The red route along Wolverhampton’s A449 Stafford Road is to be axed in September after being described as a complete waste of taxpayers’ cash.
It will cost a further £150,000 to tear down more than 200 signs along seven miles of carriageway and get rid of the double red lines.
The plan was confirmed by the ruling Tory-Liberal Democrat alliance at a meeting last night.
The route has cost £2.4 million since being launched in March last year.
Councillor Paddy Bradley, regeneration and enterprise boss, said: “This is the right decision for the city. We said when we were elected that we would get rid of the red route and we would be looked upon very poorly if we reneged on that now.
“After all this we will look at other ways of tackling congestion along the A449. The red route saved two minutes on a 15-minute journey and all for the sake of a red line. It has been a complete waste of money.”
Councillor David Bourne said: “This was an experiment based on an idea from London and we are not London and never will be.”
The route will now finish on September 11.
Councillor Roger Lawrence, leader of the Labour group, labelled its abolition as “disgraceful”.
22 Comments
Where on earth do they pluck these cost from? Someone somewhere must have been given some right back handers if they think it has cost £2.4 million for some red paint and a few signs. Heads need to roll at the council for the money that is being wasted all the time.
thats our leaders for you
retards and morons
Put more signs up and make them bigger.Paint the whole of the road and the pavements red and put traffic lights on all the islands along the Stafford Rd.Then put the council tax up by 5 per cent cos there’s no momey left.
I will do the job for £4000,thats my own ladders,fuel,and labour and danger money.I’ll burn off the paint and bolt cutters do the job with ease on signs.
I know i pinched a few as a wayward teen..The council must think people out in this world dont have any brains. The figures they quote are way off line.Someone needs their head examing!
Walsall, Sandwell and Birmingham Councils are all involved in implementing the red route along the A34 (called route51, because of the bus that travels along it.) I wonder if it will be a success?! Will it be as successful as the new Arboretum junction?
Thank goodness commonsense has prevailed with the scrapping of the ‘red-route’. Now how about bringing the old bus lay-bys back into action and removing the ridiculous traffic jams that are created by buses setting down and picking up passengers on the roadway?
A proper dual-carriageway has traffic using 2 lanes each way and not having to wait behind buses!
What the council also needs to do now is what should been done originally, provide parking bays on all available ’spare’ land in front of the shops, banks etc and a TOTAL BAN on parking anywhere other than in parking bays! Traffic should then flow freely… that is providing motorists etc do not choose to be downright obstinate and stupid and park on the road OR the footpaths!
A final message to ALL drivers - try walking those last 100 metres or so for a change, it is good exercise!
Personally I thought it worked extremely well- typical council to back down as soon as a few do-gooders complain
Red Routes do not work in London which made it odd for such an unworkable system to be copied… but then the former CEO at Wolverhampton was recruited from London.
This is a victory for commonsense. What should now follow is an investigation into how this money was spent and action to surcharge the councillors and officers responsible for inflicting this gross waste. While they were painting the town red elderly people were dying of neglect.
Clear breakdowns of expenditure should be made available and the suppliers who benefit from this
should be named.
Anything to do with thr council seems to add an extra 0 or two to the bill. A further £150,000 CRAZY! money.
Route 51, red route just so buses go faster , Arboretum junction, just all a huge waste of money, lots cheap nasty solutions my 2 year old could of done better
What a criminal waste of taxpayers money full stop. Surely by spending more on research initially would have seen if this would work?
When will the indivduals involved be bought to task…..
Nothing compared to the £700m black hole in the council funds mentioned last week.
Strangely enough that feature didn’t have an ‘add your comment’ section.
As for “this was an experiment based on an idea from London”…..what about the Black Country new road (A41).
This is a red route. It works very, very well.
Why all the comparison with Wolves not being London? Pointless mutterings.
The £700m ‘black hole’ in the council finances is apparently NOT debt for repayment over the next few years as the Tories have made out. It’s a scare story and a crude attempt at fudging the figures.
