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Revealed: England's worst cities for traffic jams (outside London)

Drivers nationwide are facing congested roads, with new research revealing the 10 worst English cities for traffic outside London.

14:00, UK,Saturday 08 September 2018

skynews-vehicles-traffic-jam_4373825.jpg

Image:An extra £43bn of funding to 2040 would be needed to solve traffic problems, the study revealed
By Lucia Binding, news reporter

Away from London, you might expect roads to be a little quieter - but new research shows many other English cities are suffering gridlock.

The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) says major investment is needed to alleviate the "misery" drivers face across the country.

Here are the 10 most congested areas outside the capital, based on how easy it is to drive from one part of each city to another at peak and off-peak times:


So they are :-

MANCHESTER
LIVERPOOL
BIRMINGHAM
PORTSMOUTH/SOUTHAMPTON
NOTTINGHAM
LEEDS
BRISTOL
BRIGHTON
LEICESTER
BOURNEMOUTH.

IM SURPRISED EXETER AND NORWICH ARENT THERE , AS THEY ARE PRETTY BAD THESE DAYS.

BRING ON SOME INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENTS OUTSIDE LONDON PLEASE !!
 
Last edited:
Revealed: England's worst cities for traffic jams (outside London)

Drivers nationwide are facing congested roads, with new research revealing the 10 worst English cities for traffic outside London.

14:00, UK,Saturday 08 September 2018

skynews-vehicles-traffic-jam_4373825.jpg

Image:An extra £43bn of funding to 2040 would be needed to solve traffic problems, the study revealed
By Lucia Binding, news reporter

Away from London, you might expect roads to be a little quieter - but new research shows many other English cities are suffering gridlock.

The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) says major investment is needed to alleviate the "misery" drivers face across the country.

Here are the 10 most congested areas outside the capital, based on how easy it is to drive from one part of each city to another at peak and off-peak times:


So they are :-

MANCHESTER
LIVERPOOL
BIRMINGHAM
PORTSMOUTH/SOUTHAMPTON
NOTTINGHAM
LEEDS
BRISTOL
BRIGHTON
LEICESTER
BOURNEMOUTH.

IM SURPRISED EXETER AND NORWICH ARENT THERE , AS THEY ARE PRETTY BAD THESE DAYS.

BRING ON SOME INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENTS OUTSIDE LONDON PLEASE !!


Yes but first one has to convince the powers that be, especially the Civil Service that there is actually life outside of London, which by all accounts isnt always an easy task
 
Yes but first one has to convince the powers that be, especially the Civil Service that there is actually life outside of London, which by all accounts isnt always an easy task


That's true....beyond the M25 is another world for them.
 
I'm sceptical of this survey. I've sat I traffic queues in around seven of those places. I'm not sure how you can rate them as a queue is a queue.
 
Manchester and Nottingham have tram systems and so I think has Birmingham. If these surveys are to be believed (I've read other surveys based on different criteria that include other cities and even the ones in this list aren't always in the same order) it might suggest that tram systems aren't the be-all and end-all for taking more people by public transport and thus reducing traffic congestion that some people and some local government authorities seem to think.
 
I had the pleasure of using the Metrolink in Manchester a few weeks ago. It stops so many times it kind of defeats the object as it slows your journey into the city centre. I was surprised to see Manchester at the top to be honest. Traffic in Leeds is far worse in my opinion but like I said I don't really see how you can compare them.
 
For me, from my flat to where I work, I've got a 10 minute walk to the bus stop followed by around 30 minutes bus journey then 5 minutes walk to the office i.e. 45 minutes. Get on the wrong bus (which I did once!) and it took me over an hour to get in as the whole world and their dog was intent in dropping of schoolchildren despite all the schools having both dedicated bus services and also being on the main bus routes.

Should I take the tram it's 12 minutes to the tram stop, 17 minutes on the tram and 7 minutes from the tram i.e. 36 minutes. That I don't use the tram that often is due to (A) going all over the place at the weekend and the Stagecoach smartcard means getting round the whole of Greater Manchester and not isolated bits (b) less prone to have a "points failure" on the road (c) no risk of having to be shoe-horned into the bus and (d) pricing which can a bit eye-watering. The latter will be resolve with simpler fares on the way.

