Just how bad is William Hovell Drive?

Dudes, our traffic is nothing.
At least we don’t live in Sydney.

http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor-news/audis-electrical-fault-brings-sydney-traffic-to-a-halt-20120215-1t4y7.html

I saw the headline for this story and assumed it was reffering to the safety on William Hovell Drive.

To me, it is one of the most dangerous roads in Canberra.

No lighting, fast-moving traffic that has absolutely no lane-dividers, private and public entries that mean cars can simply appear on the roadway, kangaroos basically living on it after dark, most users believing it is actually a 120 zone.

With regards to peak-hour traffic… meh. It’s nothing that 11:30am on a Saturday morning in outer-Sydney wouldn’t throw up.

I’ll give you a bit of consultancy for free. The solution is as follows: more lanes, less traffic lights. Fix the merging of the lanes on parkes way (after the parkway turn off city bound)

William Hovell is fine…except for the choke point at the Drake Brockman Drive roundabout, the choke point of the lane merging near Cotter Road, and the choke point where Caswell Drive merges with William Hovell, then merges with Parkes Way….

That said, it wouldn’t be so bad if Canberrans could merge at full speed and not need to slow to 40km/h to merge.

damien haas said :

Build some MORE roads, that will help with congestion.

Its working. MORE roads. MORE congestion.

arescarti42 said :

Chop71 said :

Problem is only going to get worse with more development in West Macgregor. Fastest growing suburb in Canberra I hear. (Where are you Gungahlin Al?)

West Macgregor is probably nothing in comparison to the 55,000 people slated to live in Molonglo/North Weston, most of whom will probably be accessing the city via Parkes Way west.

Also, fun fact. The 2006 census indicated that only 18.6% of work trips in to the Sydney CBD were by car. In Melbourne, 27.9% of CBD commuters travel to work by car. In Canberra, 69.3% of commuters travel to work in the city by car.

Solution?

Perhaps the greens should merge this traffic problem with this one:
http://the-riotact.com/greens-want-more-social-justice-in-traffic-fines/66189
…and give free public transport to those who can’t pay their fines?? Not that i’m saying such pople are over-represented in west belco….! Hahaha! 😉

Chop71 said :

Problem is only going to get worse with more development in West Macgregor. Fastest growing suburb in Canberra I hear. (Where are you Gungahlin Al?)

West Macgregor is probably nothing in comparison to the 55,000 people slated to live in Molonglo/North Weston, most of whom will probably be accessing the city via Parkes Way west.

Also, fun fact. The 2006 census indicated that only 18.6% of work trips in to the Sydney CBD were by car. In Melbourne, 27.9% of CBD commuters travel to work by car. In Canberra, 69.3% of commuters travel to work in the city by car.

Solution?

Chop71 said :

Or to get William Hovell traffic onto the parkway without having to get into Parkes Way

Often the thing slowing you up if you want to go from William Hovell to the parkway, is people who want to go down parks way slowing both lanes down. The second you make it to the ramp turning to the parkway you are flowing again.

This is why I take Coppins Crossing Rd and cut through Western Creek…

dpm said :

So, basically, a way for Vicki to fix William Hovell traffic would be to make the GDE southbound one lane again. Happy with that??

Or to get William Hovell traffic onto the parkway without having to get into Parkes Way

Problem is only going to get worse with more development in West Macgregor. Fastest growing suburb in Canberra I hear. (Where are you Gungahlin Al?)

damien haas said :

Build some MORE roads, that will help with congestion.

A funnel can only work as efficiently as its narrowest point. Simply building more roads solves nothing, strategically increasing road capacity is the solution to congestion.

Vicki, who actually thought creating the GDE which, when finally finished, would dump more cars (more quickly) into Glenloch would improve traffic congestion on Parkes way? How are they to resolve that? I never saw anything onthe GDE plans about modifying Parkes way?
Anyway, as i’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t matter how efficient you make all the roads into Civic, traffic flow is eventually at the mercy of how fast you can get all these cars off the road and parked when they get there. Dumping more cars at the Canberra carwash roundabout every morning won’t help the overall travel time to work in Civic – just where you spend your time sitting and waiting! 🙂
On a side note, now the GDE is finished, I now see queues of southbound cars every morning exiting it at Belco way, Glenloch, Lady Denman and Cotter road! So it seems to be dispersing Gunners traffic quite evenly! It’s just a pity it affects the William Hovell lanes the most, as it doesn’t have lights to ‘manage’ flows (as we know, when people are left with merging by themselves in Canberra, issues start)! Hahahaha! 🙂
So, basically, a way for Vicki to fix William Hovell traffic would be to make the GDE southbound one lane again. Happy with that??

“It also calls on the government to tell the Assembly and the people of Canberra, particularly those stuck in traffic, what its strategy will be to alleviate the congestion.

Strategy?

Build some MORE roads, that will help with congestion.

Every major road in, and into, Canberra locks up in the morning. What is needed is competant traffic planners. There’s plenty of small works that could be done to improve traffic flow, if someone had a mind to do it. And the capability.