New car park for Banbury

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

It was approved by planners last night & needs to up and open by March 2013.

Chiltern have to close their TRamway car parks before opening the new car park. With the amount of work necessary (this includes an over-bridge from Car park to station overbridge), they won't be hanging around.

[paul7575]

It was approved by planners last night & needs to up and open by March 2013.

This month?

Hopefully they'll fit higher speed webcams just in case something happens too quickly to be seen?   

Paul

[ChrisB]

oops - March 2014.....

[IndustryInsider]

I was at Banbury last night and noted that ground clearance work has started in preparation for the new multi-storey car park.  There's posters explaining the changes up at the station with some drawings of the new car park and link bridge which will be an extension of the existing bridge.

Typically, Chiltern focus on the positive news that residents of Merton Street will benefit from reduced noise from the railway, without mentioning that the reduced noise will come at the cost of having a whacking great car park to look at whenever they open their curtains!

[ChrisB]

....and all the traffic congestion in their street....

[IndustryInsider]

Yes, indeed.  They countered that one by saying that most car park traffic will be before 8am and after 6pm so not affecting residents access too much, and one consequence of splitting up the car parks is that the traffic will be spread between the current exit(s) and the Merton Street one.  Also, looking at Google Earth, Merton Street residents will have alternative routes in/out of their estates if things become too congested.

I'll be interested to see just how bad the congestion becomes.

[ChrisB]

Those streets around the flats are all one-way - so there is only one exit unless you want to go on a serious excursion to the industrial estates....

Pax will very quickly realise that getting out of the current exit will be a lot harder once the multi-storey is up & running - all traffic for the north, south & West of the town will use the same road - so getting out of an exit earlier/sooner will be preferable than trying to break into traffic already exited & on that road. It's hard enough getting out now, with the queue at peak times back into the current car park. If the traffic coming from the right is solid (which it already is at high-peak), it'll be easier to exit from the new Merton Street than the current.

Also, returning to ones car in the multi storey will likely be quicker straight off the bridge than walking across the car park for the vast majority of cars in the current park. So there'll be several incentives to move over.

After all the who-ha Chiltern made of needing additional spaces - their project produces just................................................20 extra spaces! Go figure.

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

But I thought the new car park is needed to replace existing car parks for which the leases are expiring. If this is the case then there would be a terrific outcry from existing car park users if they lost their spaces.

[ChrisB]

That was Chiltern's quoted reason - that they couldn't renew long-term the 'temporary' parking units. At the same time, these car parks are very often full before 10, and they did state that the new multi-storey had to be 4 floors to accomodate much needed extra capacity.

So we get precisely +20, and Chiltern disponse not only of these units, but two other areas as well.

I can see capacity problems quite quickly....

[IndustryInsider]

Those streets around the flats are all one-way - so there is only one exit unless you want to go on a serious excursion to the industrial estates....

Pax will very quickly realise that getting out of the current exit will be a lot harder once the multi-storey is up & running - all traffic for the north, south & West of the town will use the same road - so getting out of an exit earlier/sooner will be preferable than trying to break into traffic already exited & on that road. It's hard enough getting out now, with the queue at peak times back into the current car park. If the traffic coming from the right is solid (which it already is at high-peak), it'll be easier to exit from the new Merton Street than the current.

How is the traffic management going now the new car park has opened?

[ChrisB]

Actually, extremely well. The traffic lights at Bridge Street were tweaked to give better priority at times to traffic emerging (letting 8 cars through instead of 4ish), and it's rather quite smooth.

[IndustryInsider]

Good to hear - I shared your concern about it not working very well.