Roundabout of Hell

cobberas63 said :

6matt9 said :

For the last few weeks Antill St. has been closed near the BP Service Station on the Highway so people who would normally access Antill from the BP end are now cutting through Watson. I believe that road will be open again by the end of this week. Not sure if that will help things because there does seem to be a lot more cars in the Watson / Dickson area than there used to be. More houses I guess…damn population growth.

Nope. Won’t be open until August at least according to Roundabout for the corner of Antill and Aspinall.

And yes, I too wish people would stop having babies that grow up to put more houses in suburbs and more cars on roads… and then make babies…

August !?…boo-urns.

6matt9 said :

For the last few weeks Antill St. has been closed near the BP Service Station on the Highway so people who would normally access Antill from the BP end are now cutting through Watson. I believe that road will be open again by the end of this week. Not sure if that will help things because there does seem to be a lot more cars in the Watson / Dickson area than there used to be. More houses I guess…damn population growth.

Nope. Won’t be open until August at least according to Roundabout for the corner of Antill and Aspinall.

And yes, I too wish people would stop having babies that grow up to put more houses in suburbs and more cars on roads… and then make babies…

As a Watson resident who uses that roundabout every day – I feel your pain. People are just not aware of what they are doing. And let’s face it…a lot of Canberra drivers struggle to understand the simplicity of roundabouts anyway.

For the last few weeks Antill St. has been closed near the BP Service Station on the Highway so people who would normally access Antill from the BP end are now cutting through Watson. I believe that road will be open again by the end of this week. Not sure if that will help things because there does seem to be a lot more cars in the Watson / Dickson area than there used to be. More houses I guess…damn population growth.

Grrrr said :

Instead of whinging here, organise a visit by the police to the roundabout in question at the time in question. A few fines for blocking the intersection will quickly educate and adjust attitudes. Best of luck.

And can you really do that? I would think that the police would be too busy to take requests…

I have been wanting to get them out to the Knox St school zone to fine some of the idiots speeding through there every morning. In some way I welcomed the increased traffic through that street last week because it made it impossible for cars to drive fast.

I hardly had to slow down at that roundabout this morning. But I leave home after the school drop-off.

When I got to the Antill St/Northbourne intersection however, there were cars queuing across the intersection and completely blocking the North bound traffic on Northbourne! Had never seen that one before. There was a sign at my side indicating that one lane was closed in Mouat St, but the cars acoss the intersection were turning from Northbourne into Mouat, so they were all coming from one lane.

Jethro said :

Mr Gillespie said :

What I’d like to know is why there is so much traffic clogging the roads in question in the first place!!

I would hardly call anything that Canberra offers as ‘so much traffic’. We have it exceptionally easy when compared to most other cities in Australia…

That argument falls apart when you compare Canberra to other cities of a comparable size.

Instead of whinging here, organise a visit by the police to the roundabout in question at the time in question. A few fines for blocking the intersection will quickly educate and adjust attitudes. Best of luck.

Sgt.Bungers said :

1. build a super large, free car park near epic. Light Rail could run into the city from there every 5 mins… or switch a lane of northbourne to a bus lane in peak hours only, and have busses running from EPIC every 5 mins. Gungahlin residents and NSW residents will then be given a viable alternative to driving into the city and paying $12ish for parking.[/quote>

Excellent idea, plenty of land out there to do this too. Combined with a dedicated Northbourne bus lane this would work for all those living in the suburbs between Mitchell through to Civic as well.

.. I thought this topic was about Kings Ave/Russell roundabout, when I first saw the heading…

The Park and Ride at Epic is a very good idea. And in fact at all the entrances to Canberra, from every direction. as more people live outside Canberra and come here to work, there’s a growing customer base for an efficient, well-run Park and Ride. If it’s good, people will use it.

The problem starts at Northbourne Ave… the clogged artery of Canberra’s transport system results in motorists using any other route possible to get to their destination… (just like the body in the case of a clogged blood vesel in a limb).

Commuters coming into Canberra from NSW, down the federal highway, turn into Antil Street at the roundabout in Watson, do a rat run down Madigan and/or Maitland Streets, onto Phillip Ave, where they then get to turn left onto Majura Ave with right of way. The result, those attempting to come out of Watson are also forced to join this rat run, or they’ll be stuck trying to turn right into Majura Ave from Philip Ave, waiting for a rat runner to let them in… the queue of people trying to turn ultimately backs up to your roundabout.

This problem has existed for YEARS, yet never been corrected by our Milton Bradley first government (for ages 3-8, contains small parts)

Solutions to this problem at the Antil St/Phillip Ave roundabout…

1. build a super large, free car park near epic. Light Rail could run into the city from there every 5 mins… or switch a lane of northbourne to a bus lane in peak hours only, and have busses running from EPIC every 5 mins. Gungahlin residents and NSW residents will then be given a viable alternative to driving into the city and paying $12ish for parking.

2. build roundabouts at the Antill/Knox street intersections, and Majura Ave/Phillip Ave Intersections. Those coming in from NSW attempting to avoid the congestion of Northbourne will then have to give way to residents of Watson attempting to leave their suburb, and will also eliminate the rat run through Hacket by forcing left turning motorists to give way to right turning motorists at Majura Ave. Cheaper solution that will keep residents of these suburbs happier, but will still result in many commuters not having an alternative to driving into the city.