Road closures and temp traffic lights for nothing/no need

[cheesefest]

This year already there have been 3 lots of road closures with diversions and temp traffic lights for 2-3 days with nothing done on two of them and the other - a hole dug into the pavement! This is with temp traffic lights!

What’s the point of closing roads for no work done and expect people to drive over half a mile more due to diversions? Plus the hole in pavement with temp traffic lights is causing traffic jams and the whole road is gridlocked.

It’s time for contractors to close roads when actual road works are done. Plus there’s been various holes dug up in pavement down this road before without the need to use traffic lights.

All works were planned

 

[Glanza]

Usually it's due to the traffic management companies getting the go ahead to put all the lights / cones / signs out for pending work on a set date and time then an issue happens that stops the work from starting.

 

[Sui]

Oh no, not half a mile

 

[jaybee]

It's like it everywhere I feel. You don't seem to get roadworks for a day or so digging a hole. It's now weeks upon end and nobody is ever on site doing anything. You seem to get them put up and the road opened up quite promptly so the first you see of it is a big hole/trench for whatever services are being done, and then nothing for weeks. The companies often can't align where they all work on the same thing at the same time whilst it's opened up for reasons unknown. You then get the comedy situations of patch after patch after patch of repaired roads and pathways.

There is one in a town near me that has been in dispute for over a year. The town got all renovated and money spent on nice new pedestrianised walkways with posh looking expensive paving slabs. About a week after it all got opened to the public, they got dug up for some local business to get services (possibly broadband). The slabs were discarded and in their place, tarmac poured in between the remainder as a finished fix. It obviously looks dog ****. The company that did the works have been chased to remedy it for over a year with no result. In the mean time they have left it coned off as it's uneven and hazardous. A ludicrous situation that is money driven with nobody taking ownership. I think that is what it boils down to.

Most roadworks aren't road improvement works. Pot holes get done in minutes (badly) and roads are never resurfaced anymore. Roadworks tend to be for services being repaired or modified, especially with all the new builds going up.

 

[Nasher]

The ones that annoy me are the ones put up even though all the work is being done off the side of the road. Health and safety nonsense :/

Or the there is clearly still enough space to fit 2 lanes of traffic through. The ones set up which are only a few meters apart, out in the middle of nowhere I just ignore unless someone is coming the other way. What's the point, just let people treat it similar to a parked car.

They almost always seem to set them up badly too, with a really slow change on one end and a fast one on the other

 

[Will Gill]

Maybe it's spend it or lose it budget allocations for local authorities? so the contractors go OTT and claim accordingly

We were always told that if it wasn't spent, it wouldn't be available the following year.

 

[Conscript]

Usually it's due to the traffic management companies getting the go ahead to put all the lights / cones / signs out for pending work on a set date and time then an issue happens that stops the work from starting.

This seems the most logical answer. Often seems worse when it's a utility company attending to something, because they sub-contract all the work out. Poor communication between the contractor who does the TM, and the contractor doing the groundworks, means you end up with TM around long before/after work starts/ends.

The ones that annoy me are the ones put up even though all the work is being done off the side of the road. Health and safety nonsense :/

Eurgh. Hate it when people say stuff like this.

Even if the work itself is entirely on the footway, workers may need room to manoeuvre around any excavations, handle materials safely, or work in a way which means they can't keep an eye on traffic. It's sensible to encroach on the carriageway sometimes to provide a buffer to live lanes, and to set up traffic management to calm traffic.
Any sort of manual labour can be risky, doubly so when working next to moving vehicles, and I imagine it's not a particularly pleasant job either. If you had to do it, I'm sure you'd quickly come to appreciate that rules like that exist to make sure you get home in one piece after your shift. They might be slightly inconvenient, but they aren't "nonsense".

 

[Resident]

This year already there have been 3 lots of road closures with diversions and temp traffic lights for 2-3 days with nothing done on two of them and the other - a hole dug into the pavement! This is with temp traffic lights!

What’s the point of closing roads for no work done and expect people to drive over half a mile more due to diversions? Plus the hole in pavement with temp traffic lights is causing traffic jams and the whole road is gridlocked.

It’s time for contractors to close roads when actual road works are done. Plus there’s been various holes dug up in pavement down this road before without the need to use traffic lights.

All works were planned

Extra safety due to the fact that there are morons behind the wheel that can't see beyond their own selfish ego and don't take particular care around work sites, ie slowing down, paying extra attention to workers moving about etc.

As you're moaning about it I'd dare to suggest you might fall into the category.

 

[Rroff]

Roadworks seem to be increasingly a mess loads of poorly thought out ones I've seen of late, loads where it seems nothing gets done (often with them rescheduled 1-2 times before there is any evidence of work done) - I've seen far too many instances lately of roadworks being done by 1-3 (I'm assuming there is at least 2, but sometimes only seen 1) people with a flatbed van with no more than the orange lights on the van and maybe a single poorly positioned sign working in the carriageway exposed to traffic and/or positioned in a place which makes for dangerous conditions for traffic.

Sadly nothing will be done until there is a serious incident(s) which could have been avoided then lots of hand wringing and temporarily cracking down on it before it gets forgotten again

 

[Doughnut007]

The local water board had a main road down to one lane for a week near me.
They dug a small hole on the first day which was filled in by the second.
For the rest of the week they used the area to park while working in the grounds of the house next the the road.

