City of Stoke-on-Trent Local Transport Plan 3 Focus Groups

AECOM <strong>City</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Stoke</strong>-on-Trent Local Transport Plan 3 18Capabilities on project:Transportation“They should do that for the new Tesco that would bringquite a lot <strong>of</strong> trade.”3.2.6 Car UsersParticipants in the car users group thought that better planningwas needed when building new developments and in generalroad layouts were felt to be poor and confusing.“What do road designers …, we’ve had two roadchanges in the last twelve, eighteen months, there’s theone at the big roundabout by MFI and there’s the one atthe new Tesco, now to me, they’re dangerous.”“Because you just come around and you’ve got anoutside lane that a stranger just wouldn’t know thatyou’ve got to filter straight in and I think that they’rereally dangerous.”“And then the Tesco one, they’ve done a good job in away, because Tesco paid for that and you’ve got twolanes now which have completed the link that was neverthere from north side to the other, because you had toeither go all the way round the quadrant road or you hadto do a right into the car park. Now it goes all the wayround and that’s good, except the road into the city, themain artery is only one lane. So you’ve got three lanescoming up to the traffic lights, but only one into the city.The other two just go into Tesco and link <strong>of</strong>f to the otherside. So that’s <strong>Stoke</strong>- on-Trent’s traffic problem, isn’t it,because Tesco paid for it and got it.”“I think it’s quite poor locally as well, just going underthe bridge, just going across into the railway station, justlocally round here it can be really busy, so if you’recoming either <strong>of</strong>f the D road, you can be a little bitconfused by all <strong>of</strong> the traffic set-up, it can be extremelybusy and again if you’re going up into the city, then youcan be coming say <strong>of</strong>f the dual carriageway and thenyou’re going onto a single road, if you’re going up in toHanley.”“You’ve got an ancient railway station down in <strong>Stoke</strong> [-on-Trent], which has got restricted access across thefront <strong>of</strong> it and they’ve got a main bus route that comesright past the front <strong>of</strong> the railway station and then theybuild the new sixth form college across the other side <strong>of</strong>the road where they’ve got 3,000 coming out, wanting toget onto buses..............just unbelievable how youdecided to put a main college in a place that’s sufferingfrom congestion anyway.”Another major issue that car users felt needed to be addressedwas the traffic lights within <strong>Stoke</strong>-on-Trent, in particular thoseat Hanford roundabout and those near the new Tesco inHanley.“What they use it for, because they did the one atHanford roundabout and they put all the traffic lights on,so all the traffic would flow round and it’s worse nowthan it ever was before.”“If you need to get from Hanford roundabout up toNewcastle [under-Lyme], you have to pass throughabout six sets <strong>of</strong> traffic lights, you get caught by eachone and it can add an extra ten minutes onto yourjourney.”“The new Tesco, for example, in Hanley, the timing forthe traffic lights is ridiculous there.”“I don’t think they take into consideration your maintimes, which is like 9 o’clock in the morning, 5 o’clock atnight, because once you get stuck in between them twotimes, unless you time it right, you could be stuck thereforever, you know what I mean. You’ll be old and greyby the time …”Car users felt that roads in the area were not well maintained.This was thought to be worse on local roads which participantsfelt were missed by planners.“The roads are getting that well used, obviously you’regetting potholes everywhere, but they never get fixed orthey get like a temporary fixing and within a few monthsit’s just as bad again and especially when you haveweather that’s like this now, the roads will be murderafter.”“And yes, they might be spending money on largerroads but I think they’re forgetting all other, the smallercommunity areas, your local areas where you actuallylive, the roads are going to pot, you know. I thinkoverall it all needs looking at, not just certain areas.You can attract lots <strong>of</strong> people into the area but at theend <strong>of</strong> the day you still need to look after those that livelocally.”