Brighton Hill Roundabout - Basingstoke - 20 MILLION POUNDS to make it WORSE and LESS SAFE
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- čas přidán 9. 04. 2024
- #infrastructure #roads #basingstoke #hampshire
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We all love a roundabout... but do we love this one... it's the Brighton Hill roundabout in Basingstoke... not the best start with it being Basingstoke but we'll muddle through...
It started as a normal roundabout, then got a bit bigger and then the council decided to step in and make various "improvements" for a ridiculous cost and I'm not convinced that they've done the best job they could have. Oddly, it's the cyclists and pedestrians who might have lost out... - Auta a dopravní prostředky
As a resident of Basingstoke, and I live a stones throw from this abomination, I can confirm, it’s shit
I heard there’s a nice bush near the rail station though? 😂
As someone who has to drive through there at least twice a month I concur, Its Shit.
How big was the stone you threw? Was it towards the feasibility study?
It's genuinely terrible (as well as the black dam roundabout)
This is definitely the sarcastic c***s road tour of Britain. I love it 👍
The motto of the UK's road improvement committees: "If it ain't broke, and you want as much allocated funds next year, spend millions of the taxpayers money to f*ck things up."
If it ain't broke, fix it until it is!
Sooo that's a coffee spill on the plan not a brown water pond?
Certainly seems like that - they've made just about every roundabout in the town I grew up in, and still work in, worse or changed perfectly good junctions to hideous roundabouts or perfectly good roundabouts into overly complicated junctions... spanking millions while talking of how they've got a massive gap in their finances...
🎯
The surly dumpling motoring and tarmac lobbyists want to have their money and busy work. Who's going to argue to their faces eh?
The low-key sarcasm gets me every time. I love it. :)
Not just me then 😁😈
It's his smooth unassuming delivery that makes it all work.
So do I. John does it brilliantly
low key sarcasm is just "being british". cant be a briton if you dont have it.
what sarcasm
Q: Why do people take an instant dislike to Basingstoke.
A: Because it saves time.
I’ve heard this for a few different towns I’m sure 😂😂😂 It’s a beige place is Basingstoke
In the same class as Aldershot
You obviously haven't been to Skelmersdale.
Andover was described as the 'Gulag of Hampshire', I decided to buy a house and live there.😂
Brighton Hill roundabout was a sh*t before all this money was thrown at it. I avoid Basingstoke at all costs.
Basingstoke was already a bit of a joke in Victorian times. WS Gilbert mentions it in Ruddigore:
When I am lying awake at night, and the pale moonlight streams through the latticed casement, strange fancies crowd upon my poor mad brain, and I sometimes think that if we could hit upon some word ... some word that teems with hidden meaning - like "Basingstoke" ...
As a Basingstoke resident, I can confirm the roundabout promotes less traffic as I now actively avoid it!
hey you know maybe it's not so terrible, dont want motorway traffic outside your house dont build a motorway outside your house, induced demand doesn't necessarily mean good demand and all that
@@roboko6618 English has to be your second language. You must have typed that with your feet, that have 6 toes on.
@@stevekelly5166 roboko's comment reply was legible enough to me. Perhaps try again without the dangling preposition while calling out someone else's spelling/grammar.
@@burgersnchips You probably live next door. That's why I only go there to catch a train.
I was going to press the like button, but thought I would wait and see if it did it by itself like the crossing button in the video.
"do you live in Basingstoke?"
"Sorry to hear that if you do"
LOL
I’m from Basingstoke, and I’m not offended 😂
@@crystalstroud9111 🤣🤣
Is it me or does it seem like Basingtstoke is just a made up word to sound like a town name like say, "strokerville" or "wankerton". 😁
I moved out of Basingstoke to the West Coast two years ago, best thing I ever did. F that place
I live in Basingstoke, though thankfully the other end. Last time I had to go to Kempshott I took the M3 from J6 to J7. A bit of a longer way round but didn't have to deal with that abomination.
