2. The Transport Assessment completely fails to address the increase in congestion, delays and tail-backs at the Junction, particularly those caused by doubling of the numbers of vehicles turning right from Market St into Ainsworth Rd and the doubling of the numbers of vehicles attempting to exit from Ainsworth Rd into the Junction – (the doubling of these numbers being caused by the development generated traffic.)
3. The Transport Assessment completely fails to address the inevitable creation of Rat Runs whereby motorists, (both those wishing to access the development and also through traffic) try to avoid the increased delays at the Junction, or to suggest schemes to prevent this.
The following six points provide the justification for the above remarks using extracts and figures from the Transport Assessment.
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Point No 1 - Pedestrian Safety at The Junction
Bolton Council specifically requested that a Junction Assessment should be carried out to examine the impact of the extra traffic generated by the development.
Bolton Council also expressed Highway and Road Safety concerns about the increase in traffic through the Junction caused by the development
It is already commonly known that the Junction experiences periods of congestion delay and tailbacks which are just about bearable under the present circumstances.
Such an assessment must be viewed in the context that the A6053, Market St and Church St, is a major arterial route from Radcliffe to Bolton and destinations beyond. Furthermore when traffic on the M60 is blocked this road is also used as a bypass route.
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The Consultants consequently considered Traffic and Pedestrian Management schemes at the Junction to address Bolton Council’s concerns.
• They concluded that Traffic Lights/Pedestrian on Demand Crossings across all four arms of the Junction were unworkable.
• They concluded that a Double Mini-Roundabout scheme was also unworkable.
• The concluded that the only scheme that worked and allowed the Junction to operate within its capacity was the existing layout.
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The Technical note in Appendix I of the Transport Assessment states the following conclusion:-
“11. Conclusion
11.1 From undertaking the three junction assessments of proposed signalised, double mini-roundabout and existing junction configuration, we conclude that only the configuration of the existing junction operates within capacity.
11.2 This is due to the fact that this junction operates at its maximum operational capacity when there is a free flow of traffic between Market Street and Church Street - as these are the two major traffic movements.
When implementing some form of control on the junction (i.e.signalised or double mini roundabout) it inhibits the free flow of traffic along these two arms. This results in congestion and subsequent queues along both Market Street and Church Street.
11.3 However it is understood from the local authority that there a number of safety issues at this junction relating to awkward vehicle manoeuvres and pedestrian movements.
Therefore if the existing configuration of the junction is to remain it is felt that this would not respond to the local authority’s safety concerns and would increase safety concerns due to the additional traffic.”
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In order to ameliorate this, the original recommendations in the Technical Note referred to above were as follows:-
“Recommendations
13.1 Therefore as a solution we would recommend reducing speeds at the junction, implementing signs warning drivers of the various conflicting manoeuvres at the junction and a complete overhaul and refreshing of lane markings.
13.2 In terms of reducing speeds we feel that a small increase in gradient at the junction (i.e.gradual speed bumps along Market Street and Church Street or a speed table at the same level of the footway across the entire junction) would enforce speeds to 20mph. This would cause drivers to slow down and allow them to be aware of conflicting vehicular movements. The raise in carriageway would also allow pedestrian crossing points at the junction to become more distinct and give greater priority to pedestrians.
13.3 Alternatively implementation of rumble strips on Market Street and Church Street on approach to the junction and a red top surface on the two minor roads Ainsworth Road and Lever Street to highlight give way markings would assist drivers in reducing speeds and eliminating driver errors.
13.4 Implementation of signage warning drivers of the sharp bend ahead, warning of junction layout, warning of the conflicting manoeuvres and asking to reduce speeds would also assist in helping driver making better decisions. From observation of the site there is a lack of warning signs on approach to the junction.
13.5 To cater for pedestrian movements, although this is not identified as a major issue by the accident data, push button demand (pelican/puffin) crossings are recommended which respond to demand. This would enable pedestrians to cross safely across the junction without resulting in a significant loss of capacity at the junction.
13.6 Sketches of these recommendations are shown in the two traffic management schemes shown in Figure 13 and 14.
Figure 13 (4 Pedestrian Crossings)
Figure 14 (3 Pedestrian Crossings)
However, for some unknown reason, the main body of the Transport Assessment finally decided to recommends a watered down version of the above as follows.
• A pedestrian crossing across the Church St arm (Either Zebra or Puffin)
• A pedestrian crossing across the Lever St arm (Either Zebra or Puffin) or alternatively a School Crossing Patrol across the Lever St arm.
These would still allow the Junction to operate within its capacity.
In addition to this they recommend Rumble strips, new road markings and warning signs with the aspiration of reducing the speed of approaching traffic.
This is shown below
(2 Pedestrian Crossings)
This fails to provide safe means for pedestrians to cross Ainsworth Rd and Market St.
Whether or not this watered down version would satisfy Bolton Council’s Road Safety concerns is unknown.
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THE REAL PROBLEM
Point No 2 – Traffic flow – Causes of hold ups and delays
The recommendations quoted in Point No 1 above are all to do with Pedestrians and their safety.
They do not address the real problem, which is to do with traffic flow through the Junction as every resident knows.
