Every time I get in the car and make a trip across town at some point in the journey something makes me wonder, who at Bristol Zoo do they let out once a month to come up with the latest road plans for Weston? I might be a little unfair comparing our districts road planners to the residents of the Monkey Jungle but I can think of at least 2 examples of what are possibly the worst junctions in Weston, and I’m going to share with you the reasons that they are.
Malfunction Junction (see map)
Probably the most famous badly designed junction in Weston that received alot of press coverage when it first opened due to the wonderful traffic light programming that was possibly a result of GCSE Electronics project from the work experience student at the time.
Its been several years since the traffic light problems were allegedly resolved, and what is the result? Well this writer being a resident of St. Georges has the dis-pleasure of experiencing this junction several times a day and I can tell you that the traffic lights still let too many or not enough cars through depending on your direction of travel, and lets not forget the annoying two lanes that suddenly disappear before the bridge.
Despite the council’s efforts traffic is still a nightmare at all but the quietest of times, and we are left to suffer with lengthy journey times and many near miss accidents that almost happen every day.
Hutton Moor Roundabout (see map)
Another junction that has become the bain of many Locking Castle residents daily commutes is the Hutton Moor roundabout, built originally as a major interchange across the loop line. Yes you read correctly, if you take a look at our map link you’ll notice that from the roundabout through to Locking Road there is a section of open land either side of the railway, which is owned by the council for a now shelved plan to build a new bridge to replace the current single lane one way bridges that cause traffic bottlenecks during rush hour.
So why is this roundabout such a problem? Because of the missing connection on the north side traffic gathers too much speed which makes it difficult to pull out from Locking Castle, and causes long tail-backs on the approach over the bridge. What is the council proposing to do about it? They plan to move some disused traffic lights from Portishead onto the roundabout to create what we have at Asda, Will it work? I think it will not, the only thing that would sort out the traffic problems here would be to demolish the roundabout and replace it with a traditional slip road junction that you would typically find on a dual-carriageway, or ideally take the new bridge plan off the shelf and solve two problems in one hit.
In conclusion I think our local council needs to take a long hard look at how it plans the local infrastructure and stop playing with the life’s of the people who pay their wages and start employing someone who understands what this town needs.
Matthew Stone is the Editor of the Weston Echo. He is also an established I.T. Professional working for a local database marketing company
The Weston Echo news team is made up of volunteers, most of which have day jobs and dedicate a small amount of time per week to writing about the local subjects that interest them most.
