(Yesterday, 11:31 am)Adrian wrote The Centrelink scheme was late 90s, so it was a completely different world back then. Metrocentre was booming at the time, and indeed it was a regular feat to see those Centrelink Scanias full to the brim. It's the kind of scheme that we need to see more of, very much in the same way as guided busways have taken off towards Leigh, in Cambridge and in Luton.
See I'm not sure there's much scope for guided busways in the North East since most our traffic issues are in urban areas and there's not space for them. The Metro objectively does everything else.
Centrelink though could've easily just been a bus lane along Askew Road though, it's basically all it does anyway and there's ample space for 3 lanes along there if required similar to the Felling Bypass one which I don't mind. Mind speaking of that area I'd love to see Bensham Road bus gated from Coatsworth Road into Gateshead. There's no reason why cars should be driving along there bar cutting the corner off going via Askew Road. It would massively boost buses in that area from being jammed in traffic.
(Yesterday, 4:23 pm)MurdnunoC wrote With the Western By-Pass, I'd argue the congestion continues because the flow of traffic hasn't changed. There are too many junctions between Birtley (A1231) and Swalwell (A694) which means localised traffic tends to impede long-distance traffic, and that hasn't been rectified despite the 'improvements' that have been made. In the 80s (or early 90s), a bypass to the Western By-Pass was actually proposed to segregate the two, but nothing came to fruition. That's probably what should have happened over last ten years or so, but instead the Highways Agency opted for narrower lanes and a 50mph speed restriction. A missed opportunity really.
imo the big problem with that is a lot of the traffic is local traffic heading to Team Valley / Metrocentre / Gateshead / Newcastle / Sunderland (via A1231) or what not. If you bypasses the A1 further West it would be a bit of a white elephant since who's realistically going to be using it? There's only 20k or so vehicles North of Morpeth and that's assuming that they're not local, there's just not much long distance traffic.
Not to mention the tunnel is much quicker for anyone from the A189 corridor in SE Northumberland anyway.