Motorists claim York's new Park & Ride site is creating extra queuing misery for their journeys out of the city along the A19.

And local residents are complaining that some drivers - even bus drivers in some instances - are trying to beat the jams by "rat-running" along a parallel service road.

The £2.5 million Rawcliffe Bar Park & Ride site opened on St Valentine's Day, with City of York Council saying that residents would come to love the controversial facility.

But Robin Tomlinson complained that it took him 45 minutes to travel three miles to his home in Poppleton last week after he became stuck in a queue stretching from the outer ring road roundabout to the former Clifton Hospital site.

"As we are currently in one of the quieter periods for traffic, what on earth the delays are going to be like in the middle of summer I dread to think," he writes in a letter to tonight's Evening Press.

Another driver, Alison Parker, of Newton-on-Ouse, said: "It took me nearly 50 minutes to get home. It was horrendous."

She said new traffic lights were helping Park & Ride motorists as they filtered on to the A19 towards the roundabout, at the expense of people already on the A19.

Shopkeeper Roy Darlington claimed that some motorists were turning off the A19 and rat-running along a parallel service road past the lights before emerging back on to the A19.

He said many were driving at some speed, making it difficult for local people wanting to park outside his newsagency, and suggested traffic calming might reduce the problem.

Resident Ruth Paterson said she also had seen rat-running. "We expected it to happen but it's irritating," she said.

However, Peter Eveley, head of highway regulations at City of York Council, said the authority had not yet seen any rat-running despite monitoring.

"It's early days and we are keeping an eye on it," he said, adding that there would be an opportunity for residents to discuss any problems and possible solutions at a local liaison meeting this Thursday.

He said that traffic problems were particularly bad across the whole city during last week's half-term school holiday, and not just on the A19.

He added that if plans to improve the A19 outer ring road roundabout went ahead, with a direct link road into the Park & Ride, problems on the A19 would be greatly reduced.

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