 

[Resident]

Roadworks seem to be increasingly a mess loads of poorly thought out ones I've seen of late, loads where it seems nothing gets done (often with them rescheduled 1-2 times before there is any evidence of work done) - I've seen far too many instances lately of roadworks being done by 1-3 (I'm assuming there is at least 2, but sometimes only seen 1) people with a flatbed van with no more than the orange lights on the van and maybe a single poorly positioned sign working in the carriageway exposed to traffic and/or positioned in a place which makes for dangerous conditions for traffic.

Sadly nothing will be done until there is a serious incident(s) which could have been avoided then lots of hand wringing and temporarily cracking down on it before it gets forgotten again

Not that this excuses it in any way but many councils and utility companies are still playing catch-up from being shut-down for the best part of 18 months. This has lead to increased number of works within a given time frame and worse, contractors spreading resources too thinly in order to get to more jobs.

You're right in what you're saying. In fact in my town workers have actually abandoned some works and left a dangerous situation where an island was incorrectly place, on a 40mph road effectively reducing the road to 1 lane on a bend and no warning signs. There have been several collisions at the location yet weeks after the 1st one it's still not been dealt with

 

[Rroff]

Not that this excuses it in any way but many councils and utility companies are still playing catch-up from being shut-down for the best part of 18 months. This has lead to increased number of works within a given time frame and worse, contractors spreading resources too thinly in order to get to more jobs.

You're right in what you're saying. In fact in my town workers have actually abandoned some works and left a dangerous situation where an island was incorrectly place, on a 40mph road effectively reducing the road to 1 lane on a bend and no warning signs. There have been several collisions at the location yet weeks after the 1st one it's still not been dealt with

Seems to be almost everyone not just councils or even utility companies, I've seen so many roadworks lately where they've finished up and half-removed the roadworks equipment but then either gone off for the day or for lunch or whatever and left it in a dangerous half-arsed state couple of days ago I saw a lorry coming the other way around a bend have to flatten a bunch of cones and a sign because they'd been left in the middle of a bend while the signs before the bend had been removed and they had nowhere to go due to the car in front of me - lucky the lorry driver didn't panic or something and instinctively swerve into the car.

 

[Nasher]

Another thing I've noticed is all of the illuminated traffic bollards on are being replaced with cheap, un-lit bendy plastic ones.

Then within a week they have been run down and snapped off the bottom (I think lorries might be doing it for fun). More pointless waste of money.

 

[Demon]

Pfft.. I'd take minor roadworks for 'no reason' over the chaos I've had for over 4 years now!

Right by me, causing chaos, we've had:
1. A sequence of 3 bridges (over dual carraigeways) that are have arterial roads to us going over them, each needed restoration, and taking one out causes chaos and this went on for 3 years.
2. Then the icing on the cake is the lovely cycle path that is still under construction, so has been causing chaos for 16 months now, and has another 8 months before completion in my local area..

The only saving grace is they remove 5 light controlled junctions temporarily and put mini roundabouts in which had a profound positive impact on traffic flow, but the main junction will be re-instated with 40% less time given to traffic, with the modelling submitted in the planning showing 1.5 mile queues at peak times as the best case.. 2.5 miles as the worse case.. lovely..

 

[cheesyboy]

One of my favourite benign conspiracy theories is that the miles of cones on motorways and elsewhere with no obvious sign of roadworks is because otherwise it would cost money to store them all somewhere.

 

[Uther]

I live in a village between two towns, in one direction the road is closed between 9.30-3.30 for the next month for resurfacing (again) and they've just closed the main road to the other town as well for a few days to 'put new signs up' lol
I'm not sure if it's trolling or they really don't know what they are doing.

 

[Azza]

Cadent started working on laying new gas mains on our road on Monday.

Absolutely no notice received from them, road closed, driveway access blocked, cars everywhere, apparently the work will takes 8 weeks to complete. Fortunately it looks like they've started our end of the road first so we should have much disruption after this week.

 

[Trifid]

Cadent started working on laying new gas mains on our road on Monday.

Absolutely no notice received from them, road closed, driveway access blocked, cars everywhere, apparently the work will takes 8 weeks to complete. Fortunately it looks like they've started our end of the road first so we should have much disruption after this week.

Their predecessor did the same for me. No notice, they dug a hole outside my driveway with cars still on the driveway. The work also lined up with a new boiler install I had booked in and they ended up restricting the gas flow below requirements so got cut off until they came back to redo the work a week later.

 

[Chabsy]

There are 3 way lights when they could get away with a normal traffic control. Most of the time there is nothing going on and the workers are long gone. And when the work has finished they're still there for hours after.

 

[Nasher]

Cadent started working on laying new gas mains on our road on Monday.

Absolutely no notice received from them, road closed, driveway access blocked, cars everywhere, apparently the work will takes 8 weeks to complete. Fortunately it looks like they've started our end of the road first so we should have much disruption after this week.

I had something like that happen years ago. One afternoon there was a narrow trench dug across the access road to the house with no notice given. I chucked the cone out of the way and drove over it (twice). They didn't like that