Awww Basingstoke. Back in the early to mid 2000’s before that roundabout had traffic lights, I was a trainee British Gas engineer and our training centre was just off that round about. Come 5 o’clock around 50 early 20 something lads in our BG vans we used to descend on that roundabout and play a game of who could get the most laps of it 😂 being nearly 40 now id like to apologise to any locals who were forced to sit and wait while we completed our British Gas roundabout Grand Prix 🙏🏻
Hahaha lol :D
Hey kids, Big Ben, Parliament...
Agreed, once a roundabout has traffic lights, it's original purpose has been defeated. Turn it into a cross roads. While I'm at it, if we have to have lights on roundabouts, at least turn them off at 9pm and turn them back on at 6am. Waiting for absolutely nothing coming on a roundabout is wasteful and makes me very very angry.
Yes, they have these in Bracknell and I really wish they do them here.
It really upsets me that the UK has actually moved away from part time traffic lights (because 'drivers find them confusing' they said) at the very time putting traffic lights on roundabouts became popular.
To be fair there are many roundabouts now that wouldn't work without lights at peak times, but my god it's frustrating having to stop 3 or 4 times for absolutely nobody at 2am simply going around a single roundabout. Frankly it's annoying at anything other than peak periods - just have them switch on for a couple of hours in the morning and evening peak when they are needed and useful and then switch off and let the roundabout be a roundabout for the other 20 hours of the day.
@@ryanmitcham5522 try approaching them at night slowly. Many are set to go all red and change when they detect traffic. You'll be surprised when they change before you reach them
Planners LOVE to say traffic lights reduce congestion and increase safety yet they fail to cite a single study that backs up their claims. Where are these studies?
Your infrastructure videos should be made mandatory viewing for each and every planner that endeavours to meddle with a junction before they are allowed to lift a finger. I would love to see you do a video with the planners where you give them the opportunity to justify their work. Auto Shenanigans Planning Debates. Frickin sweet awesome!
One of the problems is council road planners often don't live in the area and don't spend any time observing in person.
Near my home is a hump back bridge over a canal. There is a pedestrian access to the canal just over the hump. Previously there was a railing placed in the pavement in front of the canal entrance forcing pedestrians who come from the canal to walk to the bottom of the bridge to cross the road. Some clever spark in the council decided to remove the railing and install a dropped kerb encouraging pedestrians to cross the road just over the hump. The result is, if you are driving you cannot see anything over the hump, you crest, and find someone pushing a pushchair three metres in front of you in the middle of the road. I'm surprised nobody has been killed yet!
The consultancies need to be called out, not just the councils. They're scamming public money
@@soyebaswat5382 But now you know that, you slow down and crest the hump with care :)
@@bobbending not everyone is a local. Plus they got rid of the hump bridge sign too, so unless you know, you really don't know.
They did exactly the same in Plymouth, took out a series of subways designed to seperate pedestrians from the traffic and put in pedestrian lights... instant congestion. Keep up the good work.
Keep voting for them - surely those trips to polling stations *must* eventually produce competent managers?
The subways/walkways/separation of people and traffic was pretty popular in the 60s and 70s. I don't mind it but sometimes it's left us with some dingy, crumbling and graffiti ridden infrastructure where some people don't feel safe and it's apparently not so good for those with reduced mobility (ramps/slopes/longer walking routes etc.) . The trend has definitely moved to putting in more lights and crossing and less emphasis on allowing traffic to flow.
@@paulketchupwitheverything767 £20M would employ 2 people full time to patrol and maintain those subways for a very long time.
I don't understand the logic. Unless they're collapsing or something, the only reason I can see is the potential risk of mugging there. But if they're already there, why not use them ?
@@paulscottrobson could just be my luck, but I’ve never even heard of someone being mugged in Basingstoke
Your humor is just unmatched. Elite sarcasm and dryness. Also, they should really hire YOU to do these jobs, because these infants clearly don't know how to build a roundabout!!
“We’re going to need them soon enough, looking at this roundabout” 😂😂 priceless! Love it
The way this guy is throwing shade could shame a solar eclipse into total darkness.
Nice, I like that allegory 👍🏿
I’ve driven around it and it’s exciting! Vehicles cutting across you from left and right. No one knows what lane to be in and who has right of way. You just need to put your car in gear, pick your line and go for it! I feel more alive each time I’ve driven around it 😅
Hi Jon, I'm a Traffic Engineer and love watching your vids - always makes me chuckle.
