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Local Sustainable Transport Fund – £275,000 spent on widening a trunk road roundabout in Rotherham

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Newly widened, the third outside lane on the approach and on the roundabout is new – Funded by LSTF

In July 2014 Rotherham Council decided to spend £225,000 of their Local Transport Plan funding on improving Rotherway Roundabout [council approval document]

Earlier this year it became clear that the costs had risen to £275,000 and that the funding source had been switched to the Local Sustainable Transport Fund [LSTF final spend document]

£275,000 of LSTF money to be spent on Rotherway Roundabout Revisions. Source
£275,000 of LSTF money to be spent on Rotherway Roundabout Revisions. Source

A significant queue frequently forms on the A630 West Bawtry Road approach to the Rotherway roundabout in the evening peak period and at times this queue can be 600m long. This queue causes delay to traffic using the A630 and also causes issues with some drivers using an adjacent service road at inappropriate speed to cut out some of the queue.

Consideration of the practicalities of the free flow and widening options shows that the preferred scheme is to widen the A631 West Bawtry Road approach from Canklow entry to the Rotherway roundabout and it is recommended that this scheme is progressed to detailed design and implementation.

It is expected that by reducing the length of queues on the A630 West Bawtry Road entry to the Rotherway roundabout that traffic queues and delay would be reduced and that, together with the recently introduced traffic calming, would mean that drivers would no longer use the service road.

This was approved along with the preliminary design below.

Rotherway Roundabout Preliminary Drawing

You can see on Streetview the construction works of the approach widening and the roundabout widening. There was already a shared use footway at the edge, that hasn’t been changed.

This is what it looks like now. Is this a good way to spend £275,000 of LSTF money? I don’t think so!

3 replies on “Local Sustainable Transport Fund – £275,000 spent on widening a trunk road roundabout in Rotherham”

Come from the other direction, the Brecks. They were told on the day that the cycle lanes were installed that they weren’t to govt guidelines. Even given the links to those guidelines. They were half the recomended width for advisory lanes on that type of road.
But… “They’re only guidelines”!!!
It was 2012. There’d just been a cyclist death on the new infrastructure down in london for the Olympics – and this new layout created the same killer conditions. Running 3ft cycle lanes right upto roundabouts, on the nearside. Leading inexperienced cyclists right into wagons blind spots.
A full year later, I found out ‘they’d consulted’. All the downhill sections were removed. The uphill remains.
At the Brecks end the lane still goes right up to the junction. All HGVs and PSVs have to move to the left to exit the junction – as they turn left their rear wheels start closing up that cycle lane.
It should have terminated 20-50 yards earlier to allow bikes to merge with the rest of the traffic.

we’ve had rubbish cycle lanes like that for decades… these were put up yonks ago when they had some money from the EU that had to be spent quickly or else it was going to be taken away:

https://goo.gl/maps/HAbY0

A friend of my brother was killed at that spot back in the 1970’s when the rear wheels of an HGV went over him while he was waiting at the roundabout to move off… (before the cycle lane went in) but exactly the same spot.

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