So should Northbourne be green lighted ?

I guess it’s 100’s versus 10’s of thousands, there’s not to many heading north up the GDE in the morning when i’m sitting in the gridlock.

That said, people can still go north, you just join at one of the three joining points. A seriously minor inconvenience for the greater good.

I assume I’m falling into a ‘shadow boxer’ troll trap here, but…

shadow boxer said :

Greenlighting it would provide

A faster commute for cars
A faster commute for buses
A faster commute for bikes and
Improved amenity for the inner north
Sometimes the awesomeness of my ideas amazes even me….

The only benefit would be for Northside commuters heading for the city. You do realise that there are hundreds and hundreds of cars heading north up Northbourne each morning too, don’t you?

If this isn’t a trolling effort, then the selfishness and short-sightedness of shadow boxer astounds me.

wildturkeycanoe said :

How about making all the traffic lights from Civic to my place green 4 hours a day, just because I want to be selfish too!
Please don’t turn Civic into another Sydney centre where you can’t get from one end to the other without “no right turn”, “no U-turn”, “One Way” and “No entry” signs on every street, preventing you from getting to your destination without driving an extra 15km. Think about the visitors to the A.C.T who’d get lost trying to figure out how to get from east to west. You will need one almighty slip lane for traffic wanting to turn right at say Barry drive, or to do u-turn to get back to Mcarthur Ave. Dumb, dumb, dumb idea. You don’t happen to be a traffic engineer at TAMS or ACTPLA by any chance, God forbid??

What a bizarre post, no doubt self interest at play but to address your points.

No right turn during peak hour limits are common all over the world, we have them in Canberra (Moat street into Archibald comes to mind). The world doesn’t stop turning. Local traffic actually benefits from the removal of rat running. Imagine how much better Officer Cr, Cowper St, Miller st and the road past Lyneham shops would flow if they were returned to precdominately local traffic.

The Sydney example is just the opposite of what you are saying, the traffic engineers in Sydney are trying to move massive amounts of traffic through the CBD and have recognised to do this the main arterials need to be allowed to flow and process traffic. This can be inconvenient to the short tripper but the alternative gridlock is worse. This is the tipping point N’bourne is approaching and there are about 20,000 more gungahlin residents about to hit it.

Greenlighting it would provide

A faster commute for cars
A faster commute for buses
A faster commute for bikes and
Improved amenity for the inner north

The trade off is for a couple of hours a day traffic crossing and trying to turn right would have to go up or down a couple of blocks to do it.

Sometimes the awesomeness of my ideas amazes even me….

How about making all the traffic lights from Civic to my place green 4 hours a day, just because I want to be selfish too!
Please don’t turn Civic into another Sydney centre where you can’t get from one end to the other without “no right turn”, “no U-turn”, “One Way” and “No entry” signs on every street, preventing you from getting to your destination without driving an extra 15km. Think about the visitors to the A.C.T who’d get lost trying to figure out how to get from east to west. You will need one almighty slip lane for traffic wanting to turn right at say Barry drive, or to do u-turn to get back to Mcarthur Ave. Dumb, dumb, dumb idea. You don’t happen to be a traffic engineer at TAMS or ACTPLA by any chance, God forbid??

Jivrashia said :

No wait! Instead we should put in place a teleporter …

Way more sensible than the original suggestion.

Northbound, the Antill St lights can barely cope with the current restricted flow. Green lighting would make that intersection really interesting.
Southbound, Barry Drv will also be lots of fun.

I reckon they could have the Northbourne lights flash orange from say 11pm until 6am. There’s very little traffic around at this time and it’s so annoying sitting at the red light waiting for non-existant traffic to go past.

Tunnels work brilliantly in Brussels. I’m sure one would work starting at Antill/Northbourne and emerging at London Circuit.

Here are some better ideas: Catch the bus. Car pool. Start work earlier. Start work later. Or simply accept that getting that many cars into car parking spaces and treating traffic from Belconnen and Tuggeranong equal in dignity means that you folk from Gungahlin get to enjoy the same traffic issues that the rest of Canberra has.

Don’t believe me? Try getting to work along William Hovell Drive any morning.

I normally drive through O’Connor/Turner into the city and onto Comm Ave Bridge to get from my inner north abode to Fyshwick. However, while they are messing around with Ipswich St and the adjacent overpass in Fyshwick I am now commuting along Limetsone, which means I cross Northbourne at Macarthur Ave. So if you can please wait until the the Ipswich St works in Fyshwick are complete that would be great, haha.

Having said that, I understand your pain and I generally avoid Northbourne at all cost if the traffic there is heavy.

Although, the worst traffic lights synchronisation in Canberra—and it has been this way for 20+ years—has to be the stretch from Barry Drive–Cooyong–Ballumbir–Coranderrk stretch along the boundary of Civic/Braddon/Ainslie/Reid.

On a good day you might get through two sets of lights in one go, but never three!

gooterz said :

They should put a tunnel in and have it come out just before city hill. Then at the same time put in light rail!

No wait! Instead we should put in place a teleporter at the south-end of Nthbourne and one at the north of Capital Hill. That way we remove most of the traffic from the accursed circle (Vermon Circle). Of course some vehicles might be vapourised into nothingness and others might end up out of a wormhole in a parallel universe… but that’s a small price to pay.
What? You started it first…

Seriously though can’t we wait to see how the GDE dual-lane plays out first once it is finished? (Oct this year? Urban Myth?) That way the traffic can be diverted to the Gridlock Interchange to everyone’s flabbergastation.