish)?

 

So on the basis that I may be making a flawed assumption right from the start, it costs people a fair amount to park in the town.

 

1. Build a 'shuttle tram' from Pulrose Bridge into Douglas.

2. Build a 'proper' car park there.

3. Have a bus station there.

 

A. Free tram service running every five minutes back and forth. It doesn't even need to be a manned service, just have CCTV on board. A bit like The Gatwick Airport shuttle between terminal one & two.

 

B. This is paid for by the car park charges for all day parking.

 

C. People who live in Pulrose area have free transport in to town.

 

D. Sort out the stupid Castletown Road/Pulrose traffic lights before there is a serious accident there! Have traffic from Castletown turn right to get to the new car park. Traffic from Peel would turn right at Pulrose Bridge.

 

E. QB can remain the same as it currently is because the traffic has been greatly reduced.

 

One of the biggest obstacles regarding giving up cars is the ease and freedom to load shopping etc and not be dependent upon others for times of travel. A shuttle that is central removes the need to wait long or carry shopping a long distance so removes some of the barriers. A clean, safe, frequent service that could even be integrated, will encourage people to voluntarily give up their cars for the last part of the journey. With some design thought, it could even be made so that shopping trollies could be taken on board (again, think Gatwick and luggage trollies) Apart from the key commute times there would be space, so 'no trollies between 4:45pm and 5:30pm' for example.

 

Sorted!

[Tempus Fugit]

I wonder if DoT have thought of setting up a 'play area' somewhere like Jurby airfield where they can mock-up a full size layout of what they are planning and then try getting a bunch of HGVs and cars to actually use it before they go digging up the countryside, then they would be able to make lanes wide enough and radii wide enough to allow vehicles to use it without having to use two lanes and bodging the thing later with cones, bollards and red circles !

[Keith]

I wonder if DoT have thought of setting up a 'play area' somewhere like Jurby airfield where they can mock-up a full size layout of what they are planning and then try getting a bunch of HGVs and cars to actually use it before they go digging up the countryside, then they would be able to make lanes wide enough and radii wide enough to allow vehicles to use it...

 

What a good idea!

 

bodging the thing later with cones, bollards and red circles

 

...although the Governers Bridge roundabout could be sorted tomorrow with a can of the non-slip paint.

 

Paint a solid white line around the red circle.

Paint solid 'diagonal' lines over the red circle.

 

We now have a 'diagonal stripes with a solid border' road marking. Crossing here is an offence. Have the traffic police sit there for a couple of days issuing tickets and the problem will be sorted. And it won't cause a problem during TT!

[manshimajin]

In a sensible world a major project like this should be evaluated against the alternatives.

 

For example it would be great to see the DOT come up with a document that identified the public transport improvements that could be made for £4 million and their economic value, versus the economic value of the benefits that will be generated by spending £4 million on the QB roundabout (and factoring in the costs that will be caused by delays during its construction).

 

But then that is is in the real world isn't it...I am not sure if MHK's understand economic value - presumably they do so should be able to ask for this sort of evaluation before agreeing to spending taxpayers' money.

[StuartT]

And I SO wish that just a little of the money had been spent sorting out the old railway line from Peel to Douglas so that it could be used as a cycleway.

 

Shouldn't the old railway line be re-instated, with commuter trains? £4m would go a long way towards that, and it would take a lot of the traffic off the roads.

 

Not possible. When the line was lifted, the energy lines and pipes were put in underground as it was a cheaper option. Putting them overhead and re-instating the line would cost far in excess of 4m.

 

Forward planning can be a hell of a thing - especially when you only have 5 years to do it in. Apparently.

 

Hardly, there is a gas pipeline underneath the Port Erin Line, as well as the Iris Scheme. That doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

Also forward planning, this is precisely why we need a railway network - something independant of the roads which will not get snarled up. It would also allow you to get heavy goods vehicles off the road totally, only a good thing in the IOM - something which a busway would not.

 

Incidentally anyone who has actually looked at public transport in the long term and in the wider world would appreciate that tramways, and light railway are used to a far greater extent by commuters than specialist busways. Of those places which used Busways as an alternative to tramways and light railways, many of them are converting them into tramways as a more viable long term solution, and have chosen not to extend their busways.

 

As for the railway or any other public transport system not paying - possibly not in the current economic climate and with the current line of thinking. That is precisely why we need the carrot and stick approach - to give a suitable competitive long term solution to traffic problems - and a stick of making it prohibitively expensive to use motor cars in order that the system will be paid for in the long term.

 

The place for buses would be in a town which eliminated cars from their streets, and to act as a feeder for the railways. Not as a long distance form of transport on already clogged roads.

 

One of the excuses used to justify not using the railways as a commuter system was the cost of specialist rolling stock built to manx loading gauge and for the 3ft gauge track. In the case of the Ramsey and Peel lines, there is no reason why they could not be relayed to standard gauge and ran using modern 2nd hand stock from the UK. If this was a sucess then the option could be considered for the Port Erin Line too, with the 3ft kept as a 3rd rail for enthusiasts specials.

 

Of course the car bound manx people just keep looking in the short term for any excuse to keep themselves in their cars, rather than come up with a long term future alternative which could last for 100+ years rather than 10.

 

As for the railway being a problem at QB, not necessarily as you could always build an over pass (with a bridge/under the railway), but if you were sucessful in discouraging car use sufficiently then it wouldn't really be a problem. And if it irritates a few more motorists having to wait for trains to come through, then that can only be a good thing as it would make it more inconvenient for them to use their cars.