Metrolink's stops are generally a couple of minutes apart with degree in planning for some of them e.g. on "my" line, Firswood is not overblessed with buses, and getting to Didsbury/East Didsbury is a bit of a nightmare on the roads.

You've also got the various interchanges which, in the medium to long-term with co-ordinated ticketing and scheduling, means the potential for making public transport a viable alternative is there. However I would agree that some of the routes seen overlong i.e. board a tram in Rochdale and instead of going more direct into Manchester, you wend your way through to Oldham first, or the meandering route it takes through Wythenshawe to/from the airport
 
They suggest the survey is completed at peak and off peak between two points in a city to obtain a result.

I mentioned Norwich and Exeter as these are two cities I have been visting for many years on business , both are now so much worse than when I first visited them, although Norwich now has A northern relief road which must have helped.

In Liverpool I can't think of any road improvements in the centre for years, so it hasn't kept up with traffic increases and buses clog the streets. The underground helps but again no extensions or new stations for I don't know how long.
 
Bristol is in the middle of a major three and a half year road reorganisation, where the roads around an area known as The Centre (many years ago it was the old Tramway Centre where lines terminated, and part of the name has stuck) in the middle of the city has been reorganised for at least the fifth time in my lifetime. That took around two years and bits of it are still being worked on. The primary reason was to accommodate new Metrobus routes and make life easier for other buses, as well as making it more difficult for cars to negotiate that part of the central areas with more bus lanes, bus gates and bus-only streets.

Near Temple Meads Station a massive road redesign programme is taking place that began in June 2017 and will end at the end of 2019. Even here they are basically going back to a layout that was in situ 60 years ago although much wider, bigger and with 21st Century technology.

Will all this ease traffic congestion? The evidence of the re-designed The Centre is not encouraging.
 
Bristol is in the middle of a major three and a half year road reorganisation, where the roads around an area known as The Centre (many years ago it was the old Tramway Centre where lines terminated, and part of the name has stuck) in the middle of the city has been reorganised for at least the fifth time in my lifetime. That took around two years and bits of it are still being worked on. The primary reason was to accommodate new Metrobus routes and make life easier for other buses, as well as making it more difficult for cars to negotiate that part of the central areas with more bus lanes, bus gates and bus-only streets.

Near Temple Meads Station a massive road redesign programme is taking place that began in June 2017 and will end at the end of 2019. Even here they are basically going back to a layout that was in situ 60 years ago although much wider, bigger and with 21st Century technology.

Will all this ease traffic congestion? The evidence of the re-designed The Centre is not encouraging.

A lot of cities don't have much of a station network in the central area. A friend of mine worked for a time in Oxford and although the railway passed quite near to his home, there was no station. The traffic in Oxford is dreadful took in an age to do a short distance and it's not a big city.
 
A lot of cities don't have much of a station network in the central area. A friend of mine worked for a time in Oxford and although the railway passed quite near to his home, there was no station. The traffic in Oxford is dreadful took in an age to do a short distance and it's not a big city.
Temple Meads Station is about a mile from the main shopping areas of Bristol and there are no smaller stations any closer. Although Bristol is considerably bigger than Oxford, Norwich and Exeter (cities you have mentioned) it is, like those cities, an ancient place with many central roads unsuitable or incapable of realistic improvement to help improve traffic flows.
 
Temple Meads Station is about a mile from the main shopping areas of Bristol and there are no smaller stations any closer. Although Bristol is considerably bigger than Oxford, Norwich and Exeter (cities you have mentioned) it is, like those cities, an ancient place with many central roads unsuitable or incapable of realistic improvement to help improve traffic flows.


Well when you just think of the size of the average car now to what they were like in 70s and 80s...they have got wider ....but the roads are from a different age. Mind you people have got wider too !!!
 
