Closed
Traffic Light 'Phasing' Problem with Pellhurst Rd South /Argyll Rd West Traffic Light 3-way system
Reported in the Traffic Signal Timing (perm) category anonymously at 15:49, Fri 3 July 2020
Sent to Island Roads 2 minutes later. Enquiry ref: 16176002.
This has been reported 4 times now via phone and online and nothing has been done. We are a group of neighbours who live beside these traffic lights Pellhurst ‘south’.
We have to say, that if this problem is not sorted out within the next 10 days by 14th July 2020, we will be mounting a local campaign and protests at the Pellhurst Traffic Light system, to vocalise our opposition to this phasing problem which has been ignored by Island Roads.
THE PROBLEM: DETECTION SENSORS AND/OR TRAFFIC LIGHT ‘PHASING’ TRAFFIC FLOW ARE NOT WORKING
Since the major roadworks last Aug-Oct 2019, we began to notice that the phasing of the traffic lights were wrong.
Before the roadwork were conducted, during quiet times the traffic lights would change as soon as a car drove up to it if no other vehicles were present at the other 3-way lights ‘north or east’.
Now, the lights stop EVERY SINGLE CAR or LOUD NOISY BIKE for 27sec minimum up to 1 min 3 sec 24/7.
Our traffic light ‘PELLURST SOUTH’, gives priority to vehicles travelling from ‘Pellhurst North’ Traffic lights [Newport direction] EVEN WHEN THERE ARE NO VEHICLES COMING FROM THAT DIRECTION.
The vehicles sitting outside our homes, can see no vehicles coming towards them , or from Argyll Street, AND they even see the next set of vehicles coming from the ‘Pellhurst North/Queens Street’ traffic light junction, but they have to sit and wait until this 2nd pulse of traffic comes through - even though it should have been their turn to go. This results in up to 3 mins of ‘static revving polluting ‘vehicles outside our homes AND frustrated drivers, especially the motorcyclists who revv their engines explosively to vent their anger on us residents as we are the only ones who have to suffer their aggressive noise – instead of them contacting you direct to vent their spleens.
We are now seeing more incidents of bikers and car drivers just ignoring the lights altogether in the evening + early hours because they've realised that the lights are not going to change for them - whilst we disagree that these drivers are breaking the law IT ACTUALLY IMPROVES OUR LIVES as they move quickly through without stopping, revving and then accelerating off – it reduces their noise and their pollution coming into our homes.
In fact these 3-way Traffic lights should be temporary lights for Rush Hours only, as the traffic moves better without the lights, we have video evidence of this when the lights broke down.
Now that we are experiencing hotter weather we are unable to leave our bedroom windows open at night - as all of us can't open our windows during the day due to the pollution and the noise of sirens and explosive motorbikes and anti-social car owners with music blaring, SO we can only open our windows at night to get fresh cool air in (especially the top flats which are unbearably hot during the summer). But we can't open our windows even in the middle of the night due to every car being stopped every time they reach these lights.
We have 14,000 vehicles using this junction every day – a couple of neighbours conducted their own surveys last year and let us all know – we were shocked at the volume. Despite Covid-19 lockdown,we've counted up to 132 vehicles between the hours of 23:00 to 07:00 and the worst ones are the motorbikes with illegal exhausts who treat these lights as if they were on a Silverstone Race Track, and wait for the Green Light, revving as if waiting to start the ‘race’ only to accelerate as fast as they can so that they can reach the PELLHURST/QUEEN ST Traffic Lights before they can turn to red. This behaviour is disgraceful because most ‘bikers’ are elderly males AND are people who live round here. They are always at the lights at the following times – even during lockdown so we have no peace at all: 04:55, 05:10, 05:27, 05:35, 05:40-55, 06:15; 06:24, 06:47-57, 07:25 and so on.
On the hottest of days and nights, when neighbours are forced to have ours and their windows open, we can physically smell and taste the fumes of petrol and diesel - some residents have children in bedrooms just 30ft away from these vehicles (us included) and other elderly residents are experiencing asthma and chronic lung conditions - given that the virus is a respiratory condition if us or our neighbours are infected with this virus, they and we stand a worse chance of recovering as our immune and respiratory systems have to cope with daily high levels of pollution as well.
Some caring drivers switch off their engines whilst they wait the excessive amounts of time for the PELLHURST SOUTH lights to change - this makes a noticeable difference to us all.
SO WE WOULD LIKE IOW HIGHWAYS to put ‘COUGH, COUGH, SWITCH OFF’ signs up at PELLHURST SOUTH traffic lights and ALL TRAFFIC LIGHTS across the island to instruct all vehicles to turn their engines 'off' whilst they wait for the lights to change. It would also help if the lights had a visible ‘count down’ clock or indicator to notify drivers of which traffic light was going next. This would enable drivers to anticipate when the lights were actually going to change, which will help to stop their frustration and to manage when engines were ‘switched’ back on 'collectively' before moving off. Having the engines switch on all together and begin to move prevents a build-up of pollution entering our homes as the movement of the vehicles break up the pollution as they pass – STILL NOT GOOD, BUT SLIGHTLY BETTER FOR THE HUMANS WHO ARE LIVING WITH THIS DAILY.
WightLink Ferries operate these signs at their ferry ports and it has made a significant difference, especially at the Portsmouth end.
As mentioned at the top: We have to say, that if this problem is not sorted out within the next 10 days by 14th July 2020, we will be mounting a local campaign and protests at the Pellhurst Traffic Light system, to vocalise our opposition to this phasing problem which has been ignored by Island Roads.
We look forward to hearing from you.
State changed to: Investigating
Updated by Island Roads at 09:05, Mon 6 July 2020
State changed to: Closed
Updated by Island Roads at 16:21, Wed 15 July 2020
This report is now closed to updates from the public. You can make a new report in the same location.