Forum Topic

South Parade Traffic

Anybody why it has been so bad in recent days? Every time I've walked passed it recently there have been queues of cars reaching back towards Bedford Corner.I know there are works on the A4 and the schools are back and the road can get congested from time to time but this constant high level of traffic outside rush hour is a new phenomenon.

Anita Blake ● 1467d20 Comments

"I know there are works on the A4"Yep. There are tens of thousands of cars trying to divert through Chiswick to avoid the queue in the single lane on the A4. It is chaos all the way back to Hyde Park Corner now.

Paul Campbell ● 1467d

As I tried to explain, the congestion on this road worsened when the A4 works started but seems to have stepped up a level this week for some reason.

Anita Blake ● 1467d

It's because every day more people come back from holidays and get in their cars to drive in London. It is getting worse by the day. All over West London.

Paul Campbell ● 1467d

Hmm, so CS9 has not led to a modal shift and traffic does not 'evaporate'. Have you told Tom?More generally we see that holidays are all over and people back at work etc. which is likely the main culpit. Not aware of any roadworks in the broader area which would cause the problem. TFL also tinkers with traffic lights to generally shut down W4 and favour A4 so this may be a factor.I think I can agree with Paul that far too many people drive into London....

Bill George ● 1467d

Paul, you probably should have read the original post more carefully. Anita specifically ruled out the end of school holidays and the A4 as reasons for the recent problem. Most people were back from school holidays at least ten days ago.I looked at Google Maps with traffic and, although things are clearly pretty bad generally, there does indeed seem to be a particular problem in Acton Lane and South Parade.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1467d

Thanks, Jeremy. At least we can be grateful he didn't resort to 'too many cars' (incidentally at least half the queueing vehicles appear to be vans and taxis).I walked to and from the High Road which didn't appear to be any busier than normal.

Anita Blake ● 1467d

Interesting. My guess, and I hasten to add it would not be a particularly informed one, is that they have altered the phasing at the junction of Acton Lane and CHR. They may be concerned that the queues back from the Acton Lane junction are going to reach back to Chiswick Roundabout. When they first closed Fishers Lane the traffic on South Parade was consistently terrible according to report on here but they seem to have solved this by switching the timings which meant that the queues were transferred to CHR reaching regularly up past Halfords.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1467d

I didn't say "school holidays" did I? The planes are full every day with returning holiday makers. There are plenty of people out there who do not have kids of school age. Offices and roads always get busier as September progresses.

Paul Campbell ● 1467d

It is pretty desperate to claim that the diverting of tens of thousands of cars per day off the A4 and through Chiswick roads disproves the well-documented, researched and proven phenomenon of traffic evaporation. But the Onesies' primary expertise, after shameless whining, is straw-clutching so it isn't unexpected.

Paul Campbell ● 1467d

No Paul, generally things don't get progressively busier. Generally, there is a sudden and noticeable increase in traffic precisely when the schools are back. Many people without children will be on holiday right now or not yet gone.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1467d

Anita is right. There is something going on here. I've cycled up and down South Parade a few hundred times over the summer and you can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times I've needed to dismount because of traffic up until the end of last week. This week - every time.

Mark Evans ● 1467d

Yes and that increase for schools starting also happened from a lower base of traffic before. Now it is getting progressively worse every day from that point and very noticeably so in Grove Park where the roads leading to the A4 like Eastbourne and Milnthorpe are all filling with queuing traffic in a way they never have before. It is laughable that you claim that people without school-age children are not coming back from holidays at the moment because you made a mistake in attributing a comment to me. One has to wonder who is travelling on all those full planes from holiday resorts that are landing in their thousands at London airports this week are. Honestly the knots you tie yourself in.Sat Nav algorithms adjusting to the suspension of traffic restrictions partly explains the GP issues though. But the roads in Kensington have got progressively worse through the week as well and as we know there is no way cyclists or the ECL can be blamed for that.

Paul Campbell ● 1467d

..and such is the level of traffic that we're now getting gridlock in Antrobus and Montomery roads, presumably from vehicles following their SatNavs to try and avoid other hold ups, but to no avail. I don't remember this in previous years, though I guess it could all be caused by the road narrowing on the A4/M4 approaches. But if so many people want to get to the M4 corridor, they might consider using the new railway service beginning with E that now serves exactly those destinations.

Peter Evans ● 1467d

"One has to wonder who is travelling on all those full planes from holiday resorts that are landing in their thousands at London airports this week are."Isn't this offset by all the full flights leaving?

Mark Evans ● 1467d

Well whatever the cause,  I think we can agree traffic hasn’t evaporated. The works on the A4 are progressing very slowly, with more workers than usualthere today, but most are not physically working, just sitting watching, unless Ialways catch them on a tea break.

Maggie Dodge ● 1467d

Nice try but they're all hypocritical child-free cyclists going on cycling holidays.

Paul Campbell ● 1467d

ME: "There is something going on here.I've cycled up and down South Parade a few hundred times over the summer and you can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times I've needed to dismount because of traffic up until the end of last week. This week - every time."RC: As someone who lives just across from Fishers Lane and crosses through or by it just about every day, at different times, that chimes with my experience, too.Meaning that whatever the explanation, it cannot be either the opening of CS9 or the closure of FL, since both of those greatly predate the present difficulty.But no doubt the "usual suspects' will be back to splutter otherwise.

Richard Cathcart ● 1467d

Jeremy (@1509) wrote something that chimes with my experience - the one time in the last week when I drove along South Parade and then onto Acton Lane past Chiswick Park tube, there was a pretty constant stream of cars joining from the direction of Acton Town on Bollo Lane (and then about 90% of this was going south), but there wasn’t very much northbound traffic going towards Chiswick Park tube, so the traffic from Acton Town direction was severely throttling the traffic coming from South Parade. It felt like it took a lot longer to get to Chiswick Park tube from South Parade than on all the other occasions relatively recently when traffic has been bumper to bumper on South Parade.Why there seemed to be a continuous stream of traffic coming towards Chiswick Park tube roundabout along Bollo Lane I have no idea.

Andrew Jones ● 1467d

I think the reason for the extra traffic coming from the Bollo Lane direction is that local knowledge and satnavs have worked out that it moves more freely because it has priority over (and is thus 'throttling') the South Parade/Acton Lane traffic at the little roundabout outside Chiswick Park station. Hence we now get satnav directed traffic being sent along Antrobus and Montgomery from Acton to Bollo Lanes to try and take advantage of this, but with much additional conflict as vehicles try to pass each other in these narrow residential roads and push their way into Bollo Lane at the far end.

Peter Evans ● 1466d

There's a lot of traffic coming up from inner London; without the A4 to move them out I'm seeing a lot of cars go up to the Holland Park roundabout then down the Bath Road. It's basically bumper-to-bumper, in the evenings, from around Ravenscourt Park onwards, with the Turnham Green Terrace roundabout being the first "blocker" and then the funnel that is South Parade being the other.

Francis Sheehan ● 1466d