U-turn?

Demand to scrap failing traffic system as town moves towards 'gridlock'

By Will Davies

TWO years ago the people of Henley gave the go-ahead to a new ‘intelligent’ traffic system, in the hope of solving the town’s traffic problems and lowering high levels of pollution.

Designed to keep the town’s streets free from congestion, the system has experienced a catalogue of errors, from intermittent faults to claims of rising pollution levels, while massive queues have built up on White Hill, Reading Road and the Fair Mile.

Town councillor Barry Wood, who was a staunch supporter of the scheme at the outset, is now calling for its full removal. He says that due to the county council’s ‘arrogance’, Henley ‘is slowly moving towards gridlock’.

Cllr. Wood claims there have been ‘adverse increases’ in the length of queues, cross-town journey times and noxious and carcinogenic fumes in Greys Road, Duke Street and Bell Street, causing increased frustration to drivers and residents.

He said: “The outcomes of our traffic deliberations will influence the town’s growth and prosperity for the next decade.

“Oxfordshire County Council has failed to implement a workable scheme and it stands condemned of failing to manage the technical aspects of the scheme and failing to communicate efficiently throughout the project implementation.

“Now the county council wishes to walk away from the problems of the scheme without resolving them,” he said.

“It arrogantly states that the scheme is permanent. This is not the way to gain the acceptance of the residents of this town. We deserve better.”

But at the first meeting of the Integrated Transport Strategy (ITS) members working group on Tuesday, it was agreed from a report by the county council’s senior transport planner, Cath Browning, that ‘very little can be done to substantially improve traffic flow’, as ‘the number of vehicles wishing to pass through Henley exceeds the capacity of the main junctions; therefore queuing traffic will always be seen in the peaks’.

What could be done, the report suggests, would be ‘to the detriment of the pedestrian,’ whereby pedestrian crossings are removed so as not to impede the flow of traffic. A trial is currently in place to give more ‘green time’ to Reading Road traffic coming into town (northbound).

This will be monitored once schools re-open in September and a decision will be made on whether to continue with it or return to the original signal timings.

The possibility of scrapping the traffic lights at the junction, in favour of a mini roundabout, has been discounted, as engineers believe it would have a detrimental impact on Duke Street and ‘would not reduce queuing.’

The report states that ‘queues on Reading Road and Station Road could be made worse and the pedestrian crossings would be lost.’

Ian Hudspeth, OCC cabinet member for transport implementation, says the scheme, which he insists is permanent, ‘was never designed to alleviate traffic’.
He said: “This is not something we’ve simply dumped on Henley. There were jams before the scheme. Above all, it was designed to reduce pollution levels in the town centre.”

Former mayor of Henley, Ian Reissmann, believes that the potential benefits of the scheme are ‘clearly not being felt’.He said: “I believe the trial scheme, while not perfect, can improve pollution and traffic flows in Henley. However, I am concerned that the difficulties OCC has faced in implementing the scheme have caused the problems we’ve all seen.”

On September 16th, Henley Town Council will make a decision on whether or not to pull out of the scheme. Mr. Reissmann is calling on the county council, as the highways authority, to put the required effort into sorting these problems out; publish the pollution and traffic figures and then allow all the residents to have an informed debate on the future of the scheme when the deadline is reached.

He added: “Then we can decide if this trial is permanent.”

The ITS members working group meets again on October 30th, when a report will be produced, detailing air pollution figures and the efficiency of SCOOT, the computer-controlled traffic light system.