The Transport Assessment completely fails to address the actual causes of congestion and delays at the Junction which result in traffic ‘backing up’ and how these would be exacerbated by the development.
Below I list some of the causes of the traffic being held up and the consequent delay and congestion.
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Causes at the Junction
• Zebra Crossing (Usually involving a 10 -15 second delay.)
• Buses or HGV’s turning left from Market St into Church St held for a gap in the traffic approaching up Church St because the front offside of the bus or HGV needs to encroach over the centre line of the carriageway to get round.
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Causes remote from the junction.
• Pedestrian controlled crossing in the Village Centre. (Somewhat longer delay than the Zebra)
• Lollipop man at Dearden St
• Traffic proceeding South down Church St attempting to turn right into Dearden St
• Buses stopping on Church St
• Pedestrian controlled crossing near the High School.
• Vehicles dropping off, entering leaving or manoeuvring at the High School.
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These causes exist now and would do so in the future, with or without the development, and so can be discounted except for the instance should the Zebra be replaced by a Puffin crossing which would produce a rather longer delay.
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Point No 3
There is one further cause of hold up which would be made significantly worse by the presence of the development.
That is the movement of traffic along Market St to the Junction which then wish to turn right into Ainsworth Rd.
The carriageway at this point is 12 ft 6 inches from kerb to centre line.
The width of a car with wing mirrors can range from 6ft 4 inches to over 7 feet.
This means that in most cases traffic behind a vehicle which is stationary and waiting for a gap in the traffic flow in order to turn right, is held up until the vehicle is able to turn right.
(This also applies to traffic wishing to go straight ahead into Lever St)
The width of the car in relation to the width of the carriageway is better shown below.
If somebody is waiting to turn into Ainsworth the traffic behind can’t get past.
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The questions to be asked are :-
• “How much traffic wants to turn right into Ainsworth now, thus holding up the flow”
Compared with
• “How much more traffic would want to turn right into Ainsworth if the development was there thus causing greater interruption to the free flow from Market St into Church St.”
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The answers are provided below.
Accepting the Transport Assessment figures.(including at this time the Traffic Distribution – See note below) it is possible to show the following.
The Traffic data for this manoeuvre (turning right from Market into Ainsworth) is as follows:-
| Period | Existing 2011 | 2013 with Development | Increase |
| Friday AM | 30 | 50 | +20 |
| Friday Lunch | 25 | 56 | +31 |
| Friday PM | 32 | 64 | +32 |
| Saturday Lunch | 67 | 117 | +50 |
Thus with the development the number of vehicles wishing to make this manoeuvre is on average almost doubled thus exacerbating the above described delays.
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Point No 4 - Exiting from Ainsworth Rd.
It is well known that exiting from Ainsworth Rd in any direction across the main flow of traffic is a nightmare at the best of times. At peak times a vehicle can be sat there for five minutes before a suitable gap in the main flow occurs.
The traffic data for this manoeuvre is as follows.
| Period | Existing 2011 | 2013 with Development | Increase |
| Friday AM | 195 | 245 | +50 |
| Friday Lunch | 124 | 266 | +142 |
| Friday PM | 114 | 249 | +135 |
| Saturday Lunch | 171 | 341 | +170 |
Again with the development the number of vehicles wishing to make this manoeuvre is on average almost doubled.
Point No 5 - Traffic backed up Ainsworth prevents exit from the Development
A further problem which would make this worse is explained below.
In relation to the 2013 (with development) figures, the following distinguishes between normal traffic down Ainsworth Road and that exiting the development and turning right to the junction in addition to the normal traffic.
The figures for this are as below:-
| Period | Existing 2011 | 2013 + exiting the Development |
| Friday AM | 198 | +47 |
| Friday Lunch | 125 | +141 |
| Friday PM | 135 | +134 |
| Saturday Lunch | 173 | +168 |
The site exit at Crossley St is 130 feet away from the junction
Typical car lengths range from 14 feet to over 18 feet.
On this basis and allowing say a two foot gap between vehicles, it would only take 7 or 8 cars to be backed up from the junction for vehicles to be prevented from exiting the development to turn right.
Given the traffic flows shown above this could be quite a common situation.
Further to this anybody behind such a blocked vehicle would be unable to get out of the development even if they wanted to turn left towards Victory Rd.
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Point No 6 - RAT – RUNS
1) Accessing the development
Given the difficulties of turning right from Market St into Ainsworth Rd in order to reach the development and hold ups at the Junction upon leaving the development, (human nature being what it is), will cause motorists to take short cuts through side streets thus avoiding the junction.
Possible short cuts are shown below shown in blue
These are residential streets with parked cars, totally unsuited to rat-run traffic which would greatly affect the amenity of the residents.
2) Through traffic avoiding delays at the junction
The second Rat-Run used by through traffic to avoid congestion at the junction is shown below in blue.
These are generally wider roads through the residential Racecourse Estate. This route already suffers from speeding traffic and a measure of junction avoidance.
Traffic calming measures along this route have been unsuccessfully proposed in the past. In any event although they may control the speed they won’t control the volume.
The far end of this rat-run is the mini roundabout at Redcar Rd/Church St junction which in itself suffers congestion problems.
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