Thank you Network rail and Thatcham level crossing Options

[Cognosco]

start from the other end then - how much money do you believe it is worth spending to relieve the grid lock then lets see what can be be delivered for the money.

How much is it costing, such as lost revenue, because people are avoiding Newbury because of the gridlock? How much is it costing people in the extra fuel costs and time etc. etc.?
As others have been stating unless this is discussed and all options investigated then look forward to say 10 - 15 years time when all the green space has been built on and it is too late to have any options left?
It is not only the Thatcham level crossing that needs discussion it is the whole infrastructure for the area for a longer time span than the next election which currently happens at present it would seem?
As a Council spokesperson stated a new junction on the A339 for the new Faraday Road development would not cause any significant new hold ups?
What like the Sainsbury's roundabout does not have any significant hold up?
If this is the standard thinking that our Councillors are capable of then perhaps they could suggest packing an overnight bag to assist getting across Newbury if you are unfortunate enough to have to travel?

[blackdog]

How about another alternative - build a rail bridge.

A road bridge has to cross rail, canal and river all in a small distance. A rail bridge just has to cross a road.

A road bridge requires a lot of land either side to create the gradient to take it to the necessary height - as would a rail bridge - but the rail bridge option could build the gradient on the existing rail track footprint.

Okay the railway would need to close for a few months (they've closed enough roads for months at an end, maybe it's their turn).

And yes Thatcham Station would need some major modification.

Is it as stupid an idea as it seems?

[spartacus]

How about another alternative - build a rail bridge.

A road bridge has to cross rail, canal and river all in a small distance. A rail bridge just has to cross a road.

A road bridge requires a lot of land either side to create the gradient to take it to the necessary height - as would a rail bridge - but the rail bridge option could build the gradient on the existing rail track footprint.

Okay the railway would need to close for a few months (they've closed enough roads for months at an end, maybe it's their turn).

And yes Thatcham Station would need some major modification.

Is it as stupid an idea as it seems?

It's your turn to have been sipping on the turps.... or is this just a mischievous tweak to try and get biker1 to come out of hiding and make a comment about railways?


By comparison to this suggestion the road bridge would be the cheaper option even if it was built on gold pillars. The on/off ramps for a new road bridge would be measured in a few hundred metres. Re-grading (completely rebuilding) a high-speed strategic rail link between London and the west of England, which has high volume of rail traffic both freight and passenger would be an enormous undertaking and to get the necessary over bridge height would need the gradient change to start several thousand metres away in either direction. And all those bridges and railway platforms and sidings and level crossings in between would be out of height too.

Straight out of the Ministry of Silly Ideas that one.

Great tactic though. Put something forward so far-fetched that the bridge option becomes more realistic (by comparison)

[Rdg]

How much is it costing, such as lost revenue, because people are avoiding Newbury because of the gridlock? How much is it costing people in the extra fuel costs and time etc. etc.?

I am agreeing with you but saying moneterise that so we have a number to start from - what is the per year/decade cost inc opportunity cost in your mind

[Simon Kirby]

How about another alternative - build a rail bridge.

...

Is it as stupid an idea as it seems?

I think it's a possibility. As you say, I think the closure of the line would be problematic, but it is an interesting idea.

[spartacus]

How much is it costing, such as lost revenue, because people are avoiding Newbury because of the gridlock? How much is it costing people in the extra fuel costs and time etc. etc.?

More of the businesses in the town, whose workers are helping to contribute towards the town's 'gridlock', need to work smarter and even more need to adopt working from home practices or flexi start and finish times to the day if it's all such a problem. It's all well and good moaning about the traffic but 90% who pour out of the Hambridge Lane businesses and various Bone Lane and Kennet Side businesses could probably help matters and remove some of the holdup on Hambridge Road if they didn't ALL swarm out of their offices bang on 5pm.

It's always "The idiot in front is holding me up" (while the driver in the car behind is thinking exactly the same thing). Start at 10am finish at 6pm (or early start early finish). There's just not enough of it.


Newbury is also in that (un)fortunate position of being a busy, thriving town yet it's too small for a Park & Ride scheme to be viable.