Generally speaking, roundabouts are better for traffic flow, but there are lots of location specific factors that determine how well a rounabout works such as ICD (the size of the roundabout), vehicle speeds, number of arms, how balanced the flows are (i.e. is there more traffic coming out of one arm than another), whether the primary turn is a right or left turn, whether the traffic is tidal (all going one direction in the morning and the opposite in the evening), number of lanes, etc.
Generally speaking (and bearing in mind i dont know the roundabout in question), roundabouts work well up to a certain amount of traffic, but once its reached capacity, traffic signals are actually better for traffic flow. Thats why lights are installed on roundabouts that can be insanely busy and not on roundabouts that are pretty free flowing. Yet again, location specific as above.
Then you add pedestrians and cyclists into the mix and things get more complicated. Subways are all very well and good, but they tend to create situations where theyre seldom used because they're seen as dangerous or undesirable. This usually means that most able bodied pedestrians will dart across the arms of the roundabout one by one as its a more direct and less intimidating route than using the subway. Given that pedestrians may already be darting across the road, it makes sense to provide a facility for them to improve safety. Then if you create a road crossing facility, less people will use the subway.... Making it redundant and essentially pointless.
The 60s were great times for road building, but we've reached a point where adding more lanes and roads, makes it easier to drive, which in turn encourages people to drive, and therefore leads to extra cars filling up the roads. A bit like the Dartford Crossing and any highway in the US.
I would imagine the focus for this scheme is primarily to add a small amount of capacity for future developments, but primarily offer greater improvement for pedestrians and cyclists to coax people out of cars and improve traffic that way. I drive my car a lot, but i also walk a lot and can appreciate both sides. I've never been down a subway after a few dodgy experiences, but i would personally make some journeys on foot if i lived near this roundabout and may not have done before. (With the caveat that i dont live there and dont know the location specific details)
Having lived in Basingstoke for most of my life and being an avid walker/cyclist around it at times. I have never seen anyone snub the underpasses in favour of attempting dodge tons of metal coming at them at roundabouts. Other places yes, especially when the underpass has been built on the old farm pond. Pathing in Basingstoke has mostly been designed to require pedestrians to climb over railings to get to the roads.
This redesign is just waiting for a pedestrian death
just out of interest do you play city skylines?
I HAVE SAID THE SAME FOR YEAR! Roundabouts are a great management system. Traffic lights are a great management system. But never together! Turns out two rights do make a wrong. You need to look at junction 3 of the M2 as another case like this. They spent millions to stop tail backs on the A229 and so added extra roundabouts and traffic lights and now we have two tail backs worse than before. Everybody said how the design made no sense and now they want to rebuild it again for a EXTREME amount of money!
I knew someone who lived in Basingstoke once. Finding their house was a bit like navigating your way through a different galaxy. 🤣
Basingstoke is in a different galaxy.
@@Rubicola174 They disappeared down Basingstoke's black hole.
Maybe they didn't want you to find them. Maybe you use too many space related similies. Maybe it was the emojis. Maybe I'm wrong.
Douglas Adams?
@@AlexLR ok
I started waving at the end but John didn’t wave back.
☹️
He forgot the "How the devil are you, have you had a good week?" bit.
I remember using the new island for the first time and suddenly finding without changing lanes the lane I was in now went somewhere totally different. You're spot on, honestly, it's never been a great junction but the new version just seems like a collection of bad ideas...
I've experienced quite a few roundabouts that do this. The lane markings and signs force you to change lanes half way round. Also, when your not from the area and are dependent on signs and road markings, it just makes things more stressful than they need to be. Not hard to see why there's accidents on these things.
I think subways for pedestrians have the potential to become really dodgy places and are rarely pleasant places to walk through. That being said, if I had the choice between needing to go through a slightly dodgy underpass and waiting at traffic lights near at least three car lanes several times, I think I'd choose the underpass. You don't need underpasses for normal intersections, but if you already have them for a really wide, high traffic intersection like this roundabout, I really see no reason to remove them.
