Motorway Madness - TrustNews September 07
You can always tell when there is a problem on the motorway. St Cross Road and Andover Road get jammed up solid. When the M3 around Winchester was completed in 1993 it seemed as though these problems were over – and for a few years they were, but now we are back to levels of congestion around Winchester at least as bad as in the early 1990s.
Traffic levels have nearly doubled since the 1980’s. The M3 is working at capacity and Junction 9 at Winnall is overloaded for much of the day. Two other things have changed. Firstly, fatal accidents (or “crashes” in new police terminology) are not considered blameless and are treated as crime scenes. Forensic investigations usually take hours and the whole carriageway is closed until the work is complete and all evidence and wreckage is cleared away. Secondly the advent of satnav and other driver information means drivers seek their own way around congestion.
Recently the Trust was invited to give its views on M3 incident management to a meeting of the City Council’s Environment Scrutiny Panel. We reminded the Panel that in the late 80’s diversion routes were established around Winchester where motorists were encouraged to follow signed routes designated by black and orange squares, circles and diamonds. Only one of these routes remains, the diamond route from junction 11 via Badger Farm, Romsey Rd, Chilbolton Ave, Harestock Lane to the A34 at Three Maids Hill. The police could not confirm whether these signs are currently used in emergencies. We stressed that every effort should be made to prevent motorway traffic diverting through the city’s one way system.
The police and the Highway Agency spokesmen stated that volumes of traffic on the M3 and A34 are now such that, whatever they do, gridlock will result if these roads have to be closed. At present this seems to occur at least once a month but we pointed out that severe congestion, particularly on the A34 southbound, occurs almost every day in the evening peak and especially on Fridays. This arises because of the lack of capacity of the Winnall Roundabout which has now become a notorious bottleneck on the trunk road system. In these circumstances a fair amount of traffic leaves the A34 at Three Maids Hill and tries to find its way through the city. The Trust urged the City Council to continue to press the government to improve the Winnall junction to reduce congestion and thus reduce the amount of traffic diverting through the city. In the mean time, well signed diversion routes should be established to prevent traffic which has been diverted off the motorway from entering the city centre.