[Simon Kirby]

start from the other end then - how much money do you believe it is worth spending to relieve the grid lock then lets see what can be be delivered for the money.

I would suggest that £80M is a reasonable figure to think about, and that we shouldn't just be talking about a rail bridge but an eastern by-pass. Spread the cost over 30 years and the 50 thousand households that would benefit (or more specifically, households that would suffer for the lack of adequate infrastructure if we don't invest), and that's £50/household/year. We'd get more prosperity and value from that investment than we currently get from other local taxation that I could mention.

[spartacus]

Apparently WBC haven't even got the cash to fit cameras to the Robin Hood lights; so no chance for a real project. It also makes much better economic sense, they don't need to employ expensive engineers, just a few clerks.

If it's a real problem there then the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership should dig into their huge war chest of goodies and install one. They are absolutely flush with funding from the various fixed and mobile speed camera sites they operate and if it was a site where the problem was significant and could be justified they should install. Any fines would after all go back to their coffers regardless of who installs.

Why then should WBC fund it?

Yes, drivers are jumping the lights but to date I don't think there have been a great number of accidents there resulting in anything other than bent metalwork and some airbags going off perhaps.

Truvelo Red Light Safety Cameras cost in the region of £65,000 or more. I'm not sure how many council tax payers would be so supportive of that amount being spent on a single camera when other public services are going to be getting funding cut and may be withdrawn over the next year.

[Andy Capp]

I think councillors are only interested in fairly short initiatives they can put their name to. There needs to be a strategic long term plan for a distribution route, before it all gets built on. For an example of not having one, just look at Reading.

When all routes are fine then Newbury doesn't have a real traffic problem. The problem starts when the wnkrs at Network Rail decide to spend 10 years to build a poxy little bridge and the wnkrs at SSE decide to successfully apply for the Brimpton Road to be shut at the same time. All you need is the Newbury bypass to be shut, or Thatcham barriers to fail, or a drain to flood, then Newbury and Thatcham is fkd.

[Andy Capp]

If it's a real problem there then the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership should dig into their huge war chest of goodies and install one. They are absolutely flush with funding from the various fixed and mobile speed camera sites they operate and if it was a site where the problem was significant and could be justified they should install. Any fines would after all go back to their coffers regardless of who installs.

Why then should WBC fund it?

Yes, drivers are jumping the lights but to date I don't think there have been a great number of accidents there resulting in anything other than bent metalwork and some airbags going off perhaps.

Truvelo Red Light Safety Cameras cost in the region of £65,000 or more. I'm not sure how many council tax payers would be so supportive of that amount being spent on a single camera when other public services are going to be getting funding cut and may be withdrawn over the next year.

Hear, hear; agree all the way!!! Notwithstanding those wnkrs at TVSR are about to get another £100.00 from my Newbury pub beer-supping fund shortly.

[Rdg]

I would suggest that £80M is a reasonable figure to think about, and that we shouldn't just be talking about a rail bridge but an eastern by-pass. Spread the cost over 30 years and the 50 thousand households that would benefit (or more specifically, households that would suffer for the lack of adequate infrastructure if we don't invest), and that's £50/household/year. We'd get more prosperity and value from that investment than we currently get from other local taxation that I could mention.

80m mortgage over 30 years at 3% is a repayment of £337k per month so £7 per household per month or £86 per year (assuming the historically low 3% stays)

[Cognosco]

80m mortgage over 30 years at 3% is a repayment of £337k per month so £7 per household per month or £86 per year (assuming the historically low 3% stays)

Perhaps it may of been wiser to not have given away half of Newbury to Developers for a pound then and not bother with redeveloping the Faraday Road site as we don't have the infrastructure to cope with it. It's a case of what comes first the chicken or the egg isn't it?
If Newbury has to expand then it needs the infrastructure and the facilities to cope with the expansion or what is the purpose of the expansion? Except to create a larger Local Authority empire of course!

