MikeUK

But...!! I now need to put money aside to see family in NA

Paul_Shepherd

Theyre more interesting thats for sure.....and fine as long as you dont look at anyone! lol. Im not from Hull but used to vist friends there a lot, and Bransholme estate is down right scary! A group of us were in a pub there once (dont ask me why) and they were playing pool with the broom!

We just stared at our pints (safe option) and left pretty sharpish....it was an experience!

Outside Bransholme, In my heyday ive had some great times in some of the pubs in Hull!

Steve_

Yes, because I've never been down a B road into a village which was rammed with traffic. That has never happened...

If anything, living in some rural locale is even worse because you have to use your car.

Where was I, er... St. Austell I think it was, it literally took 45 minutes to turn right out of the Tesco parking lot. I timed it. Didn't really have much else to do...

Steve_

But my point was that the conditions aren't similar...

I agree that the traffic in Vancouver is appalling and it can be pretty appalling around downtown Toronto, but in the UK it can be just generally appalling at any given point on the road.

Go north on the M6 and there is even a fixed, printed sign south of Manchester that says: "Traffic Queues Ahead". I.e. it's a permanent feature of that road.

And I seem to recall you mentioning the A38. Well the A38 is supposedly a dual carriageway but is it even remotely possible to use it that way with all the parked cars?

Anyway I'm not going to argue the point, I'd rather be anally penetrated by a gorilla than live in the UK.

I have no doubt there are places in the north that have less traffic but they're permanently overcast.

If I'm going to put up with weather like that, may as well live on the Isle of Man and at least then you get to pay less tax. And unlike Northern Ireland and Scotland, at least I can understand what they're saying.

MikeUK

take out the M6 and replace with the 400'series highways and you'll finds the same

pick many of the supposed dual carriageways running in and out of Toronto and you'll find the same


and correct me if I'm wrong that 'ring road around Calgary has spots that has regular jams too

quote "TomTom’s latest Congestion Index report on 26 major cities estimates the average Calgary driver with a half-hour commute faces 73 hours worth of delays in a year. With a downtown concentration of offices almost unparalleled on the continent, Calgary fares worse than Dallas (61) or Chicago (71), the same as New York, and better than Houston (80), Los Angeles (89) and four Canadian cities, including Montreal (92)."


You might find with this link its much closer than you realise http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex/#/list

dbd33

St. Jacobs ON. Any Saturday.

This is the norm in Canada. Not so much in the UK as the UK has buses and trains and trams.

dbd33

CR124, along which I used to commute, has permanent "Road Closed Due to Weather" signs. They're operated remotely so the Works Department Staff don't have to go out into the weather.

I lived in the middle of the often closed section so I'd sometimes go out for beer or to go to work and find it was unlawful to drive home again.

MarylandNed

Continuing the traffic theme, it appears that my home town, Belfast, has the worst traffic in the UK and the 14th worst in the world!

The 15 Worst UK Cities for Congestion and Getting Stuck in Traffic | Lifehacker UK

Steve_

Belfast? Belfast is ranked higher than Bristol?

Another totally meaningless ranking.

What I notice about Northern Ireland is my A to Z was published in 1987 and it is still totally bang up to date as far as I can tell. They need to do something about the congestion on the A24 but other than that it's a piece of cake.

Steve_

The 404 isn't that bad, 400 and 401 yeah fair enough but like I said it's more of an issue around downtown, you can just be rolling down the M5 at any given spot and be stuck there for ages, or the M25. Plus you've got the 407 as an alternative.

Huh? There's virtually no traffic on the ring road. There's a bit where the SE ring road meets the NE ring road and it goes from six to four lanes and that causes a bottleneck. If you're there at just the wrong moment during rush hour you may have to dab your brakes momentarily but that was caused by a planning SNAFU. There is actually enough space there for six lanes, for some reason they only painted four lanes so there is a hard shoulder more than a lane wide.

In talking to Alberta Transport they are aware of it but it is deemed low priority at present because the traffic volume is so low.

Calgary does have traffic problems but nothing like in the UK.

Er... well London is ranked 16th, Birmingham is ranked 90th, Calgary is ranked 101st and moreover at rush hour the differences are even more stark.

And that doesn't really disagree with what I was saying, I accept that the traffic is bad near downtown my point was in the UK it's just generally bad. You could be driving from er... Tamworth to Nuneaton and be in a jam.

These measures also don't take into account the overall stress of driving either. There's no "Milton Keynes" measure.

In the UK you're far more likely to have an: "oh shit I should have turned there" moment than in Canada.

Sitting in a jam at a wide-open four-lane four way junction is no way near as stressful as being wedged in behind a double decker bus at some awkward angle on a single lane A-road because there's a parked car that you're trying to get around and the traffic light (which you can't see) has turned red and the bus stopped, etc.

Remember this conversation the next time you drive through the roadworks at Paradise Circus.

Steve_

Yes but my point was that I want to use my car. I don't want all my neighbours to be compelled to use theirs for the smallest errand thereby clogging up the road. That is the problem of rural villages in the UK.

Less of a problem in Canada. I accept that Hwy 97 for example in the Okanagan has pretty heavy traffic but it's easier to cope with because it's wider thus having more capacity. So even though the public transport is crap it's not the end of the world.

MarylandNed

Nonsense. Things have changed a lot since 1987. I was last in Belfast in Feb this year and the rush hour traffic was shocking pretty much everywhere.

dbd33

The 401 is clogged from Trafalger Road to the 427 both ways every afternoon. Walking pace, you can get out for a pee and not slow the traffic.
That's nowhere near downtown. I believe it's even worse between the 427 and the DVP, again nowhere near downtown, but I'm not really qualified to comment on that bit because I never drive there.

This made me chuckle:

"I want to use my car. I don't want all my neighbours to be compelled to use theirs"

Well, yes, I'd like those plebs cleared from my path too.

MikeUK

So if traffic is better in Canada ?

Given my opinion, driving standards are much worst and I believe reflected in insurance costs ... ?

The Accident rate IMHO speaks the case better
Road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants
Canada 6.0
UK 3.5

Or put another way
Road Fatalities per 100,000 Vehicles
Canada 9.3
UK 6.2

Moses2013

By the way, taxes are still high on the Isle of Man for most people. The perfect location for people who can't decide if it's Canada or UK is Ireland anyway