What do you think about the Gungahlin Drive improvements?

montana said :

chewy14 said :

montana said :

chewy14 said :

“People coming from Palmerston, Nicholls, Ngunnawal seem to be getting screwed over. They now have to wait for an extra traffic light cycle being put in for the wells station to GDE exit lane.”

How so? Surely the left turn green will only operate when people are turning right from Wells Station onto GD or turning right from GD to Wells Station. There won’t be an extra cycle, it will fit into the existing cycle.

What about outside of peak hour?

Currently if there are no cars turning right onto GDE from wells station, nor any cars turning right from GDE into wells station, they would have green lights, but now they might get a red light needing to wait for cars turning left from wells station.

The only reason why they HAVE to make new traffic lights there is because its going to be 2 lanes turning left in order to fit more cars in. But why not make the exit lane longer, therefore fitting in more cars?

No, they won’t have to wait. The new left turn lights from Wells Station onto the GDE will be signalised so that it is only green when the right turners from GD to Well Station have a green or the right turners from Wells Station to GD have a green. There won’t be an extra cycle for those left turners, they’ll simply fit it into the existing cycle with two left turn lanes.

Did you actually read anything that I wrote? I can see that you merely repeated yourself.

So you’re saying that if im driving from wells station at 2am and want to turn left on GD, I have to wait there at the red lights until someone comes along to turn right from either wells station or GDE?

As I said, there will be 3 possible triggers to make the southbound GDE lights turn red. Currently there are only 2 (not including pedestrian triggers)

Yes I did repeat myself because it looked like you simply didn’t understand what I’d written.

You claimed that people from Nicholls, Palmerston and Ngunnawal were getting screwed over somehow by the inclusion of these lights. The only time this could possibly apply is if they had an extra cycle of time for the left turners from Wells Station to GD during peak periods.

I’ve said that the most likely sequencing of the lights will involve those left turners getting a green at the same time as the right turners from GD to Wells or right from Wells to GD. At this time of day there will always be people turning right from GD to wells or wells to GD so the actual time waiting won’t be any longer.

But yes, outside of peak hour, there may be occurences when the only person triggering the light is someone turning left from Wells to GD and they trip the lights. Are you suggesting that potentially having to wait 30 seconds at a set of lights outside of peak hours is getting “screwed over”?

And can I take a wild guess that you live out in one of these Gungahlin suburbs and don’t want to have to wait the slightly longer period very occasionally outside of peak hours?

chewy14 said :

montana said :

chewy14 said :

“People coming from Palmerston, Nicholls, Ngunnawal seem to be getting screwed over. They now have to wait for an extra traffic light cycle being put in for the wells station to GDE exit lane.”

How so? Surely the left turn green will only operate when people are turning right from Wells Station onto GD or turning right from GD to Wells Station. There won’t be an extra cycle, it will fit into the existing cycle.

What about outside of peak hour?

Currently if there are no cars turning right onto GDE from wells station, nor any cars turning right from GDE into wells station, they would have green lights, but now they might get a red light needing to wait for cars turning left from wells station.

The only reason why they HAVE to make new traffic lights there is because its going to be 2 lanes turning left in order to fit more cars in. But why not make the exit lane longer, therefore fitting in more cars?

No, they won’t have to wait. The new left turn lights from Wells Station onto the GDE will be signalised so that it is only green when the right turners from GD to Well Station have a green or the right turners from Wells Station to GD have a green. There won’t be an extra cycle for those left turners, they’ll simply fit it into the existing cycle with two left turn lanes.

Did you actually read anything that I wrote? I can see that you merely repeated yourself.

So you’re saying that if im driving from wells station at 2am and want to turn left on GD, I have to wait there at the red lights until someone comes along to turn right from either wells station or GDE?

As I said, there will be 3 possible triggers to make the southbound GDE lights turn red. Currently there are only 2 (not including pedestrian triggers)

JimCharles said :

Tony said :

“completed by the end of 2016”

My mind boggles as to why this kind of work takes so long!!!.

