Major revamp for key city centre junction

12:30pm Friday 18th January 2013 in News By Tom Edwards

OVERHAUL: The work at Trinity Gate will make the crossing safer for pedestrians. OVERHAUL: The work at Trinity Gate will make the crossing safer for pedestrians.

A MAJOR Worcester road junction is undergoing a three-month overhaul to ease congestion and make it more shopper-friendly.

Worcestershire County Council is revamping Trinity Gate – the point where Sansome Street, Lowesmoor, St Nicholas Street and City Walls Road meet.

The old traffic lights will be replaced with modern ones better able to respond to oncoming cars, while a series of dropped kerbs will be placed around the junction to help pedestrians to cross.

There will also be improvements to the traffic islands along the route.

Part of the reason for the work is the £75million transformation of Lowesmoor thanks to the new Asda superstore and St Martin’s Quarter.

The Trinity Gate project, which started this week, will carry on until Easter. Drivers are being warned of potential delays until then, with short periods of lane and road closures.

Councillor Simon Geraghty, the county council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for the economy and infrastructure, said: “This is an important junction in Worcester city centre.

“Improvements here are necessary to improve access between the city, Lowesmoor and the St Martin’s Quarter boosting economic activity and improving traffic flow.

“As with any major highways scheme, while delays are likely when works are taking place, users will benefit from real improvements once the enhancements are completed by Easter.”

At a later date council chiefs say Trinity Gate will be resurfaced, although this work does not form part of the upgrade at this stage.

The work is part of the Worcester Transport Strategy which the Department for Transport is already backing with more than £14m.

The county council has also put just over £5m into the strategy, which includes road and footpath upgrades all over the city.

Ringway, which is carrying out the work on behalf of County Hall, has placed a temporary office in the car park between Silver Street and the City Walls Road.

If drivers want to know about any delays at Trinity Gate before they plan their journey, they can call a dedicated phone number on 01905 761176.

Comments(33)

mayall8808 says...
12:57pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Lets hope its a better job than the pathetic Whittington roundabout farce.

Report this post »

saucerer says...
12:59pm Fri 18 Jan 13

God help us all! Another roads scheme from the highways department. So, will this be this year's highways **** up of the year, or can we expect more incompetence further down the line?

Report this post »

orla nutting says...
1:45pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Let's hope the plan includes making it a box junction in an effort to stop traffic from Lowesmoor and City Walls Rd blocking the access to Queen St from Sansome Walk. Buses and Taxis just halt across the junction when they can't get up St Nicholas St and prevent access to Queen St and the Cornmarket.

Report this post »

jb says...
1:57pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Considering that no one appears to observe the traffic restrictions along Lowesmoor/The Trinity anyway it's about time something was done to improve this junction.

Report this post »

CJH says...
2:20pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Lost count of the number of times I've seen traffic to u-turns at that point in the photo to come back down the City Walls Road. Breathtakingly stupid.

Report this post »

More Tea Vicar says...
3:17pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Sounds like a great idea in principle, and a sensible use of Council resource.

Devil's in the detail, mind...Whittington and all that...

Report this post »

Landy44 says...
4:18pm Fri 18 Jan 13

I've forgotten how many times this junction has been toyed with over the last thirty or forty years. It never seems to work quite like it should.

So, the council are out to "help" us again by changing this junction (Love to know the cost of this). Let's suspend disbelief and see how "helped" we feel once it's complete.

Perhaps we should get agreement up front that unless it's a success, those responsible will resign!

Report this post »

More Tea Vicar says...
4:29pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Landy44 wrote:
I've forgotten how many times this junction has been toyed with over the last thirty or forty years. It never seems to work quite like it should.

So, the council are out to "help" us again by changing this junction (Love to know the cost of this). Let's suspend disbelief and see how "helped" we feel once it's complete.

Perhaps we should get agreement up front that unless it's a success, those responsible will resign!
Good point.

I actually think it's a good idea in principle, and can easily imagine that improved traffic lights would make a difference.

But looking at Whittington, or even the Aldi roundabout, I do find that 'improvement' is a very flexible term when used by the Council.

Report this post »

farmeralan1963 says...
6:06pm Fri 18 Jan 13

I share the concerns about the end results of this forthcoming scheme. When you look at the Whittington roundabout, the Newtown Road bus lanes and the zebra crossing next to Asda for example, is it any wonder why we have no confidence in the competence of the highways department. The results of their supposed expertise is to make roads less safe. I fear this scheme will be no different.

Report this post »

farmeralan1963 says...
6:09pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Also, if this project is taking 3 months, why not do it over the school summer holidays? And 3 months is an awfully long time just to swap over traffic lights and put in dropped kerbs.

