Letter: Waitrose Plan – How The York Road Subway Could Be Retained

Published on: 12 Nov, 2012
Updated on: 12 Nov, 2012

From Bibhas Neogi

Further to Bill Stokoe’s letter ‘Waitrose – Planning Assumptions are Wrong’ I would like to add that on street parking bays usually have 30 mins maximum stay, so something along that line may be introduced with steeply increasing rates for longer stay but limited to say 1.5 hours.

In my letter on “Closing the subway – a mistake” , I’ve expressed my views on the possible problems of allowing right turn in and right turn out of the site. I believe the subway could be retained by extending it southwards and only steps provided in conjunction with the pedestrian crossing. The pedestrian crossing then could be operated less frequently to cater for those who need to use a surface crossing and at the same time allow a freer flow of traffic.

I’ve also questioned the need for the conversion of round about near the Police Station into a signalised junction now that the bus station is likely to be relocated out of the Friary.

But retaining this roundabout and creating a turn around facility (quite easily achieved in York Road near the car park), Waitrose site could operate OK with a left turn in and a left turn out only. Doing away with an extra lane for turning right into the site reduces the widening of York Road. Turning right out of the site would be almost impossible most of the time.

Please refer to my letters “Waitrose Traffic and Subway Closure” and “..Closing the Subway A Mistake” for possible solutions that would, I believe,work a little better. The document below shows a sketch of the turning around facility in York Road:

Click on image to enlarge

A round about could be formed to improve traffic flow in York Road. Exit from the car park would be easier and if and when Waitrose site is built, by allowing only left turn in and left turn out of this site, traffic flow would be least affected. Eastbound traffic in York would not be allowed to turn right into Waitrose and instead would turn around at this round about.

Also the problem at the junction of York Road and Stoke Road could be eased, for example, by using this round about. The main problem during peak periods, as I see it, is for traffic wanting to turn right into York Road from Stoke Road but gets usually held up because of through traffic coming down Chertsey Street.

A possible solution would be to make the offside lane in Stoke Road on the approach to the traffic lights into a short bus lane (say, 7am to 10am & 4pm to 7pm) and then traffic on the nearside lane could go either straight ahead or turn left into York Road and then turn around at this round about.

The road layout near the car park could be altered with very little work into a round about. Other factors of course contribute to the congestion in the gyratory and affect the feeders into it. These also require measures to improve flow. Possible measures are described in other sketches at: http://s1130.photobucket.com/albums/m536/Gyratory1/?action=view&current=York_Road_round_about_rev1.jpg