Germany would have that done it two weeks working 24 hours a day.
They’d shut the entire road, dig it, run services sequentially, base it, install hardware, lay it, test it, paint it, open it. The biggest wait would be for it to go off.
Two weeks of annoying diversions, then easy street.

Germany not only has good roads and organisation, it also has a good rail system, including trams and light rail in every conceivable size and shape town.

Germany is also doing more than its fair share to reduce carbon emissions and has a well educated and read population that sees the obvious necessity for doing so.

Germany did not waste a decade on inane and knuckle headed debate on the issue and has built a thriving environmentally advanced economy utilising sustainable technology, despite not having our wealth of natural sources of alternate energy.

Germany does not have Tony Abbott. Thankfully now, neither do we.

Tony said :

“completed by the end of 2016”

My mind boggles as to why this kind of work takes so long!!!.

Germany would have that done it two weeks working 24 hours a day.
They’d shut the entire road, dig it, run services sequentially, base it, install hardware, lay it, test it, paint it, open it. The biggest wait would be for it to go off.
Two weeks of annoying diversions, then easy street.

how about finishing the roads in tuggeranong

Any idiot an see it doesn’t address the problem of traffic congestion.
If us idiots can see this, how come the engineers providing the solution can’t?

How about no right turn into sandford for northbound traffic between 7 – 9am, and put a cross-under for cyclists. This should allow the south bound traffic to flow until it reaches the next congestion points at gundaroo drive and glenloch int.

montana said :

chewy14 said :

“People coming from Palmerston, Nicholls, Ngunnawal seem to be getting screwed over. They now have to wait for an extra traffic light cycle being put in for the wells station to GDE exit lane.”

How so? Surely the left turn green will only operate when people are turning right from Wells Station onto GD or turning right from GD to Wells Station. There won’t be an extra cycle, it will fit into the existing cycle.

What about outside of peak hour?

Currently if there are no cars turning right onto GDE from wells station, nor any cars turning right from GDE into wells station, they would have green lights, but now they might get a red light needing to wait for cars turning left from wells station.

The only reason why they HAVE to make new traffic lights there is because its going to be 2 lanes turning left in order to fit more cars in. But why not make the exit lane longer, therefore fitting in more cars?

No, they won’t have to wait. The new left turn lights from Wells Station onto the GDE will be signalised so that it is only green when the right turners from GD to Well Station have a green or the right turners from Wells Station to GD have a green. There won’t be an extra cycle for those left turners, they’ll simply fit it into the existing cycle with two left turn lanes.

chewy14 said :

“People coming from Palmerston, Nicholls, Ngunnawal seem to be getting screwed over. They now have to wait for an extra traffic light cycle being put in for the wells station to GDE exit lane.”

How so? Surely the left turn green will only operate when people are turning right from Wells Station onto GD or turning right from GD to Wells Station. There won’t be an extra cycle, it will fit into the existing cycle.

What about outside of peak hour?

Currently if there are no cars turning right onto GDE from wells station, nor any cars turning right from GDE into wells station, they would have green lights, but now they might get a red light needing to wait for cars turning left from wells station.

The only reason why they HAVE to make new traffic lights there is because its going to be 2 lanes turning left in order to fit more cars in. But why not make the exit lane longer, therefore fitting in more cars?

It’s now a main though-fare, they should be re-jigging the intersection to remove the lights.

I’m with gazket on the east-west problem. Gundaroo-William Slim should’ve been in a duplicated form as soon as Gungahlin was being built initially in the 1990s to anticipate Gungahlin-Belconnen traffic. The Barton highway roundabout needs to be replaced. An overpass is clearly needed for north-south traffic.

I’d argue that an interchange is needed where Gungahlin Dr. overpasses the Barton Hwy to smooth traffic flows and add capacity to what will be a busy area in the coming decades.

I’ve said this before elsewhere on RiotACT. Seagull intersections on all intersections between Barton Hwy and The Valley Ave with appropriate long merging lanes. Signals are needed but we need to smooth traffic as much as possible (Such intersections are used already on Belconnen Way and Ginninderra Drive (Terminus of William Slim Dr. is an excellent example)