We’ve been asked by a couple of people why the traffic lights at the Downhall Park Way / Rawreth Lane junction in Rayleigh are less responsive than before. Is this deliberate or accidental?
The answer is accidental – the loop that detected waiting vehicles has failed, and we are chasing County Highways to get it fixed.
Am I alone in not seeing the reason for the current temporary traffic light phasing at the DPW/Rawreth Lane junction? As far as I can see there is planty of room to operate the temporary lights so that the traffic in Rawreth lane can go through in both direction at the same time. The current 3 way phasing is causing huge disruption.
We’ve just asked the question to County Highways…
why are your headings showing 2009.. come along catch up !!
That’s because ST1 left a comment on an item from 2009 !
Yes, sorry for that, I tried looking for a posting for the DPW traffic lights so my comment would appear against a relevant topic. There must be something newer, but the search I did threw up a load of old posts.
Agreed. This is probably deliberate to slow the traffic to a snails pace to protect the workers, all well an good, but they are not present during the worst of the rush hours at each end of the day! Also – 4 weeks to do this work?? Is it not just removing the old ones – 1 day / Re-wiring – 2-3 days and then putting the new lights in and reparing the road – 4 days tops?? Plus a day for any road painting…. We keep hearing about all the cuts effecting children and hospital, surely councils have got to start tendering this sort of work properly. In the real world this would be a week’s work at the appropriate costs!
Sorry if this also looks like a step back in time, but I have to whole heartedly agree with ST1. The current 3 way phasing on the DPW/Rawreth Lane is causing BIG traffic queues. Hopefully those running these works can give it some consideration to changing the traffic light sequence. It would be a great help to me, a local resident, and those who regularly use Rawreth Lane.
It really is poor planning by certain individuals to deliberately create traffic jams in Rawreth Lane. The traffic can easily pass both sides if they moved the traffic lights 3 feet on to the verge. There is no reason for them to block off a single lane. If I am travelling west on Rawreth Lane I cannot turn right into my drive because the cars are all backed up so to avoid creating a further jam I have to drive up to Asda to turn around and if I’m lucky I might get to join another queue. I’m sure the ‘‘Elth & Safety Guv’’ brigade must have been up all night thinking of how they could hack us off even more then they have already done so in the last few years of driving around Rayleigh.
And what happens when/if Watery Lane closes because of all the rain today and over the next few days? Oh Joy.
Admin, Did you get a reply from County Highways or did they promise to come back just after it’s all finished.
BTW in my post I meant travelling east on Rawreth Lane not west. You see I’m so confused that I don’t even know which way I’m going!
Had a acknowledgement, I expect I’ll get a full answer next week.
Do road works require planning and approval? I would have thought so. Having just driven down Rawreth Lane – we have the the traffic light changes at the junction of DPW (mentioned above) and what seems to be gas works at the other end. How can this be? There doesn’t seem to have been much planning on this occasion. If these new gas works were an ’emergency’ I could understand. My wife has just travelled home from Chelmsford – a total of 30 minutes. 15 minutes from Chelmsford to Rawreth Lane and then 15 minutes to travel the mile or so down Rawreth Lane.
If these were planned, then the “Planners” and “Approvers” need to made to drive Buses or Taxi’s in Rayleigh for a week!! Rawreth Lane was ridiculous last night and then just as I approaching Makro’s at 6.50pm, 2-3 cars collided causing even more chaos!
Watery Lane wasn’t far off being fully flooded at 6pm tonight (Wednesday), it could ba a bad day getting to work tomorrow?
Looks like the temporary lights out of DPW are stuck on red today, people are having to drive through while the light remains on red. Traffic eastbound on Rawreth Lane is queueing from the 50mph limit, and queues on Downhall Road are back past the Lakeside turning (although I think these queues are the norm since the lights have been there).
Tried to contact RDC, but no one answers the phone on a Saturday, and don’t know if it constitutes a call to the emergency line at the moment.
ST1, just been having a look (4:30 pm) , lights weren’t working at all, traffic flowing smoothly !. Had a chat with an engineer on site – he’d been called out because a cable had been snapped (I’m not sure how). The cable will be fixed soon….
The good news is that the new crossing shoudl be working by Wednesday, everything off site by the end of the week.
Chris, thanks for the update. It was about mid-day when I first drove through the junction. Because of the ridiculious queues I ended up parking my car at the bottom of Deepdene and walking home. When I collected my car later I saw the engineers repairing the temporary lights, must have been around 5:30 – 6:00pm.
Strange how these things seem to run better when the traffic lights are out, I’ve experienced a similar effect when the lights at the Weir have been broken.