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Opinion : One problem and Handy Cross comes to a halt

| September 18, 2015

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My good self was not happy when I arrived at work yesterday morning (Thursday 17th September 2015).

The cause of my misery? The dreadful traffic jam that locked up Handy Cross, most of the roads feeding into it and the Cressex area.

My colleagues who come from far away places on the other side of the roundabout, like Marlow, were even more unhappy than yours truly.

To make matters worse I understand that Dashwood Avenue was closed following an accident involving a bus near to the junction with Mill End Road.

What a mess the Handy Cross roundabout is. One slight accident either on the motorway or on the roundabout itself and the traffic tails back to infinity.

To put it simply the Hand Cross roundabout has no resilience. A problem on one of the roads to/from the roundabout affects all the others and roads in the town of High Wycombe too.

With all the money being spent building a coach station at Handy Cross and messing about ruining the sports centre surely something could have been done about the roundabout?

The problem is that all the traffic has to go around the roundabout, even the vehicles that come up the A404 Marlow Hill wanting to get on the M40 to London. I mean what’s the point of coming up Marlow Hill then waiting at a set of traffic lights at the roundabout just to bear off to the left a few yards further on?

Drivers coming up the old road from Marlow who want to get on the M40 to Oxford also have to pass a set of traffic lights before they can get on the motorway.

Surely there is enough land in the vicinity to create a ‘fast lanes’ (from the old Marlow Road to the Northbound carriage way of the M40 and from the A404 Marlow Hill to the Southbound carriage way of the M40) so vehicles going in these directions do not have to wait at all.

The roundabout needs to be re-designed so if a blockage occurs the traffic lights give priority to the roads that are unaffected. Sadly the lights just seem to follow a pre-set automatic pattern which adds to the congestion.

In fact to speed things up why not close some of the roads feeding the roundabout? Do we really need entrances for traffic to the roundabout from John Hall Way, Marlow Road (towards Cressex Road) and the A404 Marlow Hill?

Close some of the aforementioned roads for vehicles entering the roundabout, but leaving the exits to the roads, and several sets of the dreadful traffic lights could be removed thus speeding things up and increasing the flow of traffic through the junction.

Even yours truly could do a better job with the road layout than the current mess that we have to endure.

Maybe it’s time the powers that be hired my good self to sort out the mess of Handy Cross and get Wycombe moving again?

What do you think?

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

You can also follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ivor.wycombe or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Ivor_Wycombe.

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