Traffic jam on Drakeford Drive Tuesday 21st July evening

As for taking a different route, Drakeford forms a spine through tuggers, according to the map. workmate lives in Gordon, and apparently the problem wasn’t just navigating Drakeford; crossing it was as big a problem, due the endearing Canberra habit of queuing across intersections. So cross roads blocked up too.

We pored over the map in the yellow pages, and there did not seem to be any way to Gordon without hitting Drakeford around the critical spot.

ant said :

The fact that witches’ hats were out with no apparent reason being a case in point.

Do we actually know that this was the case, other than laughtong’s speculation?

Igglepiggle said :

People whinge for ages about the single lanes and traffic jams, so when the government if finally forking out the cash to fix it, they then bitch about having to put up with roadworks! Priceless!

This.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

So go a different way.

FTR, pretty much all the different ways you could go to try and get around it end up back on this road or at this intersection, barring driving down to Tharwa or somewhere and looping back.

As I said last time someone bitched on here about the roadworks: suck it up. People whinge for ages about the single lanes and traffic jams, so when the government if finally forking out the cash to fix it, they then bitch about having to put up with roadworks! Priceless!
Go and drive in Sydney for a while if you want to have real traffic problems. otherwise put up with it til its done then appreciate the new road. FFS.

I was stuck in it, too. My take on the witches hats that seemed to have no purpose was to get traffic to merge together before hitting the single lane roundabout at Tharwa Drive and Drakeford Drive. I would imagine that it would be worse trying to merge two lanes and the other traffic also coming from Tharwa Drive at the one roundabout.

A lady at work reckoned she spent 1.5 hours in it! And her ankles and feet ache from them being locked in limited motion while crawling forward (manuals are not so much fun in traffic jams).

It seems to me that every time ACT do roadworks (which is often contracted out) the mg’t of traffic is appalling. Teh mess around the airport is what I’m experiencing most often, and soon it’ll be the Russell Kings Ave roundabout works, and they seem to give zero thought to how heavy traffic is to be handled.

The fact that witches’ hats were out with no apparent reason being a case in point.

The Fairbairn/Morshead complex right now suffers from lock-up as intersections reach capacity and traffic backs up and queues across the previous/next intersection.

So go a different way.

There was a traffic jam. It cleared.

The life continued.

…yeah but it looks like this will happen every day for months given that roundabout is about to be overhauled.

“sigh”

richardh9935 said :

….So you admit you don’t have enough coping strategies?

You could:
Talk to the person next to you.
Turn on a radio.
Get out a pencil and paper, and draw something.
Plan dinner.
Plan dinner out.
Look at the scenery.
Count the cars around you.
Categorise them by colour and make.
Count the people around you.
And you can do even more on a bus.
Categorise them by colour and make…..

Don’t some Canberra drivers do this anyway, when traffic is moving normally??

Oh and lol @ Mike Bessenger! Well said!

Aw the joys of being Australian.
When I was living in America it was like that on a good day. =)
You find things to do while sitting in traffic.
However it’s amazing
just how long it takes to fix a km or two of road. I think there are like
two guys working on it this whole last year. Maybe they could Step it up
a little.

richardh9935 said :

….So you admit you don’t have enough coping strategies?

You could:
Talk to the person next to you.

It’s canberra buddy, only one person per car thankyou.

There was a traffic jam. It cleared.

The life continued.

was especially good when i got to the end of the left lane, and the P-plated Commodore in the right lane decided i was not merging in front of him, so he sat on the bumper of the car in front and revved his engine.

ahh the lane was ending knob-jockey, i wasnt trying to push in in front of you.

I love my motorbike in situations like these.

….So you admit you don’t have enough coping strategies? You could:
Talk to the person next to you.
Turn on a radio.
Get out a pencil and paper, and draw something.
Plan dinner.
Plan dinner out.
Look at the scenery.
Count the cars around you.
Categorise them by colour and make.
Count the people around you.
And you can do even more on a bus.
Categorise them by colour and make…..

I was wondering what that was for – it was banked up much longer than usual – thanks to those who let me out at Noorooma to turn right nice to see some generosity. There were lots of Callwell folks rat running through Isabella tonight, I am sure that will continue.

gah, because of it, traffic was almost at a standhill on johnston drive, and even continuing to ashley drive tonight…

epic fail guys.. 🙁

Maybe cut through Bonython instead?

Yeah, I was caught in this too. Ironically, the outer lane was going much faster despite it being the lane that ended because of the witches hats. This also blocked traffic trying to cross over Drakeford to continue down Woodcock.

Took about 15 minutes by bicycle, t’was bliss.

I was stuck in a bus & it took the bus 30 minutes to leave Tuggeranong Interchange & to get to Covenant College.\

You may of noticed that part of the new southside lanes opened today, but for finish off work to be carried out on the intersection, southbound lanes on Drakeford Drive have to merge into one lane before the roundabout. So because it was a continuous flow from Drakeford Drive entering the roundabout, Johnson Drive traffic have a long wait for a gap to open up, so then Johnson Drive traffic builds up.

It looks like this may stay the case for at least the end of the week, bit hopefully things don’t stay like this until the road is competed in mid to late August (my guess). Probably best for Lanyon Drive traffic to use Monaro Highway/Tharwa Drive. With only traffic going from Woden/Tuggeranong to use Drakeford Drive.