£45m Liverpool City Centre Transport Scheme

[mr t]

RE: £45m Liverpool City Centre Transport Scheme
So if Liverpool One is for south bound and Queen Square is for northbound then how do you transfer between the 2???
Not everyone from the north just wants to go to Queen Square, how do people from the south get to the commercial district everyday? Its a 10 minute walk between the 2, and what if you have a pram, children or disabled? This was the reason the 10s/79s were put through to L1 and a lot of people do use this link. Then we a closure of Mann Island, where do all the buses go that are displaced from here? Which are mostly northern services and not welcome at L1? Where do these drivers and buses go for breaks? Dale Street and Castle Street and Cook Street and Victoria Street are already full.
It basically sounds like they have it in for buses, first lets get rid of bus lanes, lets reduce Dale St, lets reduce Castle Street, lets make North John St 2 way, lets make Queen Square, the busiest bus station in Europe, single file so you cant overtake other buses. Now lets reduce Lime Street even more, block Lime Street outside the Futurist, reduce The Strand, and everything will flow smoothly, honest. Absolute rubbish.
Every single road improvement scheme in town over the last 10 years under the "big dig" and CCMS, was meant to improve traffic flow and help people get from AtoB - the first to complete was outside the Adelphi and then reversing the direction of Skelhorne St the road outside Lime Street Station, and obviously closing the exit arm from Elliot Street across to Skelhorne Street - this used to be the way out of town for traffic, from here onto Copperas Hill and Russell Street, no hold ups at any time at that junction even during peaks, it used to be all free flowing... No lets make all the traffic use the length of Lime Street instead, and which as a result the same traffic now blocks Skelhorne Street waiting to come out, which wants to access the car park and the station, because the traffic lights have sequences of like 2 minutes a set because pedestrian is the new king. This then backs up along Lime Street/St Georges Place junction which also regularly gets blocked, and which was then narrowed from 3 to 2 lanes southbound, and 3 to 1 lane northbound. At the same time lets introduce a bus lane from the Adelphi to Elliot Street, a good idea obviously, but all the traffic that was using this 2 lanes originally was obviously displaced - where to? Oh Copperas Hill, which is also to be used by the traffic displaced from Skelhorne Street, or Great Charlotte Street and Elliot Street, which were used primarily by buses, again free flowing, but no longer. And now they want to close that bit outside Futuritst??? Hmm.
And so it went on - Dale Street 3 to 2 lanes, North John Street - lets make this 2 way theres loads of space, because they didnt want buses using Castle Street outside their town hall - so lets virtually pedestrianise Castle St too because we want lots of pretty street cafes instead. North John Street is way too narrow for 2 lanes of traffic plus 2 lanes of loading/parking, plus 2 pedestrian walkways - if something isnt parked perfectly straight, someone parks outside the hotel there or a van is loading, then it causes gridlock everyday.
Oh and lets also make Tithebarn Street 2way, and reduce that from 3 lanes to 1, with a contraflow bus lane that ended up only being used by 2 buses an hour, and then just the morning peaks because of the congestion it actually caused, leaving all the commuters from the business district trying to get home every night stuck trying to get out of car parks onto the said 1 lane of traffic with no buses around.
Then we come to The Strand - the current layout is not particularly bad, people know it and have got used to it - what is bad is the absolute pi** poor timing of traffic lights at every single junction that keeps traffic waiting for 90-120 seconds while trying to exit L1 bus station, and the car park and James Street/mann Island, and the tunnel exits. This is the root cause of the traffic congestion - when there is little or no traffic, or when all traffic has cleared one arm, they no longer change - they all do the full same sequence day and night regardless of traffic. I raised this with their relevant department to be told there are no problems showing on their systems - so as far as they are aware, every lights is functioning "normally"- even though I gave a list of about 30 junctions across the city, which are all doing the same thing, but never actually used to. It has only started this year, and after one of their computers for them being upgraded one night, failed - you may remember this being in the Echo and radio at the time as all junctions in the morning peak were caught up in the lights doing stupid timings. They have never been the same since, even though they have supposedly restore the original settings - why then do the lights for Queen Square and the car park entrance change all night long when there are no buses or cars in sight?! And why do the lights from Queen Square only let out 4 buses at at time now - someone tweeted this to Merseytravel the other week - their response - you need to ask the council! It is their bus station, they control the buses but just pass the buck as they always do, the same as they moved to Mann Island so can obviously see the mayhem buses have to endure at the junctions down there but nothing has been changed in buses favour, - the only thing they care about is the trains, no money for buses, but lets have new stations here there and everywhere.
So with this New Strand, i really dont hold out any hope - 4 lanes it should be the whole length! We have the 10000 seater arena plus conference arena events - where is this traffic going to down the Strand instead? Traffic still needs to get the car park there, and the Albert Dock, and the Pier Head, and to work, and into the heart of town, nothing they do will ever change motorists routes there is no alternatives except the single file Berry St/Renshaw St/Copperas Hill/Russel St/Seymour Street Which is already bumper to bumper.
Sadly we are victim of our own success - yes we have brought the City Centre back to life, but because literally every building has been brought back to use over recent years, we have endless apartments, hotels, shops and bars/restaurants, new apartment blocks, which all need parking all have deliveries, all need taxis, all have visitors, there is literally no where left for people to park or stop, and thus all these new single lane roads which were "the future" are no longer capable of handling the traffic anymore and most have been built with no requirement for parking included. Hotels were allowed to be built with 1 loading/unloading bay, Not to mention the indiscriminate parking day and night, taxis literally stopping and parking where they feel like, because there is not enough parking attendants and they all know they dont work weekends or nights or go the suburbs, so people can get away with what they want and no on challenges them, motorists sadly have no fear and are mostly selfish. Then when something happens on one of the roads it causes instant gridlock and because of all these hair brained ideas, there is no way of getting around the road.
We need a completely new traffic plan that doesnt include anymore widening of pavements or closing roads because they look prettier to our tourist, we need red routes more enforcement day and night, new bus only roads through the city centre seems as Merseytram didnt happen, so they dont affect normal traffic, we need bus lanes back, and we need every set of traffic lights revisited. Why not make some sort of underground tunnel across the city, from the m62, down to the Strand and the tunnels, and across town. We also need a park and ride site that is widely advertised, used and beneficial, we must be the only city that does not have one, South parkway is good as it gets but is always full and having 20 spaces at Merseyrail stations also doesnt count!