11 March 2008

Road Planning, or lack thereof

| papadoc
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In the spirit of town planning gone haywire WTF is up with Belconnen Way in the morning? A seemingly basic trip from Holt to Civic see’s me leaving work almost an hour early because of the super intersection courtesy of the new GDE (Which reminds me, are the governmen gonna release some sort of user guide for that monstrosity?).

2 Lanes go into 3 plus a turning lane, those 3 form into 2, which turns into 3 again then back down to 2 all within about 1km. Traffic gets backed up from the super intersection to Canberra High, then thins out once you get through it, only for it to back up from the University turn off.

I’ve lived in bigger cities with better traffic flow, surely Mr. Stanhope can configure it so I can get to bloody work on time one day this week!

(And if anyone tells me to ride a bike, I’m 105kgs, I feel guilty enough eating KFC and watching the other fatties on the Biggest Loser every night.)

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Ride a tricycle in that case, less strain on the rear bearings. That will get you past those traffic. Plus after riding on the roadway lane for a bit you can switch to a nice bit of scenic multi-purpose (i.e. cyc/ped) track

anno17, the poit is that a planned city shouldn’t have the same planning issues that say Sydney and Melbourne have. Roads and other infrastructure should and for some reason haven’t been designed to cope. Maybe the planners need to play with simcity for a while.

But we used to live in a city 5 years ago too, and yet the roads worked well.

Canberra is expanding and the roads are not keeping up, and nothing much is being done about it. How congested do things have to get before we can complain? NRMA have already said parts of the GDE are as bad as Sydney. Yet Canberra is about a tenth the size of Sydney.

I think it’s pretty ridiculous listening to you Canberrans complaining about your roads. Okay, they may not make sense at times and you have some traffic, but coming from a small country city in NSW, your roads are perfect. You take your roads for granted and from what I’ve heard you’re nothing more than whingers. It took me 15 mins to drive from the outer suburbs into the city where I used to live (with a population of around one fifth of Canberra’s). It takes me (with good traffic) around 20 mins to get from outer Belconnen into Civic. Go figure. With bad traffic? Well, I accept the fact that I chose to drive and sit patiently in the queue at the lights. I sometimes let people in too, which apparently you Canberrans don’t know how to do. And, also, I look an awful lot when driving. Obviously not in the ACT Road User’s Handbook. Get over yourselves. You live in a city!!! Traffic congestion and silly planning is normal!!! Get over it.

haha yeah that one looks like it might be interesting.

I drove into a good one in Spain once cant remember which city though. And it was 6 3 or 4 lane roads coming in but in the last 10m or so the lane markings end so the 4 lane traffic all bunch up into 7 or 8 cars wide. I was driving a huge Ford Galaxy van left hand drive with no mirrors. And to make matters worse my girl friend in the passenger seat was crying her eyes out. lol

To really test you.

http://home.san.rr.com/roundabout/english.htm

It could be worse. Our local planners could discover this monstrosity and apply it to the GDE/Belco Way intersection.

First time I drove through that intersection I thought it was all going to be temporary and fixed as soon as they started to build the fly overs. But no they took the cheap option and built one of Australia’s biggest Intersections.

Felix the Cat8:09 pm 11 Mar 08

To the OP, try going up Belco Way from Civic and turn left up Bindubi St towards Jammo and then either rat-run through Hawker or follow Bindubi down to Parkes Way(?) (Kingsford Smith Extension) and then Kingsford Smith Drive or depending what area of Holt you live maybe Drake Brockman Dr.

I’m still trying to work out the logic of building a hugely expensive overpass then putting in traffic lights. It sums up ACTRoads’ admin capabilities nicely.

Yes, it is a cock-up. Building an artery for Gungahlin and bisecting both belco arteries (Belco Way and Gindy Drive) at the same time. Retarded. With the other sets of traffic lights that have appeared on Belco Way over the last few years it is now useless for going any further than bunnings.

As for the GDE intersection, yes, it would have made sense to extend the off ramps and negate the need for traffic lights.

Just stick with the bike riding for at least 2 months, by then you will see some positives and it won’t be so tiring.

Microlight is the way to go. It even releases the CO and NOx and all the other nasties just that little bit higher up in the atmosphere than that silly ground based stuff.

AFAIK, the only hazard is all those bloody baloons trying to be smarmy and land in some greenspace in Barton, since nobody has replied to my ad asking for a Zepellin, I’ll just presume nobody has one of them here.

If they made the GDE dual lane so it could process traffic quicker, that would have been a good start.

el ......Turbo V8 Recumbent Bicycle2:57 pm 11 Mar 08

I’m too lazy to ride, plus being a fatty makes me appear jolly and good natured, instead of just arrogant like I really am 🙂

TAGLINE! That’s GOLD!

If the Government released a realistic user guide to the GDE/Glenloch, it’d say something like “Get a job in Queanbeyan, and live in Jerrabomberra.

The issue here is the Hayden drive intersection and the GDE intersection on Belconnen Way are too close together. Maybe the intersections should be merged into one set of phased traffic lights ?? Or send traffic from Kaleen left onto Ginninderra Drive in the morning then onto the GDE ?? But it is a big mess. The other option is Hayden Drive gets a new left turn before Calvary Hospital that then goes under the GDE and merges onto it into an extra lane south. Our planning people in the government need to play with more scaletrix model car gear to get a clue.

I’m too lazy to ride, plus being a fatty makes me appear jolly and good natured, instead of just arrogant like I really am 🙂

I was 114 when I started riding my bike.

96kgs now.

And I also get to see a lot more pituresque side of canberra stress free….And I still enjoy KFC just that calories in = < calories out.

Holden Caulfield2:02 pm 11 Mar 08

Ride a b… oh. 😉

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