You're probably more likely to get mugged while waiting for the traffic lights, happens in Nottingham quite a bit. The subways just needed maintenance and security improvements
Plenty of people used them and now I see virtually no one walking on the new roundabout. No one is using it.
They are only dodgy if nobody cared about their design. Look abroad, and you'll find them installed with fancy light systems, glazed murals or outright parkour installations, and included in the cleaning schedule for city workers. The moment you stop treating them as a place where nobody wants to be, it makes a huge difference.
@@Aviertje Yeah but in Britain that's exactly what happens
that's the thing, you don't have to actually get mugged to feel apprehensive using these subways. The ones mentioned here had a very isolated and remote feel about them, i could well imagine lone females not enjoying the experience. Also, from what I remember when I lived there, it was hard as a cyclist negotiating the steep entrance ramps, I would imagine that was even worse for wheelchair users.
Agree 100% that this is worse for pedestrians. Before you could just walk through without waiting, now you have to wait an age for the lights - and clearly its not just one set of lights you will be waiting for, it will be at least two, but maybe more sets of lights. It will definitely kill people in the long run as people in a hurry take a chance with a gap in traffic.
More like 4+, as you have to cross via the splitter islands. Not sure why anyone thought this was a good idea. If the subways were difficult for the disabled due to steep inclines, (a problem with subways sometimes,) just elongate the inclines.
And for those worried about getting robbed, well if you're stuck waiting at lights for long enough then there's a good deal of time for a nice watch to be acquired haha
@@Seb512 and its not like the police can do much when they’re stuck in traffic on the other side of the roundabout
4 lanes to, most poeple 2 or 3 the normal, and as you say in a hurry take a chancers, not relasing its four lane it a roundabout, car are going expect perditions on the tarmac are they? very bad idea?
Plus they don't seem to have considered how as a pedestrian simply being next to a large multi-lane road is just really noisy and unpleasant. Previously they had a solution that avoided having to interact with it at all, and they have thrown all that out because...well I don't know why. 'Crime' is the usual excuse for getting rid of subways, so was waiting for it to mentioned but it wasn't.
They had what is previously dreamed of for a large multi-lane busy road - complete separation between pedestrians and road traffic. But they decided to destroy all that and force pedestrians to cross the aforementioned, and now widened, road. I'm baffled why they would take such a backwards step. Improve the subways rather than destroy them.
As a teacher in Basingstoke in the 80’s I took my students to survey BH roundabout. We crossed, safely, through the subways to the centre where we sat, safely, counting cars, lorries, bikes … and even a Sinclair C5! We then returned, safely, the way we came. Something tells me I wouldn’t be taking my kids there now, even for a ton of Sinclair C5’s!
I took one look at the plan you showed and immediately thought 'This is stupid'.
As a resident of Basingstoke, it was a surprise to me that they actually managed to build this shite by now. The Arabs would’ve built a second Burj Kalifa in the time it took us to put some tarmac down in an oval shape.
They had to have at least 10 committee meetings for this though! such an important step!
to be fair the burj kalifa isn't the most ethically constructed or managed building
Yeah, great what you can do with slave labour.
@@grahamlive Burj Khalifa might not be a good example, but there definitely projects out there that get way more done compared to how much time gets spent on something that should be extremely simple, like a roundabout rebuild
I use this crap-a-bout daily both as a driver and pedestrian. It's significantly worse that before they changed it. Constantly held up by traffic lights, having to cut across lanes to take certain exits and what was once a simple path system is now a crossings puzzle. Totally pointless and has not changed the queue's one bit. So glad to be sat waiting at 3 sets of red lights at 3am with no cars in sight. Great job Highways...!!!!!!!
You missed "and thanks for taking £20 Million of our money you could have spent on something we actually needed to do it."
My parents lived in the area (Basingstoke/Tadley) 55 years ago - and it was a dump then as well. One thing I was told was that if they hadn't had a lucky job posting to elsewhere, I would have been raised in council housing because it was also an expensive dump where they would never have afforded to buy their own home. To this day, I could never consider living anywhere within reach of London for that exact reason - I was once asked why I didn't go and work down there (my then-employer had a sister office in M'Keynes) and I replied by saying that if they would add £100k to my salary (ie 400% increase), I'd consider it - otherwise I couldn't have afforded to buy a house. I doubt if matters have improved in the 20 years since then.