Report this post »

The Doosra says...
8:07pm Fri 18 Jan 13

farmeralan1963 wrote:
Also, if this project is taking 3 months, why not do it over the school summer holidays? And 3 months is an awfully long time just to swap over traffic lights and put in dropped kerbs.
So you're a highways engineer are you? Please share your knowledge with us.

Report this post »

mr_wilson15 says...
11:13pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Its roundabout time there, surely?

Report this post »

Redhillman says...
5:51pm Sat 19 Jan 13

Looks like we can expect another monumental error of judgement from the highways department, at great expense to the tax payer. I wonder if the temporary office will be staffed by a highways engineer, if so, at last, we can see who these people are and perhaps its an opportunity to hold them to account and question them about the general ineptitude emanating from their department.

Report this post »

Redhillman says...
5:53pm Sat 19 Jan 13

The Doosra wrote:
farmeralan1963 wrote:
Also, if this project is taking 3 months, why not do it over the school summer holidays? And 3 months is an awfully long time just to swap over traffic lights and put in dropped kerbs.
So you're a highways engineer are you? Please share your knowledge with us.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise 3 months is a long time, considering it look less time to do the roundabout at Whittington which needed new lanes constructing.

Report this post »

WilkoJ says...
6:19pm Sat 19 Jan 13

This is going to end in disaster like every other scheme. We need to know who is responsible for the project so they can be held to account.

Report this post »

thompson9100 says...
7:40pm Sat 19 Jan 13

Redhillman wrote:
The Doosra wrote:
farmeralan1963 wrote:
Also, if this project is taking 3 months, why not do it over the school summer holidays? And 3 months is an awfully long time just to swap over traffic lights and put in dropped kerbs.
So you're a highways engineer are you? Please share your knowledge with us.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise 3 months is a long time, considering it look less time to do the roundabout at Whittington which needed new lanes constructing.
Less than 3 months? You must have q short memory! It took over 30 weeks, which by my maths is over 6 months!
I just hope they include work to better phase the lights on The Cross and Shaw Street junction, because they cause most of the problems round there.

Report this post »

Jabbadad says...
3:03am Sun 20 Jan 13

The improvement just might work if as said the renewal of the traffic lights and for them to operate on demand. The most efficient ones I recall are the ones in Bilford Road by KFC, and those in Bath Road by Cheery Orchard, both of which are traffic sensitive and change quickly to need.
However I also feel that with Geraghty being involved there is some doubt, plus I am surprised that Simon knows where this junction is since when he was responsible for throwing the Disabled off St Swithun Street parking in favor of the taxis, he conveniently forgot in his calculations the existing Double Yellow lines that had been previously used by Blue Badge holders.
And no doubt we will get Yellow boxes since this is the new government cash cow to automatically issue Traffic Fine tickets for. One junction in London due to poor or intentional bad design, generating over a million pounds in fines over one year.

Report this post »

The Doosra says...
11:05am Sun 20 Jan 13

farmeralan1963 wrote:
Also, if this project is taking 3 months, why not do it over the school summer holidays? And 3 months is an awfully long time just to swap over traffic lights and put in dropped kerbs.
Presumably the private sector company who won the contract have determined how long it will take to complete the work.

Report this post »

Jabbadad says...
11:55am Sun 20 Jan 13

And may I say that the latest traffic snarl ups around this area came with the work on the Asda Site and then the confusion over parking, which seems to continue because there are now frequent jams both ways which certainly didn't happen as often before.

Report this post »

CJH says...
12:09pm Sun 20 Jan 13

Of course if they completed the ring road there would be a lot less traffic needing to go through the city...

Report this post »

Jabbadad says...
12:51pm Sun 20 Jan 13

Here Here CJH we just have to convince Claines or ignore them and build this road which has been needed for the past 30 years. And I favor ignoring the principality of Claines since they are okay about using the rest of the
By-passes but don't want one their side of the City.

Report this post »

More Tea Vicar says...
6:23pm Sun 20 Jan 13

CJH wrote:
Of course if they completed the ring road there would be a lot less traffic needing to go through the city...
There's the question of the expense, and the loss of countryside.

And looking at the Newtown/Bromyard Road fiascos, it's difficult to trust the people involved with a major project.

They're just not up to it.

Report this post »

Maggie Would says...
3:36pm Wed 23 Jan 13

mr_wilson15 wrote:
Its roundabout time there, surely?
That's what I thought, mr_w, but the exits from a (theoretical) roundabout would never be clear in rush hour, especially up St Nicholas Street.

Report this post »

mr_wilson15 says...
4:07pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Jabbadad wrote:
Here Here CJH we just have to convince Claines or ignore them and build this road which has been needed for the past 30 years. And I favor ignoring the principality of Claines since they are okay about using the rest of the
By-passes but don't want one their side of the City.
Off he goes again. I propose an extension of City Wall's road which runs across the canal and through Mr Riaz's house on the London Road.
Cheers.