 

Yes you need the carrot, but it is plain to see from the attitudes of a lot of posters, you also need a stick. Of course most of you appear to be unable to think in terms of anything except the short term and along current lines, rather than outside the box.

[Tempus Fugit]

In a sensible world a major project like this should be evaluated against the alternatives.

 

For example it would be great to see the DOT come up with a document that identified the public transport improvements that could be made for £4 million and their economic value, versus the economic value of the benefits that will be generated by spending £4 million on the QB roundabout (and factoring in the costs that will be caused by delays during its construction).

 

But then that is is in the real world isn't it...I am not sure if MHK's understand economic value - presumably they do so should be able to ask for this sort of evaluation before agreeing to spending taxpayers' money.

 

I didn't see their favourite word .....consultant anywhere

[Jimcalagon]

convenient if like most you finish work at 17:00 (!) or otherwise have to hang around until 17:45 for a bus which will get me home at twenty to seven. If I drive home in the car I am home just after 17:30, using the bus I'd still be sitting in the bus shelter at that time twiddling my thumbs.

Your quoted times are for a Port St Mary destination from Groves Rd - assuming you can't get the 17:08 express from town arr 1754 then you have a 1715/1720 from Groves Rd to psm 1812 - ok not as fast but somewhat better - obviously a Goves Rd starting point saves 10mins or so of the grind down Peel road - if a bus lane could be provided here then the bus times for all would be greaty improved

 

 

Why would I quote times for PSM (or even be interested in them) when I live in Ballaugh?

[monasqueen]

I didn't see their favourite word .....consultant anywhere

 

There's another £4m gone

[triskelion]

Hardly, there is a gas pipeline underneath the Port Erin Line, as well as the Iris Scheme. That doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

Also forward planning, this is precisely why we need a railway network - something independant of the roads which will not get snarled up. It would also allow you to get heavy goods vehicles off the road totally, only a good thing in the IOM - something which a busway would not.

 

Incidentally anyone who has actually looked at public transport in the long term and in the wider world would appreciate that tramways, and light railway are used to a far greater extent by commuters than specialist busways. Of those places which used Busways as an alternative to tramways and light railways, many of them are converting them into tramways as a more viable long term solution, and have chosen not to extend their busways.

 

As for the railway or any other public transport system not paying - possibly not in the current economic climate and with the current line of thinking. That is precisely why we need the carrot and stick approach - to give a suitable competitive long term solution to traffic problems - and a stick of making it prohibitively expensive to use motor cars in order that the system will be paid for in the long term.

 

The place for buses would be in a town which eliminated cars from their streets, and to act as a feeder for the railways. Not as a long distance form of transport on already clogged roads.

 

One of the excuses used to justify not using the railways as a commuter system was the cost of specialist rolling stock built to manx loading gauge and for the 3ft gauge track. In the case of the Ramsey and Peel lines, there is no reason why they could not be relayed to standard gauge and ran using modern 2nd hand stock from the UK. If this was a sucess then the option could be considered for the Port Erin Line too, with the 3ft kept as a 3rd rail for enthusiasts specials.

 

Of course the car bound manx people just keep looking in the short term for any excuse to keep themselves in their cars, rather than come up with a long term future alternative which could last for 100+ years rather than 10.

 

As for the railway being a problem at QB, not necessarily as you could always build an over pass (with a bridge/under the railway), but if you were sucessful in discouraging car use sufficiently then it wouldn't really be a problem. And if it irritates a few more motorists having to wait for trains to come through, then that can only be a good thing as it would make it more inconvenient for them to use their cars.

 

Yes you need the carrot, but it is plain to see from the attitudes of a lot of posters, you also need a stick. Of course most of you appear to be unable to think in terms of anything except the short term and along current lines, rather than outside the box.

Yet again you astonish us all with your detachment from the real world. Somehow you think the solution to 90 minutes of mild congestion a day is to construct near-useless railway lines. You are suffering dangerously high delusions of granduer. Not only would your scheme cost at least tens of millions of pounds, it would be utterly useless.

 

Firstly, the number of heavy vehicles using Manx roads is tiny, and they do not contribute substantially to congestion. They get in on the Ben either before the morning rush, or after the evening one. To use rail for freight, facilities would have to be constructed for the loading and unloading of containers at Douglas (where the line never reached the linkspan in the first place) and at every other town, at which point they would have to be put on...HGVs. Sending freight by rail may work in Britain where journeys can be 100s of miles and where they actually have a proper rail network, but the Isle of Man only has two tourist lines, which it struggles to keep going as is. Cars cause congestion on the Isle of Man, something buses would reduce.

 

As someone who has looked at (and experienced) public transport in a number of global locations, I can but agree that trams and light rail have a lot to offer residents - of large cities. To say they are used more than buses even there is absurd. However, in small towns like, say, Warrington, buses are used. They are cheap, operate on existing infrastructure (roads), and provision can be made to give them superior access in certain circumstances. There are no actually long journeys on the Isle of Man that would be better served by light rail. Presumably you forsee people taking the light rail to, say, Port Erin, then getting a bus from there? Why not just get the bus (or the xpress bus) to Port Erin? Maybe have some bike lockers at one of the bus stops.

 

I'm not even going to comment on your stupid B overpass idea.

 

Look, your ideas are crazy-expensive, unsuitable and do not even provide a clearly superior alternative. In your world, Manx roads are similar to the M25, but really traffic is not that serious a problem.

 

It is nearly unbelievable that in a thread that questions the value for money in a £4million junction scheme produces a response like this that would cost 10s if not 100s of millions of pounds, yet provide few obvious benefits, and still not be more convienant than a private automobile. Next.