Finally you've done Basingstoke and one of it's most horrendous roundabouts. Should do blackdam rdb too (junction 6 rdb)
I am firmly of the belief that anyone applying for a job as a road planner is immediately rejected if they have a driving licence !
or an IQ over 10!
We had a subway on the Eastern Flyer in Swindon removed and replaced with pelican crossings… that won’t stop traffic. Such a waste of money and it’s not as safe as before.
Why traffic planners think waiting for a gap before turning the pelican lights red is beyond me. There’s no point having a pelican crossing if you are forced to wait for a gap in traffic. You might as well have waited for the gap. All that happens is that people cross the road before the lights change forcing traffic to stop for no reason as the pedestrians have already crossed.
I used to live near Reading and was glad Basingstoke existed. It made me feel better.
Local resident here - as a motorist, it was terrible before, even worse during, and slightly less terrible now (but only if you know in advance which lane you need to be in, and have eyes in every direction to watch for people who don't). As a pedestrian, however, it's far worse - the underpasses were fine, bar the occasional flood.
We went to the 'consultation', and like all such consultations, they ignored everything that was raised and did what they wanted...
Oh, and the road markings are wearing off already - it's only been six months...
Thanks Jon, I have always thought those who work on the council are failed politicians
This will be the work of road experts not politicians, as usual its a traffic light engineers wet dream!
A lot of them are up and coming politicians, A scary thought,
How can you fail at being a politician?
I like this video so I’ve pressed the button specifically for that 👉🏻
That's fwickin sweet!
Basingstoke and roundabout will always remind me of Douglas Adams.
This is what happens in many councils where, due to cuts, they have to outsource designs to consultants that are not traffic and people management specialists. It becomes a design piece rather than anything truly functional.
That's been the case since the war.
Nothing to do with cuts more to do with moving money
@@count69 1st or 2nd major disagreement or 3rd minor disagreement
Definitely be tory donors too I have no doubt
Having driven around this glorious location before it's rebuild I'm eager never to go near it ever again now. Thank you for this public information help film 👏
The question that needs to be asked is 'has anyone who was involved in dreaming up this grand scheme ever actually used this road?' or 'where they in any way qualified with real world experience to decide on these changes?' really enjoy the real world critical view on this stuff, thanks for making these vids.
Perhaps a video on the road design process in the UK is in order.
JON: I just keep going round and round your roundabout-of-sarcasm, and don’t want to exit!!
👍😂⭕️
I haven’t lived in basingstoke for nearly 20 years, but I remember this roundabout as a kid. What the hell were they thinking?!
The Basingstoke roundabout famous from the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
Arthur : “How did we get here?”
Ford : "We hitched a lift”
Arthur : “Excuse me? Are you trying to tell me that we just stuck out our thumbs and some green bug-eyed monster stuck his head out and said, Hi fellas, hop right in. I can take you as far as the Basingstoke roundabout?”.
Ford Prefect: "Well, the thumb's an electronic sub-ether device, the roundabout's at Barnard's Star, six light-years away, but otherwise that's more or less it."
Arthur Dent: "And the bug-eyed monster?"
Ford Prefect: "Is green, yes."
The mug of Crayon's seems so fitting for talking about councils work
Spot on. Roundabout was fine beforehand. They’ve done exactly the same to several other major roundabouts in the town that it now takes twice as long to get from the east to the west of the town regardless of the time of day.
Leicester City council have been closing off pedestrian subways & bridges for a while now too.
Apparently it's to reduce crime, although it leads to the similar situation of people having to cross the inner ring road (one of the busiest roads in Leicester) at grade.
I actually like the new layout but I agree that the subways should have stayed. I actually like Basingstoke too, I cant be the only one. Can I?
Presumably "increased pedestrian safety" is a roundabout way of saying "some little shits kept causing trouble in the subway paths".
Your right Roundabouts were designed to keep traffic flowing. Putting traffic lights on them stops this function, especially in quiet times. At 2 on a Sunday morning I can wait with no traffic on the roundabout at three sets.
