Friday, August 23, 2013

Leopold Street lights meltdown

It was the turn of the Leopold Street set of lights to play up today. This incident was the latest in a long line of hiccups that date back to the installation of the new sets of traffic lights in Nairn. That installation being part of the conditions on the planning permission for the Sainsbury's store. Today  would have been a good day to do a new traffic impact assessment on the effects of building 300 plus homes in a field on the Cawdor Road! The image in this article from Donald
was taken at 11.35 this morning


Donald told the Gurn this morning: " This time it's Leopold Street that have gone faulty. I sat in the traffic for 9 minutes to get out onto the A96. No school run, just the usual drivers  parked on the left on the double yellows restricting the road and could  the council get the top 3 bays removed so we can get two proper lanes  going onto the A96?  There is the pinch bit where the post is outside the  Nairnshire, quite rightly to stop people driving on the pavement but  usually left lane is clear and drivers cannot get onto it until the 
right lane has cleared."  

Donald  phoned BEAR about this incident and he remains unimpressed with their customer service, he spent 28 minutes trying to get through to someone in authority. He is waiting for a high heid yin to call back. Donald had also phoned them recently  after the the tailbacks to Delnies. He didn't get a reply to that call but didn't give up, he phoned twice more then phoned Transport Scotland and after that someone from BEAR rang to speak to him. Donald is also worried about the impact these delays are having on businesses in Nairn. 

This observer went for a look at the situation around five o'clock and the BEAR engineers had just about finished correcting the timing.


15 comments:

Anonymous said...

This afternoon i watched as ALL the traffic from Leopold Street completely ignored the red lights and drove through them onto Academy Street and King Street,it seemed that all the drivers where so frustrated they just did as they chose.

Spurtle said...

The traffic light situation in Nairn is laughable.

Installed to satisfy the demands of those at Transport Scotland to allow a supermarket to be built on the outskirts of town, they have done nothing to improve traffic flow through the town and, indeed, how could anyone seriously expect the arrival of four new sets of traffic lights to improve an already poor traffic management system.

As is the quangoesk way that such bodies deal with this type of situation, Transport Scotland simply seem not to give a toss.

Two 'consultation' events, supposedly to allow the high hied yins to get the low down from the folks at the pointy end of traffic issues in the town have resulted in , now let me have a think............., exactly sod all being done.

No modifications to poorly designed roundabouts, no decommissioning of pointless traffic lights and no common sesne when it comes to sanctioning extra housing developments at Nairn South and Lochloy.

Put simply, if we think it's bad now, it'll only get worse and having got hee haw common sense out of Transport Scotland when I've been in touch with them, I'm not quite sure what the best course of action is.

Perhaps if lots of townsfolk started bombarding Keith Brown and Fergus Ewing with emails on an annoyingly regular basis, it may stir some activity at Transport Scotland , as contacting them directly is, like Councillors attending planning meetings, a complete and utter waste of time.

Anonymous said...

Traffics often so bad on the A96 that cars doing a right turn out of Leopoldo St cannot get out. Many folk ignore the yellow grid so it's often the same as you try and turn left, cars block your exit. Night or day it's rare to see traffic flowing smoothly through Nairn now.
No one listens to our genuine complaints, or at least if they do no action is taken. With so many lights we will always have problems for as long as they're there. The easy solution would be to switch some of them off but I doubt that will happen. Traffic flow became a problem for the town when the lights were installed at Lochloy Rd, and further lights have just made it worse.

Anonymous said...

How about a mini roundabout on the leopold street junction instead of lights?

Anonymous said...

As anonymous 1 said people out of frustration were going through the lights on red. Now was there an accident because people were effectivly using the junction without traffic control?
It will work if some of the lights ( Seabank Rd, Albert St and Lochloy Rd) are turned off and either mini roundabout/s and yellow boxes used and leave the lights at Grants Garage and Moss-side Rd.
D

Anonymous said...

As a matter of interest to all you frustrated drivers who moan because you're stuck in a queue, some, if not all, of these traffic lights are also pedestrian crossings. Don't forget that a certain amount of red lights are because some poor person on two legs is trying to cross the road safely! I know, how selfish of them, who do they think they are?

Anonymous said...

Bear with us?!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
As a matter of interest to all you frustrated drivers who moan because you're stuck in a queue, some, if not all, of these traffic lights are also pedestrian crossings. Don't forget that a certain amount of red lights are because some poor person on two legs is trying to cross the road safely! I know, how selfish of them, who do they think they are?

7:22 AM

I have seen on a number of occasions the pedestrian lights go on green when there was nobody stood at them

growtosow said...

how many does it take to do the lights. the three bears?

Anonymous said...

anon@8.36am,I presume you mean red? On many occasions at some of these crossings I have been about to cross when the light has gone to red and the beeping has started to indicate it is safe to cross and cars have sailed through the red. This is particulary bad at the bottom of the High Street/ top of Harbour road crossing. One day someone will be hurt because of this bad behaviour and ignorance.

Anonymous said...

I think there should be no parking spaces in Leopold Street at all. just 2 lanes going onto the A96

Anonymous said...

The Leopold Street motorway, brilliant until you hit the near gridlock on the A96

Nairnlass said...

Just returned from visiting my folks who live in the fishertown. A step ladder erected by the lights outside the old regal. So still working on them today. The light at Albert st junction was red for traffic heading towards Inverness, a motorbike completely ignored it, drove through it and carried on his merry way. Meanwhile the traffic heading into town was completely blocking the yellow box junction. Seems like some drivers have completely forgotten the Highway Code. Definitely agree that Moss-side road needs traffic lights but think they should look again at the position of all the other ones and box junctions put in to allow sainsburys to build on the other side of the town.

Jane Harkiss said...

Did they find any bears?

Graisg said...

@ you got them bear - thanks for the sighting. Let's see what Monday brings. "Rearranging seats on the Titanic" thanks for that quote too..