[milton-chat] Road pricing petition

[Paul Oldham]

On 26/07/07 10:03 Clarke Brunt wrote:

> Talking of the bridge, one of the articles in the Evening News was
> accompanied by a map of transport imnprovements which the County Council
> says would accompany any congestion charge. I've now found the map on the
> County Council website:
> 
> http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/strategies/tacklingcongestion/whathappensnext.htm
> 
> and then the map (and key) from the 'publications' down the right hand side.
> 
> It shows a new road around the position of the JC bridge, which the key
> describes as "Dedicated car and bus access from the A10 to new Chesterton
> Railway Station via a bridge under the A14 (avoiding A10/A14 junction)."
> 
> A bridge _under_??

<grin> Variations on that have been mooted for a while. There are some 
fundamental problems with that road however, be it a bridge or a tunnel. 
If you start it west of the JC bridge you have to get the road under the 
bridge somehow, and although the span is designed for the A14 to be 
widened to three lanes each way plus the slip roads it can't cope with 
another two on top of that.

So that suggests the solution is to start it east of the bridge (which 
is what that map implies). If you do that there is then conflict with 
cyclists and pedestrians coming off the bridge.

However you do it there's issues with the businesses which occupy the land.

This is before you even start to thinking about the cost of tunnelling 
under a live trunk road or building yet another road bridge depending on 
whether a bridge or tunnel is most appropriate (which depends on where 
you put the crossing as the A14 goes onto an embankment across the flood 
plain).

I think there's an alternative proposal where the road comes from the 
Fen Ditton junction and runs west but that is going to lead to howls of 
protest from people anxious to protect the green corridor out of the 
city along the river.

-- 
Paul