Slow, slow, stop

AS doomsday scenarios go, the future of York's outer ring road is unlikely to bring the world to a premature end.

But the city's motorists may feel that being stuck on the A1237 is "a fate worse than death", if urgent action is not taken to halt growing traffic queues in the years ahead.

A study of the highway, one of York's key roads, reveals an impending horror story for drivers - and a head-scratching problem for city council chiefs in 2021.

Officers have put together a detailed report looking at how to manage the ever-growing number of vehicles forecast to use the ring road in the decades ahead.

As reported in the Evening Press last week, council chiefs want to halt traffic jams on the outer ring road by a phased programme of junction improvements and roundabouts.

They have ruled out making the road dual carriageway - because that would cost £115 million, and it was considered that it would attract more cars on to the network.

The report also looks in detail at what would happen on the outer ring road if nothing was done - and the A1237 remains as it is now. It does not make pretty reading.

Massive queues, cars at a standstill and extra traffic building up all across York is the scene we can all expect without the raft of improvements suggested by City of York Council being brought into action.

So what could happen if all the schemes were to fall by the wayside? Put simply, a lot more sitting in our cars.

The council report, written by capital programme manager Tony Clarke, reveals that the average peak time journey in 2021 could treble.

A trip along the entire length of the road from the Copmanthorpe roundabout to the Hopgrove roundabout would take more than hour during the afternoon peak.

The 2021 projection shows that during the morning peak, cars could hit average speeds of only seven, eight and even three miles per hour at key junctions, as the sheer volume of cars brings everything to a shuddering halt. We can expect the worst on the way back as well. A similar reverse journey is forecast to take about 44 minutes - an increase of almost 15 minutes on the current time.

Fifteen minutes a day. Every day. That's a lot of time spent fiddling with the steering wheel in a traffic queue.

Life on the outer ring road in 2021 looks like being a tale of extensive queuing and severe delays at many of the key junctions.

The report reveals that if a slip road into Northminster Business Park is not provided, the morning queue from the A59/A1237 roundabout would extend as far back as the A64.

That traffic, from Harrogate Road, is expected to rise by almost 200 per cent. And it's not only those hoping to work who can expect to wait.

The morning peak will also see substantial queuing at the northbound approach to the A64 Hopgrove roundabout, thanks to a 50 per cent increase in Monks Cross traffic.

It's a doom-laden prediction, with the overall number of trips on the ring road expected to rise by 20 per cent in the morning and 16 per cent in the afternoon peaks. If that scenario were to become reality, it would almost be faster to walk.

While the outer ring road bears the brunt, York residents would deal with the fall-out. With the ring road traffic causing problems for people trying to get out from Moor Lane and Askham Lane, drivers, the report says, are expected to run through residential areas.

Their aim would be to get to the ring road from Wetherby Road and Boroughbridge Road. The result? Increased traffic in residential areas and safety concerns on junctions - particularly at the Moor Lane exit: a junction which has been the scene of a number of severe road accidents, including one last week in which two people were killed.

What does this mean? It means a demand for travel that is expected to outstrip what is currently an already oversaturated road supply.

Council chiefs know that situation cannot be allowed to happen. That's why they are making the hard choices now, in a bid to ensure our future road journeys are congestion free.

Updated: 09:10 Monday, July 04, 2005