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Letter: More Measures Required to Decrease Town Centre Car Use
Published on: 19 Aug, 2017
Updated on: 18 Aug, 2017
A motorist pays to park in North Street
From Caroline Reeves
Leader of the opposition at Guildford Borough Council and Lib Dem borough councillor for Friary & St Nicolas
In response to:Guildford – One of the Top Ten for Car Park Charges
Is it a good thing that Guildford gets so much income from its car parks, especially given the background of increasingly reduced funding from central government?
The income from the car parks helps to subsidise the council tax levy that we – as Guildford tax payers – would normally be asked to pay by GBC.
Is there a risk that high car park charges and penalties could adversely affect (or is already affecting) Guildford’s shops and businesses?
Guildford is in the top ten shopping destinations in the country and its shoppers don’t appear to be deterred by GBC’s current car parking charges.
At the moment the town is still very busy at weekends and much like most other shopping districts, is quieter during the week, so charges don’t seem to have affected the usage. There may well be a downturn given the current uncertainty across the country, but at the moment trade doesn’t seem to have been heavily affected. We should be very careful not to over commit to new retail in high numbers in the new town centre developments.
Should there be more car parking provision in Guildford, should car park charges be reduced, or, given congestion problems, should other forms of transport into the town be encouraged and developed? (If so, how?)
More parking provision would only encourage more cars into the town. We need more Park & Ride sites (one in north Guildford is long overdue) and considerably better, more frequent bus services, run for more hours, including Sundays, would make it much easier to persuade people out of their cars.
Perhaps a discount travel card for residents living in the town centre or offering more accessible season tickets might help. The decision by SCC to stop the school bus service definitely didn’t help congestion at peak school times.
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Responses to Letter: More Measures Required to Decrease Town Centre Car Use
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Martin Elliott
August 20, 2017 at 12:34 pm
Here’s a novelty. How about a fixed policy/local plan for a traffic scheme for Guildford within a couple of miles of the Town Centre that can cope with the current, and maybe predictable growth of traffic levels. Not just proposed east-west bridges, but also a north-south route, be it tunnels or improved roads and junctions for visitors and better through routes.
Since the 1960s, there have been partial road/junction developments that have left us with a mish-mash of roads, often suddenly changing from multi-lane to single carriageways.
It seems to me, dare I say it, that our local ‘rival’, Kingston-upon-Thames, accepted decades ago it was the meeting of several road routes and modes of transport. With radical closures of main roads and development producing new main routes, despite pinch-points, they have kept business, shoppers and even a university operating and traffic, slowly at times, moving.
Guildford however, in the same period just has longer and longer periods of grid-lock triggered from minor incidents anywhere within four miles of the town centre.
Jules Cranwell
August 23, 2017 at 9:52 am
This is not only a town centre issue. The volume of traffic and consequent pollution across the borough is at dangerous levels. At Wisley, where the council proposes to add over 2,000 new homes and 5,000 cars to our roads, the Wisley Action Group has ascertained that the NOx level is already at illegal levels.
What can GBC do to ensure their local plan doesn’t exacerbate this problem still further and lead to even more illnesses and deaths?
Answer: nothing!
Jim Allen
August 28, 2017 at 9:01 am
The situation is so bad that workmen are arriving in two vans and transferring their kit outside Burpham residencies (causing access problems for local buses) before going to jobs in central Guildford.
It is time the council accepted reality and started thinking rationally and practically about the problems.
Today another south-bound traffic silence at 08.15 as traffic came to a standstill on the A3, prior to entering the two lane section. There were sirens a plenty to keep those caught up amused.
In the 233 days since the beginning of the year, I would estimate that on over 60% of days there has been a jam north- or south-bound at some time, as traffic speeds drop below 10mph.
Something rational needs to be done.
Noting Jules Cranwell’s comments above the pollution levels in Wisley – Burpham’s figures are similar or even higher and we too expect another 3-5,000 additional vehicles.
Bibhas Neogi
July 12, 2018 at 11:24 pm
We are all aware of the traffic problems in Guildford but no solution is apparently in sight. We do not yet know what Highways England is going to propose for the A3 widening through Guildford.
The problem for the A3 southbound traffic exiting at Stoke Road junction is due to blockage on the A25 at Ladymead. Traffic here is southbound for the A281 and the A3100 down to Woodbridge Road junction and traffic heading for the A322, plus southbound traffic for the A3, joining again at the Woodbridge Road junction.
A possible solution would be to have a two-lane tunnel going under Stoke Park, connecting the A25 and the A281 and then further south for the A3100.
At Dennis roundabout, a two-lane one-way local road should connect with the Cathedral roundabout, as suggested by the Guildford Society. Traffic would access the southbound A3 off cathedral roundabout in conjunction with the closure of the existing southbound on-slip at Dennis roundabout.
Widening to three lanes elsewhere between the A31 junction and Stoke Park should ease the overall problem. A dedicated northbound off-slip to the cathedral roundabout could connect with Onslow Park & Ride on its way, thus allowing access off the A3. However, the merge of the A31 and the A3, further south, will require an innovative layout so that no demolition of the two bridges over the A3 is necessary, thus minimising traffic delay during construction.
To create a pedestrian-friendly town centre, it would be necessary to remove the A281 traffic from Millbrook. This could be done using a flyover or it could be put underground. A flyover would totally ruin the character of the town centre, so really the solution is to put it underground. A tunnel would be an expensive solution but a tunnel-like structure could be constructed using what is known as top-down construction.
East-west traffic could be put on a new route over the railway tracks joining Guildford Park Road and Woodbridge Road while the patched up Farnham Road Bridge would continue to carry residual east-west traffic. Negotiation with Solum Regeneration will be required to secure such a route through their development site.
All these ideas are on my website. I appreciate it that it is a lot to take in by non-technical readers. Associated sketches show these ideas and should hopefully make these a little clearer.