Lets encourage more cars to use the roundabout to reduce traffic!
Absolute genius council
Same in Peterborough. Roundabout on one of the busiest roads into the city. Millions to replace footbridges with crossings on the roundabout so pedestrians can walk in front of traffic.
That may have been the plan.
You're referring to the Bourges Boulevard junction? The original plan was to get rid of the elevated bridges (and it wouldn't have cost that much to make the ramps accessible there is enough unused land). Thankfully the bridges have been kept thanks to concerted campaigning.
Fact is, you're more likely to be struck by a car than get mugged. That junction is broken in many ways, avoid at all costs being in a queue on the parkway. Use all of the sliproad instead. No-one wants to be hit from behind by an inattentive driver.
I love your level of enthusiasm and sarcasm. Keep up the good work
You got me Jon. When you said that they had removed pedestrians, I started thinking "Hmm, that's not the normal agenda". Then you explained that they are using pedestrian crossings to slow down the traffic flow. So yeah, more dangerous for pedestrians, more inconvenient for drivers, everybody blaming each other and creating conflict among different groups of road users. That's what councils seem to want these days. Well done Basingstoke.
This is the best video I've ever seen about anything
The Junction on the Fleming Way in Swindon Town Centre used to have a roundabout with Separate subways like the Brighton Hill Roundabout in Basingstoke but now the subways underneath roundabouts are obsolete in both Swindon and Basingstoke.
Consultants eh? Yeah. I've been at a number of companies that get a consultant in when they already have qualified and knowledgeable people already employed who could do a better job cheaper. People with decades of experience of the very company and procedures that the consultants come in and screw up.
Just got to keep all those backhanders circulating. We would not want the black economy drying up now would we.
The A30 is truly blessed with special roundabouts. Drive east and find yourself on the meadows roundabout/gyratory.
We have traffic lights, we’ve got the number of lanes varying between 3 and 6, we’ve got interlaced entrances and exits and we’ve got a new consultation on improvements!
Forgot to point out that an additional element to this travesty is that half the junction is in Surrey and the other in Berkshire. We can be grateful of two things; One it wasn’t a bit further west and also partly in Hampshire, and two that the the military base to the north is merely Sandhurst, and not any part of the army that deals in tanks.
The Black Dam Roundabout, M3 Jct 6 to the Ringroad, was meant to help but hasn't really. Squeezed into a space not big enough, with a single fast part of carriageway if you're coming off the M3 but nothing similar if you're joining.
They have been doing the same all over Southampton, removing underpasses in favour of crossings and road cycleways. Much less safer and adds to congestion. 👍
Its worth tuning in just to see what outro music you have chosen. Takes me back to my early teens every time!
Live basically next to this roundabout. I always see workers doing well... Work on the new roundabout. Not even 24 hours after it had been finished people were working on it. Also traffic light timing are HORRIBLE.
Jack Dee said theres so many roundabouts in Basingstoke, you don't drive into Basingstoke, you waltz into it lol !!
Maybe they could commission a new public artwork to display on the roundabout, a giant walnut whip ought to suffice by the looks of it, or similar.
As a Basingstoke resident who uses this roundabout a lot, I can tell you that it's better from a driving perspective. I can't comment on pedestrian/cycle use, but the subways were used as places for people to gather to smoke weed, so not very welcoming for anyone else.
Roundabouts work well when the intersecting roads have a roughly equal level of traffic, which is not the case here - most traffic is going one way or the other along the A30, which made it difficult to get on to the roundabout from the other exits. The traffic that speeds towards town and continues speeding around the roundabout made it somewhere between difficult and suicidal, particularly from Western Way.
I know it's popular to slag off the new roundabout design, but from my experience, it's a long-overdue improvement.
All subways need are a clean up, better lighting, maybe some decent local art on the walls and some cameras and the odd police inspection. From a safety and efficiency perspective they are much better on larger junctions, just need maintenance.
Agreed, pulling out of Western Way is so much better now.
@@Seb512 as I said elsewhere, £20M would pay for every subway area to have its own full time patrol/maintenance person for many years.
