NRA: Widening of LPH will ease congestion
(CNS): The National Roads Authority has confirmed that work will start on widening a critical part of the Linford Pierson Highway at the beginning of next month. The work will see the main road into George Town from the Eastern Districts expanded to three lanes from Alamo Roundabout by the Downtown Reach Apartments to Agnes Roundabout.
Having a third westbound lane will provide additional capacity for traffic heading towards George Town and provide much-needed relief from the morning congestion during the peak commuter hour.
Work will commence in early July and will be completed by the end of August, officials stated in a press release. Drivers are asked to proceed with caution when approaching the work zone and pay attention to work crews and road signs.
National Roads Authority thanked motorists for their cooperation during the work ahead of the expected improved traffic flow.
Questions or concerns can be sent to the NRA by email nra@nra.ky or drivers can call 516-1251.
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Category: development, Local News
Why can’t NRA finish the other road widening schemes before starting another?
This extension of the NAU must always appear busy.
Putting roundabouts in the MIDDLE of the intersecting roads, instead of off to the side (like the resulting straight run heading west at the King’s Gym roundabout) would result in traffic having to actually SLOW DOWN, or better still give way to traffic coming round the roundabout from the driver’s right, as they themselves then navigate AROUND the roundabout. This seems completely lost on the NRA.
I expected the typical CNS whiners, and I got the typical CNS whiners.
So are you worse off having more lanes? The population is getting larger and larger; there is only so much that can be done. The accounting and law firms are getting significantly larger, we are adding hotels (Hotel Indigo will employ over 200), which means more kids in schools, and teachers, and services etc (restaurants etc). And then we are adding ancillary businesses, such as investment managers, CEC entities.
The volume is just going to increase (when will they release the $200k Deloitte study on public transportation, which I personally know is completed and in gov’t’s hands)?
Stubbornly and consciously CIG is refusing implementation of the Public Transportation System. Why, is the question.
Unless they offer modern, state of the art public transportation, effectively transferring 30-40% from their cars to public buses, the problem will remain until hell freezes over.
Please have your IQ tested, you may qualify for assistance. Adding more lanes to sections of road only serves to increase parking at bottle necks. Just go search road planning to verify. Or better yet take a trip on I95 between Miami and Ft Lauderdale when there is an accident, to see what a six lane parking lot looks like.
Serious question if someone can kindly answer: Tourist here who is only used to a 2 lane roundabout (rotary). How does one enter a 3 lane roundabout from a dead stop and then quickly try to merge into the middle lane in heavy traffic. The left lane is really heading straight ( if that makes sense)- exiting off….and I need to get into the next lane over so I can continue around to get off at the next exit off. Does that make sense to anyone? But there is not much time to navigate. What I have done in the past is take that immediate left…go on that road for a bit, then double back and come back into the roundabout. Seems silly, but at least it is safe.
It won’t improve flow but you will get to the bottle neck much quicker and arrive at your destination in the same time.
Thankful for our #worldclass road authority. Pack your breakfasts and lunches for the bottlenecks!
Widen LPH, which then narrows down to the round about. This is likely to worsen the bottlenecks!
Park a few snack vans in there and you can order breakfast and lunch for a nice hour long break.
Is there a map?
NEWS JUST IN!!!!
It won’t.
We still have the same issues that have not been addressed:
1) The vast majority of workers with a car travel into George town around the same time, in the same direction.
2) After the widening of the road and then the roundabout, you still have a stop light where everyone must come to a stop. The flow of traffic is uncontrolled until the stoplight. The widening will not fix anything.
Widening roads doesn’t actually fix anything, if it worked then places in the US with 16-lane highways wouldn’t have bumper-to-bumper traffic… but it still does.
The NRA’s opinion on this matter is useless. It’s like asking a hammer what to do with a nail. They have one main goal and only one method of achieving anything. Build more roads.
absolute nonsense, get rid of roundabouts and you wouldn’t need more lanes.