[Cognosco]

More of the businesses in the town, whose workers are helping to contribute towards the town's 'gridlock', need to work smarter and even more need to adopt working from home practices or flexi start and finish times to the day if it's all such a problem. It's all well and good moaning about the traffic but 90% who pour out of the Hambridge Lane businesses and various Bone Lane and Kennet Side businesses could probably help matters and remove some of the holdup on Hambridge Road if they didn't ALL swarm out of their offices bang on 5pm.

It's always "The idiot in front is holding me up" (while the driver in the car behind is thinking exactly the same thing). Start at 10am finish at 6pm (or early start early finish). There's just not enough of it.


Newbury is also in that (un)fortunate position of being a busy, thriving town yet it's too small for a Park & Ride scheme to be viable.

I admit I don't very often go into town and have no real experience of the local traffic apart from the weekends, which is why I avoid Newbury town centre, but on the day that it took 1 hour 45 minutes to do what should have taken approx ten minutes was a Wednesday and it was mid morning so no peak period involved.

Park and ride would not be of any use to people like myself who live in Newbury and have to travel across town for whatever reason by car though would it? To basically travel across Newbury and to take a couple of hours out of the day I can fully understand why businesses and visitors may very well be deterred!

[Simon Kirby]

80m mortgage over 30 years at 3% is a repayment of £337k per month so £7 per household per month or £86 per year (assuming the historically low 3% stays)

You're right I'm sure, but to an order of magnitude we're talking about £100/year, so quite a bit of money. At this stage all I'm really arguing is that there should be an informed public debate, and it might well turn out that a full cost-benefit analysis shows that the lack of an eastern bypass just doesn't cost us enough to warrant the cost of the bypass, but that's not obviously right and as the cost and difficulty of the bypass increases every year we delay I would like to see that public debate advanced.

[x2lls]

If it's a real problem there then the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership should dig into their huge war chest of goodies and install one. They are absolutely flush with funding from the various fixed and mobile speed camera sites they operate and if it was a site where the problem was significant and could be justified they should install. Any fines would after all go back to their coffers regardless of who installs.

Why then should WBC fund it?

Yes, drivers are jumping the lights but to date I don't think there have been a great number of accidents there resulting in anything other than bent metalwork and some airbags going off perhaps.

Truvelo Red Light Safety Cameras cost in the region of £65,000 or more. I'm not sure how many council tax payers would be so supportive of that amount being spent on a single camera when other public services are going to be getting funding cut and may be withdrawn over the next year.

Accidents?

[Andy Capp]

Accidents?

Wiki says: An accident is an incidental and unplanned event that could have been prevented had circumstances leading up to the accident been recognized, and acted upon, prior to its occurrence.

[spartacus]

Accidents?

Plod still call them RTAs even if the correct term is collision. Red light cameras won't stop the ignorant or unwary drivers jumping lights and causing 'collisions', it just means TVSRP tills will go 'ker-ching!'

If a camera is installed as a 'preventative measure' for the 'unplanned event' at RH and a collision still occurs it doesn't suddenly make that a deliberate act. In most common parlance it would have been an 'accident'.

[Turin Machine]

Perhaps Thatcham residents should have been slightly more careful what they wish for?
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/news/16...-700-homes.html

[On the edge]

Perhaps Thatcham residents should have been slightly more careful what they wish for?
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/news/16...-700-homes.html

Or then perhaps our local politicos should have listened a bit harder!

It seems someone has pinched the UKIP crayon doesn't it. How odd, that for years we've been fed that cost, overweening technical difficulties and geographic considerations make a bridge an utterly impossible dream. Yet when a nice development plan gets dropped down, not one, but two bridges become a straightforward practical reality.

Let's face facts, if we are brutally honest, Thatcham and Newbury are really a cohesive whole. A new town has been created by stealth. That was always the plan, even 40 years back. The sooner our local government and thinking catches up with that the better. The political failure to recognise the reality of this has meant that the local infrastructure hasn't kept up with developments and what has been done is no longer fit for purpose.

What we have here is simply the latest manifestation of the real vision for Greater Newbury.

[The Hatter]

It's a good idea, I can't see any problems with this, the new houses are near the station so it will be easy for the people to get to work.