£300m was granted for housing stock improvements and £400m for rebuilding the city’s secondary schools - both paid back over 50 years, not within the next few years as the Tories are trying to make out. Fact is our new rulers have no idea whatsoever on how to keep their election promise of cutting Council Tax by a minimum £62 and are trying to paint as grim a picture as possible.
As for the red route, it’ll just be yellow lines with the same restrictions and fines. A completely hollow victory which won’t repair the damage done to businesses in Oxley.
send the bill to Labour.
Just to chip in at Adam (5) bringing up the arboretum, I know we’re on about the red route, but having moved from Wolverhampton to Walsall I have now the joy of sitting in longer lines of traffic than I did when the roadworks were going on at the “island” So, if the planners have achieved their aims, their brainstorming meetings must have gone something like - make some lanes bus and cycles only so now all of Walsall needs to go through Bridge Street to get across to the Lichfield Road, lets see how quickly we can get the lights to change so two cars get through then sit and wait 10 minutes for them to flicker briefly back to green, have a competition, can we get more traffic to back up the Lichfield Road or Mellish road, lets block off the lane turning left by the queuing traffic to go straight on leaving Bridge street, and lets see how many cars we can see in the middle of the road frantically looking for where they can and can’t go. Why not just leave the island where it was and put traffic lights on the exits I’ll never know…..
And just whilst I have a small bee in my bonnet - to who I’m sure is a male that designed the new paths in Walsall last year - I take it you have never tried to walk down it with a pair of stilettos, are you happy for me to send you the bill for the 11 pairs of boots and shoes of mine that now have heels (if they are left at all) scratched like I’ve had the potato peeler at them, and rubber and metal heels (yes, I have had them reheeled in metal to see if it helps) that get ripped off within minutes of stepping onto the path - Thanks.
So now the new council wants to spend more money to remove it after saying it was a waste of money! What planet are they on? My office overlooks the A449 and I can clearly see the traffic moves now where it used to be gridlocked before. The new council said it would review if the scheme worked before making the decision. Now they say they cannot renege on a pledge to get rid of it, great. And I have to pay for this election pledge without the facts. Thanks a lot, look forward to my increased council tax bills and sitting in queues again.
There must a lot of villages without their idiots at the minute. This is what you get for voting conservative, they are unable to make the right decisions based on facts for the good of the city. Yet again Wolverhampton is heading backwards and is being left behind.
Typical Political Nibyism
Just because a few folks are affected - generaly because they can no longer park 2 yards from their door they think the world has come to an end. No one has the right to park on a road anywhere and never has had. Shame the idiots who have not a single highway engineering qualification between them can use political stupidity instead of looking at the long term fact that all Ref Routes elswhere work. I know because I actualy drive on them before and now after they changed. There has been no survey done on the users of the Red Route so what basis do these councilor’s have in a democracy. It’s like the giant flower boxes in Queen’s Square all over again. Let Highway Engineers design and manage the borough’s highways not short term politicaly motivated folk who don’t actualy know anything about the decisions they are making.
we are returning to the days of jams trailing back to the Vine island because someone stops for a paper at the Three tuns and having to walk in the busy road because cars are parked on the pavement! How do the planners miss this?
i think thay should do somethink about goodyears roundabout as iv seen car`s crash and spin off the road there. so put the money thereand make the road safer for all drivers
To Ian (18). I’m a local resident and can longer park 2 yards from my door, the issue I have is that when I park elsewhere I get someone angry old hag coming out and telling me that space is reserved and that shes been reporting my car stolen to get it towed. In short, provide alternative parking when removing some!
The red route was a waste of money, I have no idea how they justified it??? I believe the CCTV they have used to enforce this is where the money is mainly wasted and I was sure that the Data Protection Act stated that CCTV could only be used when an alternative was unavailable, how about Traffic wardens for a tenth of the cost!!!!!!!!!!! Someones head should roll.
Apologies, the above should say CCTV Code of Practice from the Information Commissioners Office and not Data Protection Act.