If you do not get rid of roundabouts, can you at least put bigger signs and maybe some signs before getting to the roundabout. Would be extremely helpful for tourists. We are watching the roads and trying to read signs….make them big. Please.
The National Roads Authority has confirmed….
are they familiar with Traffic Paradoxes and Economic Solutions?
researchers on transportation have identified several paradoxes in which the usual remedy for congestion—expanding the road system—is ineffective or even counterproductive.
Addressing Traffic Congestion by Using of the Counter-Intuitive Phenomenon of Braess’ Paradox in Transportation Networks
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=119924
This is brilliant… and it stands to reason. Here’s why.
Imagine you have a single road going from A to B with no obstructions at all. Simple right? The traffic will flow nicely from A to B.
Now imagine that introduce a second road going from A to B. Same volume of traffic, but two roads going from A to B. While the traffic on each road will be half as much as before, because the traffic has to merge at B, there will now be a congested bottle neck at B that wasn’t there before. The more ways you add to get from A to B, the worse the congestion at the point B intersection becomes. You’d need a roundabout or traffic lights to manage all the merging traffic, even though you could have had one perfectly free-flowing road!
There are all kinds of examples of this here in Cayman, especially east of George Town, where the NRA has built several new roads… leading to the exact same bottle necks as the old ones.
The Smith Rd/Bobby Thompson traffic lights are a great example. Cars from the King’s Centre roundabout split – some take the LPH and some Crewe Rd, and both end up at the same traffic lights while they wait for each other to cross! This is lunacy.
One solution would be to make Crewe Rd one way. If you could only take Crewe Rd out of town, everyone from the east could only take the LPH coming into George Town. You could remove the traffic light at Smith and Bobby Thompson. Hey Presto, no bottleneck. And for the “inconvenience” of drivers from the east taking a highway instead of a minor road. It’s working the above A to B example in reverse.
You could even repurpose one of the existing lanes on roads that became one way to make them into *gasp* bicycle only, further alleviating congestion by giving people a viable alternative to cars, which currently does not exist.
Unfortunately it will never happen. I’ve seen what happens when you try to change road layouts here in Cayman. Old ladies with placards reading “save our traffic”.
It is brilliant because it is based on mathematical calculations and geometry.
” You could even repurpose one of the existing lanes on roads that became one way to make them into *gasp* bicycle only, further alleviating congestion by giving people a viable alternative to cars, which currently does not exist. ”
This has so much common sense written in one single paragraph that it almost feels illegal
It won’t. Math&Geometry.
1️⃣Braess’s paradox is the observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it. The paradox was first discovered by Arthur Pigou in 1920, and later named after the German mathematician Dietrich Braess in 1968.
2️⃣The Downs-Thomson Paradox
The Downs-Thomson paradox shows that increasing the capacity of roads could actually increase the overall congestion.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2226585618300542
Five years ago my then 7 year old son said “daddy why don’t they put another lane on each side to help the traffic to turn left, go straight and turn right faster”. That was a great common sense recommendation from a child. I am glad the NRA and others finally got some.
Sure it will. Everywhere else, this sort of thing simply results in induced demand, but Cayman is different. “More road” does not result in “less traffic”. Never has.
Yeah right….until the traffic reaches Bobby Thompson Way!!
It will still back up at the kings roundabout. Put in a light and that would sort the issue.
what about town? lord…i bring my food as no use going out fa lunch time..congestion? we need limit vehicles per family….ya all putting bandage on woulnd that historically and continue to get worse?
For the hundreth time! I have 3 cars, but only drive one at a time!
The only thing that will truly ease congestion is reducing the number of cars travelling in that direction in the morning – functional and convenient buses, safe bike lanes, etc. Where is the Deloitte report?
The deloitte report needs a few million dollars more so color drone photos can be included in the final report.
The Deloitte report has been issued to government. The taxpayers paid $200k for this. Why can’t this be made public so we can all talk about and consider what has been proposed? It is not top secret information for god sake.
Already gathering dust on a shelf in the basement of Glass House.
Don’t hold your breath!
Because they don’t like what it says. It doesn’t suit their agenda.