You ought to learn to drive. It is far worse than it was.
@@themightywrighty20 million pounds well spent then. FFS.
Exactly the same problem in the East riding of Yorkshire Council. The infamous red light roundabout with 47 sets of traffic lights. When they break down ghw roundabout actually works.
Did the same thing at the elephant and Castle. Pedestrian crosings are now part of the calming. And it takes far longer to traverse.
Living not far from the UK's first roundabout (Yay! Letchworth! Come visit us sometime!) one interesting feature about the Basingstoke design is that pedestrians walk across the middle of the roundabout.
That is exactly what they were meant to do on the first roundabout - that is why it had a central island.
But - yeah - it didn't work so they scrapped the idea. Seems Basingstoke did not know that.
In fact Letchworth seems to have scrapped the idea more quickly than their other notion, ie. that you could go around direction (it took them 20 years to work that one out)
They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway...
Let's make the councils criminally liable for any and all accidents for a period of say five years after the work is finished. It might just focus their minds more.
Did the same thing in Slough where a perfectly functioning roundabout with subways, as shown on the opening titles to The Office,with was replaced at vast expense with a complicated road junction with traffic lights. Takes more than twice as long to navigate now for road users and pedestrians. Oh and the bus station, a rather run down buiding which worked was also demolished to be replaced with a non functioning, windy shed!
I am very glad my local council has no money to do this with every Roundabout-Subway combination on the Ring road around the town centre
That's councils for you. Creating unnecessary work to justify their budgets!
Yet still they get budgets cut because the government si.ply doesn't care whether they do or not
When i saw the image for the vid i I thought it was the Canford Bottom roundabout in Ferndown as Dorset Council decided to make it worse for the 2012 Olympics for people going to Weymouth for the sailing.......looking forward to seeing your personal take on this in the future
Indeed, those thousands of houses - which will probably be occupied by our Countries uninvited 'guests' who seem incapable of acquiring Insurance, Tax and an MOT or the ability to keep to a lane, indicate or give way - makes this roundabout (and area) a perfect 10 in the 'fatality hotspot' of the Insurance Adjusters list.
Interesting to see how other councils mess up roundabouts with traffic lights. Great Yarmouth did a fine job a few years back at Gapton Hall, now Norwich is putting the not-yet-finishing touches to a small scheme costing 4.4 million.
Just love your ability to define the lack of governmental logic! Water and oil don't mix, neither do pedestrians (and peddle bikers for that matter) with cars. Great video as always!
I'm a Basingstoke resident too. Before the changes, the queues leading to the roundabout were awful. In the evening, many people coming home from work, coming in from out of town wanted to get to Brighton Hill and the Harrow Way, and blocked the entrance for the people coming to it from the industrial estates elsewhere. It was a abysmal. But I think all it needed was traffic lights to balance the flow. Would have cost a lot less, and not screwed things up for pedestrians.
It would have taken a week and wouldn't have cost 20m quid to put traffic lights on the thing.
If you're putting traffic lights on a roundabout, you've already screwed up. If you really think you need traffic lights, get rid of the roundabout.
Should've been a flyover for connecting both sides of the A30 over the roundabout. Cheap structure such as the one used at the Hogarth roundabout, Chiswick would do.
Similar thing happening where i live, perfectly good roundabout which works well but the council want to 'future proof' it by putting traffic lights on it. worse still it's going to take 54 weeks of disruption and diversions . Did the residents ask for it, no but we don't get any choice.
People say that Basingstoke is just like Swindon with its confusing roundabouts. But yet again you can’t get more confused with the Magic Roundabout in Swindon than the Brighton Hill Roundabout in Basingstoke.
There's one in Hemel Hempstead comparable to Swindon's Magic roundabout.
There is nothing good in Basingstoke. The end. other than the A30 out of it. And the Pizza Express.
That Pizza Express is the worst Pizza Express I have ever been to.
