Cambridge commuters support thread

[1000piecepuzzle]

Another day, another queue. I commute from hardwick to fulbourn and it's just awful. A428, m11, a14 it's all fucked and will remain so until 2020. Aaaargh. Anyone else want to join me on a mutual whinge thread?

Stagecoach are an abomination, aren't they? I just don't understand how we can't have a combined ticketing platform in Cambridge; nor why there are no smart solutions for park and ride tickets. Each time I have to use the flakey machines which may or may not work to buy a parking and bus ticket.

The public transport situation is a complete disgrace. It's unbelievable that the City Deal situation got so far with absolutely no guarantee of buses being provided. I am personally very lucky to live where I can do all my work travel by bike, but the issue is important to me as my street is rammed every day with cars parked on churned up verges and right across pavements by people who I imagine have pretty much no choice but to drive in to work on a nearby NHS site. The idea that my neighbourhood could be completely carved up by four lanes of tarmac, separating residents from neighbours and local shops and schools, and there would STILL be no guarantee of any actual buses on said tarmac to give commuters meaningful choice on whether or not to drive, is enraging and heartbreaking and ridiculous in the 21st century.

Please do not vote to concrete over the Coton Orchard, destroy Coton and the West Fields. Apart from being environmental heresy it won't actually solve any of the problems. The buses will immediately get stuck on Grange Road and just add to more rush hour problems in the city centre. Freedom on Information requests from various colleges (in particular Downing) have made it clear that all the local planners view the bus route across the West Fields as the stepping stone to building an extra 5000+ house there, which will further compound the traffic problems. People need to be encouraged not to get in their cars at all - they dont' want to get out of them once they are in them, so the Park and Ride on Madingley Rise will be useless and is already well after the Madingley Road congestion starts. Scotland Farm is marginally better but not much. Have you seen the proposals for a new metro system running N-S, and W-E with a station under Parkers Piece? If it actually worked that would be great - it would stop people getting in their cars as far out as cambourne. However please do not destroy the West Fields and Coton Orchard.

I don't even commute daily, but am having to travel to Linton regularly in the evenings at the moment. It actually takes less time to get there than it does to get from my house near addenbrookes to my mums near castle hill. Every single road seems to have works going on right now!!!

Stationary a14 west at fen ditton 30 mins and counting :-(

1000piece Hope you're safely home soon. It's closed both directions while they deal with an accident :-(

Well on a more positive note its really good to see the Cambridge-Oxford rail link going ahead and potentially open in the 2020s. Watching the potential route with interest - would be great to have some local stops on it. The reports suggest it could take a lot of freight as well.

And also the A428 dual carriageway upgrade to the Black Cat, work due to start 2020 (just as the A14 works finish!). The A1198 roundabout is always snarled up, I don't understand why they didn't design it better with filter lanes when the Cambourne bypass was done.

My commute has improved by 5 mins every morning now the M11 southbound lane closure is gone - seemed that a lot of traffic was diverting off to avoid it and clogging up all the village routes. Every little helps!

I've been trying to find info on the web about how A14 accident rates may have increased since the roadworks started - my perception based on 2 really bad weeks is that its been a lot worse. Does anyone know a good source of data?

1000piecepuzzle I found this bikedata.cyclestreets.net/collisions/#13/52.2834/0.0532/opencyclemap

Although maintained by cycling lobbyists you can set filters to show accidents involving non-cyclists; but current dataset only goes up to end of 2016. If you wanted more than that, maybe you'd have to do an FoI request to Cambs police or Highways England

Love the website Dorothy and even better you can export the data to excel and create fun graphs like this that show... not much!

Btw sympathy to anyone commuting from Newmarket over the past 2 days, you've been royally stuffed, and nothing to look forward to in the way of future improvements either.

Underground driverless trams anyone?
www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/cambridge-underground-metro-driverless-trains-14014579.amp?__twitter_impression=true

Just bringing this thread back to life for another whinge really. Traffic has been so shit recently. Hands up who spent most of yesterday night in a queue... again... it was only luck that the lorry hit a tipper truck rather than a car, otherwise it would have been another awful fatality.

... and another wonderful morning owing to over-running roadworks!

I mercifully just avoided Tuesday's. It was horrendous.

Next week they're closing the bridge over j29. Bar Hill can therefore be accessed only by driving westbound. If there's an accident shutting that, then Bar Hill is cut off and there is NO contingency plan.