See second letter from Adam Reynolds – “Unique insight into why link road won’t work” – printed below:
”
Unique insight into
why link won’t work
Richard Luetchford, whose letter
described the long-delayed A36/
A46 link road as unfairly derided,
should have attended the excellent
council-hosted Bath Hacked Hack-
athon held last year that enabled
multiple groups to analyse two
weeks of traffic data collected using
45 automatic number plate cam-
eras at the beginning of November
2017.
The base-load of London Road is
around 1,800 vehicles per hour
(VPH) and peaks at around 2,200
VPH in the weekday morning rush
between 7am and 9am. During this
period around 45 vehicles per hour
are the A36/A46 through traffic. So
one vehicle every three minutes
heading east and one heading
west. The peak time is 2pm to 3pm
where it reaches 60 VPH, or one
every two minutes each way.
In contrast, the Batheaston Toll-
bridge is coping with 120 VPH dur-
ing the morning rush hour, drop-
ping off during the day and peaking
at 130VPH at 4pm to 5pm.
The argument that we need a
£120 million bypass to be built in a
structurally unsound valley really is
nonsensical when it is only two per
cent of the traffic on London Road
during the peak hour.
As a side note, the peak time for
HGV A36/A46 through traffic is
6am to 7am, with eight VPH east
and 11 VPH west.
The council should be praised
for the way it has uniquely worked
with Bath Hacked to make the traf-
fic data publicly available. The data
captures 3,467,856 movements of
384,594 vehicles over a two-week
period. It is an amazing study of
Bath traffic. It provides us with an
opportunity to really understand
why a link road will not solve Bath’s
transport problems.
As to the East Park and Ride,
Richard should read the analysis
UWE did on the origin of park and
ride users. The Newbridge Park
and Ride is primarily used by Keyn-
sham residents. Residents with
good, but expensive, public trans-
port links to the city. The city does
not need more park and ride park-
ing but simply needs to offer park
and ride ticket pricing on Cor-
sham/Frome/Keynsham/Radstock
buses to the city. Call it “leave (at
home) and ride”. I’d go so far as to
suggest the park and ride should be
slightly more expensive than taking
a bus from Radstock. We do not
need a park and ride on the east
side of Bath. We need an attractive
public transport solution.
Adam Reynolds
Bath
Citizens treated
