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Months of misery on the roads of Walsall will come to an end tomorrow when part of the £17 million Ring Road overhaul is completed.
Lichfield Street, one of the main routes into the town which adjoins the Arboretum Island, is due to reopen after four months.
Its temporary closure has caused headaches for motorists trying to get into the town centre and rush hour journeys have more than doubled on some days.
But tomorrow the cones will be removed and traffic lights switched back on at 1pm. Councillor Anthony Harris, Walsall Council cabinet member for highways, said: “Drivers have been very patient and they are now seeing real changes taking shape.
“It’s worth remembering at this stage that the real benefits of the scheme won’t be felt until the whole of the ring road is open, up and running.”
Motorists have been unable to use the road since March, and have instead been forced to divert along Lower Rushall Street behind Morrisons.
When the junction opens tomorrow it will re-open Lichfield Street. The project got under way in summer 2006, and is seeing the network around the town resurfaced and turned into a dual carriageway.
19 Comments
I suppose now we will see a procession of council officials telling us how wonderful the new road is. In truth the whole project has been totally miss-managaged from start to finish, causing untold misery and frustration to thousands of motorist and businesses. Start in one place, leave it in a mess, and move on. I dont think even the traveling community could have done worse,
I realise that Littleton Street West and its junction with Stafford Street certainly needed to be widened but In relation to the Arboretum island did it really need tearing up? could they not have simply installed traffic lights at its 5 entry points instead?
Are we now going to see more illegal traffic going through the bus station?
I have just been to Walsall from Rushall direction, (sunday afternoon) what an absolute nightmare, the traffic was queueing from well before the Mellish Road island, and what was the cause - the new traffic light system, all roads leading into walsall were blocked, god help them Monday morning
Monday morning and its an absolute nightmare - 1 hour for a 5/10 minute journey
Took over an hour on the bus to travel less than 3 miles.
Funny really, I said there would be massive delays with so many lanes and traffic lights. Every other place I’ve been where there are so many junctions and rush hour are just as bad.
How could the council not see the problems they are creating?
Oh wait, maybe its a dastardly ploy to get us all to stop using cars - make it so we are stuck in traffic jams so much that we can’t afford to take the car anywhere.
I no longer live in my town of Walsall, having moved to leafy Shropshire simply because I’d had enough of Walsall. The decision to remove what was a beautiful roundabout by QM Girls School and its collection of trees and pines is a disgrace, and those who made that decision should be ashamed of themselves. Removing it for that god- forsaken cross-road was a decision too far. Has it improved the traffic problems, I don’t think so. I’m so glad you don’t get my council tax anymore.
Well i sat on the bus this morning in traffic that had reached Shelfield and we crawled and we crawled until we finally arrived in Walsall. The journey only took an hour and 10 minutes making me an hour late for my course which i have been going to for the last few weeks on the same bus and arriving 15 minutes early!! Say no more!!
I too had enough of Walsall and moved away. In another post a chap called Ian Payne told me there were never any trees on the arboretum roundabout; i’m glad Hawkins1331 noticed them too. I think Ian Payne needs to get his eyes tested!
Peter Westwood’s comment in the video says it all: “We HOPE it will ease congestion as well…..” What if it doesn’t…… and the evidence from drivers this morning is that it hasn’t. Will Peter now resign?
This is a disaster, we knew at the time that there was no need to alter the island. What you now find is that drivers are finding alternative routes and clogging up those roads, especially noticed on the broadway from Bescot up to Sutton Road. Nightmare journey through there today also! We may decide to drive off in the opposite direction at weekend and shop in Sutton or Lichfield instead.
One of the worst bits of this poorly thought-out, ill-conceived hash of a ring-road is the ridiculoud dog-leg that now exists between Ablewell Street and Upper/ Lower Rushall Street. I have never seen such a poorly designed junction. Traffic trying to exit Goodall Street is blocked off by traffic queuing up Bridge Street for the new junction. I have witnessed a number of near misses as cars change from the right hand lane to the left hand lane to proceed up Ablewell Street towards Birmingham. If they’ve got any sense they’ll keep going; I think Birmingham has an excellent ring road system, unlike Walsall. What a complete and utter mess.
At 0830 this morning I can confirm that NOT ONE SINGLE LIGHT on that blasted junction was working. The whole thing was switched off/ broken. In addition, the contractors have very generously created a third Arboretum lake: It is handily positioned in the road right outside Queen Mary’s Girls School. If you didn’t have time for a shower this morning, worry not; just stand or walk on the footpath near the pedestrian crossing and you’ll get drenched! If you drive into town beware the drivers who are on your side of the road trying to avoid the lake. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up. All the pre-prepared self-congratulatory guff Cllr Anthony Harris wishes to regurgitate will not convince me that this project is anything other than a huge mess from start to finish.
As motorists we have seen many diversions,lane closures and changes to the traffic flow during the last 18 months with the promise that once the work was completed we would see the benefits.We are coming to the end of our first working week since the traffic lights were switched on at the Arboretum Island.My journey used to take an average of 40 minutes to get home - most evenings this week it has taken over an hour.The morning journeys have not been much better. I am having to leave home earlier to try to get to work on time and even then I have been a few minutes late a couple of times.
This morning on a day when traffic is generally lighter, it took 8 minutes to get from the Mellish Road roundabout to the lights. It then only took me a similar time to travel the length of The Broadway towards The Fullbrook, and yes I do keep within the 30MPH limit.C’mon Walsall Council,get this mess sorted before we all have a nervous breakdown.
I’m sorry to keep banging on about this idiotic junction (well actually I’m not, I think the people who designed it should hang their heads in shame) but WHY ON EARTH is it not possible to drive from Lichfield Street to Lichfield Road?! (And vice versa.) You are forced to turn left up Littleton Street East. Then you can’t turn right at the Hatheron St junction so you get swept along towards the leather museum. What an almighty disaster. Please don’t tell me the Council expect you to drive the other way along Lichfield Steet, up Bridge Street, down Lower Rushall Street and then turn right across the new junction into Lichfield Road? In an age when we’re trying to reduce carbon emissions they’re seriously forcing people to drive a mile out of their way? Sheer lunacy. And once again Cllr Harris has told the press he’s happy with the junction. If Cllr Harris wishes to be a passenger in my car I will drive him through the junction at rush hour and he can witness first hand the chaos he has caused.
On Monday Hatherton Street will be closed for about a month. Because you can’t turn right at the traffic lights from Hatherton Road onto Littleton Street East the only way to get to Mellish Road or Lichfield Road (unless you cut through Morrissons car park) is to go up Bridge Street and then down Lower Rushall Street. I really can’t believe Walsall Council sees this as a satisfactory arrangement.
Why have the Council removed the pedestrian crossings from to bottom of Broadway North and from Lichfield Street to the grammar School? Pedestrians, including vulnerable school-children, now have to cross 7 or 8 sets of lights, depending which way they cross. How exactly is this an improvement over the old set-up?
I have been using the Arboretum Island for over 5 years travelling to and from work.
I can honestly say that the people behind the plans to change it from an island to traffic controlled did not have a clue.
What a complete waste of money.
The traffic has increased, more emissions, more stress and a complete waste of taxpayer’s money.
The promise that once the work was completed we would see the benefits is untrue
My journey time has increased by 25 minutes.
How was planning permission approved for such a disastrous plan? It has got from bad to worse to disaster.
This morning stationary traffic was backed up as far as the Beverley Hotel on Lichfield Road. The situation is worse than it ever was when the arboretum junction was a traffic island; this cannot continue, the Council will end up driving business away from Walsall. Is that what they want?