Report this post »

MrWXYZ says...
4:31pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Be a tricky one to sort out, when it goes wrong round there its chaos.
They will have to be much smarter traffic lights than bath road, those side junctions are pretty quiet so that can function well off peak. This is a peak issue to resolve.
Although i agree on the completing the link road and/or doing something more substantial on the new bridge side. Lots of little fixes but the routes around town, and routes up to J7 have been outgrown by the number of vehicles in the city.

Report this post »

Lew Smoralz says...
5:27pm Wed 23 Jan 13

The basic problem here is that with their dismal record of failure, many Worcester citizens have little faith in the County Council, and with Councillor Simon Geraghty involved the whole scheme has a mantle of failure already surrounding it.

Report this post »

Lew Smoralz says...
5:30pm Wed 23 Jan 13

mr_wilson15 wrote:
Jabbadad wrote:
Here Here CJH we just have to convince Claines or ignore them and build this road which has been needed for the past 30 years. And I favor ignoring the principality of Claines since they are okay about using the rest of the
By-passes but don't want one their side of the City.
Off he goes again. I propose an extension of City Wall's road which runs across the canal and through Mr Riaz's house on the London Road.
Cheers.
Son of William XV

With such reasoning you are obviously a prime candidate for the County Council!

Report this post »

Jabbadad says...
6:19pm Wed 23 Jan 13

mr_wilson15, suits me to send your political road through that house on London Road. No problem at all, just as long as it suits the Claines Principality.

Report this post »

Common Sense says...
8:12am Thu 24 Jan 13

The cost doesn't seem to be stated above, only as "part of a £14m strategy" for the area! (Council speak - their own private language!)

Even if this single contract costs, say, £2m, just for some lights and drop-kerbs, this should be put in perspective.

Every single day, we send £53m (that is million!) to Brussels for basically the French farmers to receive in benefits. Every day - Sundays included!

Think what we could do with the roads and hospitals with just one lot of £53m - never mind our 'contributions' for a week - or even a month!

No wonder we are broke!
==============

Report this post »

Guy66 says...
10:54am Thu 24 Jan 13

CJH wrote:
Lost count of the number of times I've seen traffic to u-turns at that point in the photo to come back down the City Walls Road. Breathtakingly stupid.
It's totally legal to make a U turn there - no signage to say no and it can be made without any impact on other road users - assuming the road is clear enough to execute the move.... I can't see the "Breathtakingly stupid" part at all . I bet your just upset some people can control a car better than you can!

Report this post »

CJH says...
11:07am Thu 24 Jan 13

Guy66 wrote:
CJH wrote: Lost count of the number of times I've seen traffic to u-turns at that point in the photo to come back down the City Walls Road. Breathtakingly stupid.
It's totally legal to make a U turn there - no signage to say no and it can be made without any impact on other road users - assuming the road is clear enough to execute the move.... I can't see the "Breathtakingly stupid" part at all . I bet your just upset some people can control a car better than you can!
What a childish response Guy. Well done. Also well done on not seeing the 'No U Turn' sign which has been there for years, and years, and years. So not just stupid, but also illegal. Feel free to apologise.

Report this post »

Jabbadad says...
1:44pm Thu 24 Jan 13

I can't see the breathtakingly stupid label for a U turn at this spot when frequently there are times when there is no moving traffic from any direction, and if a driver is in complete control of the vehicle and turns at a reasonable speed. So the only problem is the signage prohibiting U Turns. and that's the law folks.

Report this post »

Maggie Would says...
3:33pm Thu 24 Jan 13

CJH wrote:
Guy66 wrote:
CJH wrote: Lost count of the number of times I've seen traffic to u-turns at that point in the photo to come back down the City Walls Road. Breathtakingly stupid.
It's totally legal to make a U turn there - no signage to say no and it can be made without any impact on other road users - assuming the road is clear enough to execute the move.... I can't see the "Breathtakingly stupid" part at all . I bet your just upset some people can control a car better than you can!
What a childish response Guy. Well done. Also well done on not seeing the 'No U Turn' sign which has been there for years, and years, and years. So not just stupid, but also illegal. Feel free to apologise.
It's not as though the alternative to a U-turn add significantly to your journey - just a quick turn into Silver Street & pop back out onto City Walls Rd.
Doing a U-turn is just plain lazy. And illegal.

Report this post »

click2find

About cookies

We want you to enjoy your visit to our website. That's why we use cookies to enhance your experience. By staying on our website you agree to our use of cookies. Find out more about the cookies we use.

I agree