Well when you just think of the size of the average car now to what they were like in 70s and 80s...they have got wider ....but the roads are from a different age. Mind you people have got wider too !!!
They have - all those 4-wheel drives that many mothers on the school run seem to favour.

When growing up I had an interest in buses. Most of the buses in my area (North Somerset was where I grew up) were of Bristol manufacture and the main bus company was the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company, later the Bristol Omnibus Company, with one of its de-regulated successors (Badgerline) joining with the Scottish Grampian Regional Transport to form FirstBus in 1995. Rapid bus company acquisitions followed and two years later the name was changed to First Group.

The idea of de-regulation was to remove bus monopolies but in my area the Bristol Omnibus monopoly has been replaced by the First Group monopoly - now with trains as well as buses.

Getting back to the buses, the Bristol models in the immediate post-war years were 7' 6 in width but regulations permitted an increase to 8' in the early 50s. The early 'wide-bodied' Bristol KSW series double deckers had white steering wheels instead of the usual black, it is said to remind drivers of the increased width of the vehicle. Some had a prominent notice in the driver's half-cab reminding him (all men driving Bristols buses then) of the width and to avoid one of the city centre bridges that was narrow but was wide enough to take the 7' 6 wide buses.

I believe that buses can now be 9' 6 wide and their overall length can now by much longer than was the case in my youth. The good thing for drivers is that most are fully automatic with power steering. No more aching legs and arms after a shift pressing down on powerful clutch pedals that had to be double de-clutched or moving stiff steering wheels at low speed around city streets.

You are right. Roads in many cities have not kept pace with the size and volume of vehicles using them.
 
I went to The London Transport museum and was amazed how small the old RM and RT buses were compared to modern day ones. However more suitable to road sizes.
 
Well when you just think of the size of the average car now to what they were like in 70s and 80s...they have got wider ....but the roads are from a different age. Mind you people have got wider too !!!

That`s the main reason that although many houses have garages, the cars are parked outside, often on the road, because most modern types simply don`t fit the standard Grimston up and over garage
 
That`s the main reason that although many houses have garages, the cars are parked outside, often on the road, because most modern types simply don`t fit the standard Grimston up and over garage
Some people for whatever reason don't bother to park their car in the garage, even if their car fits. In my road the garages are fairly standard size but I'm one of the few who parks my car in the garage. It means reversing using the external mirrors as clearance can be a bit tight. I think some people aren't keen on reversing into tight spots. Some aren't keen, or adept, reversing anywhere.

I do a lot of walking in the country using buses to and from, and when the bus confronts a car in a narrow country lane causing the car driver to reverse the results can be quite entertaining - for the neutral observer that is. On one occasion an elderly woman first reversed across the fairly narrow lane and hit the offside bank, then reversed the other way and hit the nearside bank, completing her virtuoso performance by reversing fairly straight the third time but failing to notice that another car had arrived behind her which she backed into. Very amusing for the spectators on the bus but not for the poor driver who quite innocently had pulled up behind her.
 
Thick fog M62 Jnc 27 - 22 at midnight. I even put my fog lights on! (not one of those who put their fog lights on for rain...). Was expecting LBA diversions this am.
Fog lights only to be used when visibility drops to 100metres or less!
Hate those drivers that put their normal headlights on when its only slightly dull, they make it look darker than it is!
 
Fog lights only to be used when visibility drops to 100metres or less!
Hate those drivers that put their normal headlights on when its only slightly dull, they make it look darker than it is!
What pees me off is the drivers that dont put lights on at all in fog and the clowns that have auto-lights set which dont work in fog (have folk lost the ability to assess and turn lights on manually) or have DRLs on at front and no tail lights.
 
What pees me off is the drivers that dont put lights on at all in fog and the clowns that have auto-lights set which dont work in fog (have folk lost the ability to assess and turn lights on manually) or have DRLs on at front and no tail lights.
Most new cars have the day lights now which are on constant, but like you mention no tail lights on, a bit like the old side lights
But yes it can be very difficult to see a vehicle approaching in fog when they have no lights on at all!
 

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