What's it like round your neck of the woods?
Up here we have the ongoing upgrading of the M60 to a smart motorway. This seems to mostly involve putting up mile after mile of protective barriers (metal thingies, presumably because good old fashioned plastic bollards are needed to create problems elsewhere) which means that a car breaking down will have to stay in lane so as to maximise inconvenient impact. There are also these rather curious pictures of a child asking us to take care with how we drive as his dad apparently works on the motorway. All very nice, but it would be even nicer if we could actually observe someone working.
Meanwhile, having made commuting a living hell on the ring road, the powers that be have decided to convert the East Lancs into some kind of bus lane thingy. This means single lane traffic and much congestion. Once one gets towards the centre of Manchester, it is nigh on impossible to traverse the city centre due to random road stoppages due to further road works. One case is the filling in of the sink hole along the Mancunian Way. For some reason, this has taken a couple of months and now (my friendly cabbie told me) they will have to do it again as they have tested it and it isn't stable enough.
Why not go on public transport then? The trams are a fine fettle of fish. It apparently will take another year for them to complete a new 200m long stretch of track laying - mostly across a piece of land near the town hall which had had a huge amount of money and time spent on it making it a pleasant park type feature less that 2 years ago. At least the trains run OK? Well, not northwards they don't as they need to stop running in the evenings whilst they upgrade a 200m long tunnel near to Bolton. This has taken 6 months or so and should be completed by the end of October; this currently requires the closure of the A666 St Peter's way from 8pm overnight for inexplicable reasons. I need hardly tell you that the prescribed detour has roadworks along its stretch too.
The question one has to ask relates to joined-up thinking. Is it really beyond the wit of mankind to realize that when one major artery of transport has to be interrupted then it's a jolly good idea not to allow others to be dealt the same fate simultaneously?
Up here we have the ongoing upgrading of the M60 to a smart motorway. This seems to mostly involve putting up mile after mile of protective barriers (metal thingies, presumably because good old fashioned plastic bollards are needed to create problems elsewhere) which means that a car breaking down will have to stay in lane so as to maximise inconvenient impact. There are also these rather curious pictures of a child asking us to take care with how we drive as his dad apparently works on the motorway. All very nice, but it would be even nicer if we could actually observe someone working.
Meanwhile, having made commuting a living hell on the ring road, the powers that be have decided to convert the East Lancs into some kind of bus lane thingy. This means single lane traffic and much congestion. Once one gets towards the centre of Manchester, it is nigh on impossible to traverse the city centre due to random road stoppages due to further road works. One case is the filling in of the sink hole along the Mancunian Way. For some reason, this has taken a couple of months and now (my friendly cabbie told me) they will have to do it again as they have tested it and it isn't stable enough.
Why not go on public transport then? The trams are a fine fettle of fish. It apparently will take another year for them to complete a new 200m long stretch of track laying - mostly across a piece of land near the town hall which had had a huge amount of money and time spent on it making it a pleasant park type feature less that 2 years ago. At least the trains run OK? Well, not northwards they don't as they need to stop running in the evenings whilst they upgrade a 200m long tunnel near to Bolton. This has taken 6 months or so and should be completed by the end of October; this currently requires the closure of the A666 St Peter's way from 8pm overnight for inexplicable reasons. I need hardly tell you that the prescribed detour has roadworks along its stretch too.
The question one has to ask relates to joined-up thinking. Is it really beyond the wit of mankind to realize that when one major artery of transport has to be interrupted then it's a jolly good idea not to allow others to be dealt the same fate simultaneously?