MetroBus

[whole diary]

[bobm]

We are getting a couple of new roads, some bus lanes...

...and Bristol's answer to Reading Flyover

 

Reading has a bit of a history when it comes to flyovers.

For most of my early schooldays my bus home took me past what was affectionately known as the "ski-slope" - where the money to build the town's inner ring road ran out of cash, leaving the start of a flyover going nowhere.  It was finally completed in the late 1980s.



Pic courtesy of Reading Museum

[Bmblbzzz]

So does Bristol! But ours went somewhere and made a clickety-clack noise.

[chuffed]

Metrobus delayed until 2018

Executive member for planning transport and strategic environment at South Gloucestershire Council, Colin Hunt, added: “It is important that all the different parts of these MetroBus information points – the ticketing, the real time bus information and the journey planners – are dependable, robust and work in all weathers and temperatures.

“We have to get it right before we can start installing them on the streets. I have seen a mock up, and they are very impressive.”

Didn't Mr Hunt get the first letter wrong when he said  'mock-up?' I can think of another Mr Hunt (Jeremy) who often finds that the first letter of his surname is spelt wrong!

[martyjon]

Hopefully the promoters of this scheme won't standby what  Colin Hunt says and opens the extended inbound BUS LANE on the M32 before Christmas.

It is complete except that I understand that the bus lane cameras are not yet connected but they are all installed and thus there is NO reason why the cones preventing its use TODAY cannot be removed and allowing the current bus services using that section of the M32 to use the extended bus lane in the run up to the December Festivities.

[JayMac]

So does Bristol! But ours went somewhere and made a clickety-clack noise.

A supposedly temporary structure built in 1968.  It was meant to be replaced by a permanent two way flyover when more money became available. The 'temporary' flyover survived for 30 years. In 1998 the traffic planners decided a complex, traffic light controlled, gyratory was more appropriate and Bristol's ski-jump was dismantled.

The Temple Circus Gyratory is currently undergoing remodelling and will, by Autumn 2018, become a simpler signal controlled junction, with one side of the old gyratory given over to pedestrian use and a public square.

See: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/info/15201_Bristol_s_Temple_Gate_layout_change_planned_in_21m_revamp.html

[Red Squirrel]

It was meant to be replaced by a permanent two way flyover when more money became available.

...and we can all be very thankful that it never did become available.

[JayMac]

There was a strikingly similar flyover in another British city. Same design, same junction layout that it flew over, same south to west one way direction.

Would anyone like to guess where?

[rogerw]

I know I saw it but I am having a senior moment where that is concerned. 

[Bmblbzzz]

Birmingham? Coventry? I've never heard of this other flyover but those fortresses of Middle Earth seem the right sort of places.

[stuving]

I know I saw it but I am having a senior moment where that is concerned. 

I was thinking of the Hogarth roundabout one, but that's still there and I don't think it matches the directions bnm gave - though naming roads out of junctions by direction is inherently a bit ambiguous.

[JayMac]

I know I saw it but I am having a senior moment where that is concerned. 

I was thinking of the Hogarth roundabout one, but that's still there and I don't think it matches the directions bnm gave - though naming roads out of junctions by direction is inherently a bit ambiguous.

Not when they're one way. You could only head south and then curve to the west on the Temple Circus flyover.

Oh, and the city I'm thinking of starts with the same two letters as Hogarth...

[Bmblbzzz]

Well I don't think Honiton's a city so maybe it was Hove? I think that counts technically even though it seems an unlikely site for such a thing. Albeit less so than Honiton!

[JayMac]

Okay. I was being a little devilish.

Holby.

 

More than once in the early series' of 'Casualty' there would be a scene of a Holby City ambulance using the flyover.

[trainer]

There was a strikingly similar flyover in another British city. Same design, same junction layout that it flew over, same south to west one way direction.

Would anyone like to guess where?

Digbeth in Birmingham had a similar 'temporary' struture for a couple of decades at the junction of the A34 and A45 (Stratford and Coventry Roads). Today's road layout (and road numbering) is completely different and the structure became redundant in the new arrangement. Traffic ran north to south.

[rogerw]

Digbeth in Birmingham had a similar 'temporary' struture for a couple of decades at the junction of the A34 and A45 (Stratford and Coventry Roads). Today's road layout (and road numbering) is completely different and the structure became redundant in the new arrangement. Traffic ran north to south.
[/quote]
That's where I saw it. 15 years working in Birmingham and I forgot about it