Is traffic a problem everywhere? I drove to the other side of Lancaster today (Sunday 25th October) and many routes were impassable. I was reminded of one person who told me that he thought the traffic between Morecambe and Lancaster was as bad as anywhere outside London. However since the congestion charge he reckoned our traffic was the worst anywhere. Today I was very lucky and the route that I took only added ten minutes to my journey. Others were stuck for a lot longer. This problem is not unusual here as it occurs every single day at rush hour and at many other less predictable times.
So how do you deal with this problem? It has been going on for years and Lancaster is in the fortunate position of being next in line for a link road from Morecambe to the M6. Unfortunately there are many objectors. The objections are also many. They include objections to the route as there is a NIMBY and an environmental factor and there are also people who still wish to argue that an alternative route to the M6 should be chosen even though this was rejected years ago. It is easy to counter a NIMBY argument. I would even argue against the environmental arguments because traffic jams aren't good for the environment.
Other people emphasise the fact that the link road will make little difference to the traffic through Lancaster. This is a good point. Traffic has been increasing over the years so maybe we don't need a crystal ball to see that it will continue to increase. Maybe in the long term we won't travel in cars at all and the link road will not be needed but in the short and medium term we will not be moving quickly from Morecambe to the motorway. Even this good point does not deal with the link road doing what it says on the tin and getting the people of Morecambe to the motorway so in fact this argument is misleading.
Let's have better public transport. Let's have park and ride schemes. Let's encourage the use of bikes. Let's have people work near where they live. Let's have lots of other things too which help our environment but if you live in Morecambe wouldn't it be nice to use a link road to actually link to the motorway.
The short and medium term alternatives for anyone from Morecambe or any Morecambe business that has to use the motorway is move away from Morecambe. This is not a good conclusion for Morecambe so I hope we get the link road asap. I wonder if the town council sees things the same way!
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I found after moving into Morecambe from Bolton-le-Sands over 9 years ago, that the best way to get in and out of Lancaster on a Saturday or Sunday is by the bus or train. One of the "Bay Rider" tickets costs less than the return fare to the bus station from where I live, and you can use them for travel anywhere within the bay area for the whole day.
ReplyDeleteMy car stays put at weekend unless the journey takes me outside that area. If you need to transport equipment or large objects neither the bus or train is a viable alternative, unfortunately.