It's definitely a backwards step, have to agree with everything said in the video. Admittedly in it's previous guise, there were no traffic lights, meaning entering the roundabout from one of the minor roads at peak times, waiting for all the traffic from the A30 to pass was hard work. But at least in it's previous guise it was free flowing and the road markings/lane alignments made sense. The previous setup as mentioned was FAR better for pedestrians, everywhere that needed access had it, and every subway was step free, as is still the case with a number of other roundabouts in the town. And of course traffic didn't have to stop to allow people to cross, which at a roundabout this large and this busy, makes a huge difference to it's comfortable capacity. Great video!
Lane markings are all very well except that they eventually wear away and even when new you can't see them if there's a lot of traffic about. They look lovely on the "artist's impression", though.
How did the council mess this up so much?
good ol' fashioned croneyism and corruption?
@@indieWellie seems very likely
Wow ! A council wasting money ?. Thought they didn't have any .
Succinctly brilliant, as always.
As always low-sarcasm made this so good. Very inter too and seeing this absolutely f*ck up make me think of the ludicrous joke that is by us in Chester on the A41 which used to be a functional roundabout handling 6 exits which has been replaced with a junction that makes this junction look sensible and worked out. Great video.
I agree with you about paying the nurses with the cash they have paid out to cock this island up
I do too, but then my wife's a nurse . . .
It is working!!! The whole point of these improvements is to slow down traffic and increase congestion so they can bring in charges.
The problem with subways in the UK, especially long, interlinked subways in New Towns with nothing to do, is that, especially at night, they tend to attract the local yoof-with-nefarious-things-to-do. In an era of savage cuts to central government grants for local authorities, it requires less investment and creative thinking to replace the subways and cut the savage yoofs’ activities by bringing into the open.
Because of the batshit crazy way that local authority budgets work, they will probably have been compelled to use the £20 million for roads, or face a £20 million budget reduction.
I’ve been to Basingstoke a few times, business and pleasure, but not this century. At the time, they seemed to have created a -town- urban settlement in which it was impossible to not get lost. The rugby pitches seemed to have been surfaced with contents of flint mine spoil tip.
"I sometimes think that if we could hit upon some word for you to use whenever I am about to relapse - some word that teems with hidden meaning - like "Basingstoke" - it might recall me to my saner self."
THANK YOU!! The obsession that the UK has with roundabouts is insane. The amount of large roundabouts with multiple traffic lights is just wasting everyone's time.
luckily the NHS and local councils are about to cock up Basingstoke and Winchester hospitals so all those people on the roundabout can expect an amazing service
A friend tells me that in the late '60s the Forestry Commission, for whom his father was a senior civil engineer, decided to move to Basingstoke owing to the lack of trees there. The family looked around the area at housing and schools, at the landscape and quality of life. Friend's dad resigned and took a pay cut to keep the family in Edinburgh.
Basingstoke was invented to make Essex look reasonable.
The Rusper Road roundabout on A264 Horsham discourages drivers to use a lane which goes straight on (or left), but use 2 lanes which merge together on the other side of the roundabout
This took 2 years to build, and during that time pointless temp diversions took cars on routes of several km which could have been avoided by just shifting a few cones at the end of the working day. Cumulatively hundreds of thousands needless additional km driven... and this from a council which has declared a "climate emergency". This was pointed out to them mid construction but it was ignored.
Traffic lights at a roundabout is always a disaster.
Thanks
I am from the council and I am here to help you.
as a driver who has used this roundabout, i have had no issues, but i use the highway code to help me and follow the signage to enable the change of how we have to use this new roundabout , i agree the cycle names is a bit unsafe as you could just drive across the roundabout as there are no crash barriers. The history of the Harrow way is interesting and that the beatles once stopped outside where the harvester is now for a toilet break, people just don;t like change, or learning new methods, great video as always
I live in Basingstoke. Every single roundabout that Hampshire County Council have "improved" in recent years here has been made worse, more confusing and just downright dangerous. And the County Council is running out of money (meaning my better half could be losing her job with them soon). Wankers.
Such a joke. How can HCC run out of money when they get the bulk of council tax payers payments every year?
At least they replaced the 25-ish trees in the middle of the roundabout with 3 sad stumps. That should help keep any future heat waves in check.
Typical council cockpit . Spend millions to make the situation worse and it’s going on all over the country. Loved the jazz organ music at the end ❤