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A417 Air Balloon Roundabout Restricted Movements Improvement Option

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A417 Air Balloon Roundabout Restricted Movements Improvement Option A417 Air Balloon Roundabout Restricted Movements Improvement Option Highways Agency March 2012 Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Proposed Improvements 2 3 Traffic Assessment and Delays 3 4 Environment and Air Quality 8 5 Risks and Impacts 10 6 Economic Assessment 13 7 Measurement of Success 16 8 Implementation 18 9 Signing Strategy 19 10 Operational Issues 20 11 Conclusions and Recommendation 21 Figures Figure 1 Location Plan Figure 2 Scheme Proposals Figure 3 Proposed Temporary Signs Figure 4 Changes to Traffic Flows AM Peak Figure 5 Changes to Traffic Flows PM Peak Figure 6 Locations of Impacts 1 Introduction 1.1 PURPOSE OF REPORT 1.1.1 The Highways Agency is investigating ways of improving the traffic flow at the Air Balloon roundabout to reduce congestion and queuing. This report has been produced to document the feasibility and impacts of a proposal to achieve this by preventing vehicles turning right or U-turning from the A417 Birdlip Hill. 1.2 LOCATION 1.2.1 The Air Balloon roundabout is situated to the southeast of Gloucester at Crickley Hill, near Birdlip and connects the A436 to the A417. (See Figure 1). Adjacent to the roundabout there are two residential properties (1 & 2 Air Balloon Cottages), a public house (The Air Balloon) and two field accesses. 1.2.2 The roundabout lies within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and is close to Crickley Hill Country Park. The Cotswold Way (national footpath) and Gloucestershire Way both cross the A417 at the Air Balloon roundabout. 1.2.3 Gradients on the approach to the roundabout from Gloucester, on Crickley Hill are steep, (approximately 9%) and slow moving heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) travelling uphill can cause queuing issues despite the provision of a climbing lane. 1.3 BACKGROUND 1.3.1 The Air Balloon roundabout is situated on the only remaining section of single carriageway on the A417/A419 route between the M4 (Jnc.15) and M5 (Jnc.11a). Traffic volumes on the A417 at this location are currently between approximately 28,000 and 34,000 vehicles per day of which approximately 12-14% are HGVs. Queues occur regularly at the roundabout and its approaches during morning and evening peak periods. 1.3.2 The roundabout is in an Air Quality Monitoring Area (AQMA) and therefore any alterations must not worsen air quality. 1.3.3 The A417 Cowley to Brockworth Bypass Improvement, which avoided the need for trunk road traffic to pass through the Air Balloon Roundabout, was developed over a number of years. However, despite the clear need to improve this section of the A417 being recognised, the major scheme could not be taken forward through the previous Regional Funding allocation process, because of the £250M scheme cost. The proposal to restrict movements at Air Balloon for the benefit of strategic traffic movements has come out of further work to consider more affordable measures that could be implemented within a shorter timescale. 10545004-206 A417 Air Balloon Roundabout Improvements 1 2 Proposed Improvements 2.1 RESTRICTED TURNING MOVEMENTS (A417 FROM SWINDON TO A436 SEVEN SPRINGS) 2.1.1 This option was identified at the Highways Agency / Gloucestershire County Council Network Management workshop held on 18 November 2009 where it was suggested the circulatory carriageway could be modified by extending the Crickley Hill splitter island to the roundabout central island as shown in Figure 2. 2.1.2 Under this arrangement traffic is prevented from turning right or making U-turns from the A417 Cirencester arm and prevented from U-turning from the A436 Seven Springs arm. Therefore traffic from A417 Crickley Hill could enter the roundabout unimpeded from any circulatory traffic. 2.1.3 Consequently, there would be fewer gaps in traffic on the circulatory carriageway across the A436 Seven Springs arm, reducing the opportunity for entry onto the roundabout. The reduced flow onto the roundabout from A436 Seven Springs would give traffic from the A417 Cirencester greater opportunity to enter the roundabout. 2.2 EXPERIMENTAL ARRANGEMENTS 2.2.1 It is proposed the improvements are initially implemented under an experimental traffic regulation order. This would allow impacts of the proposals to be fully understood before commitment to implement the scheme on a permanent basis. 2.2.2 Therefore, in the initial experimental situation the proposed works are; x Water filled barriers to extend the splitter island on Crickley Hill to the roundabout central island (Figure 2), x Temporary yellow signs on A-frames with sand bags giving advanced warning of the proposal and route direction information (Figure 3). 2.2.3 The benefits and impacts of the experimental arrangements would be monitored so that an informed decision could be made regarding progression to the permanent arrangements. Information required to carry out this monitoring would include journey times along the A417, changes in air quality at the AQMA monitoring sites and changes to traffic at key locations on the local road network. 2.3 PERMANENT SCHEME ARRANGEMENTS 2.3.1 Figure 2 shows the scope of works for permanent arrangements at Air Balloon Roundabout which include the following; x Kerbed extension to splitter island on Crickley Hill to the roundabout central island. Top soil and grass seed to splitter island and gated / restricted paved route through for emergency vehicles, gritters and emergency diversion routes. x New permanent route signing, warning signing and carriageway markings. 2 A417 Air Balloon Roundabout Improvements 10545004-206 3 Traffic Assessment and Delays 3.1 EXISTING TRAFFIC CONDITIONS 3.1.1 The Air Balloon roundabout is a key junction on the A417/A419 between Swindon and Gloucester and causes much of the congestion on this length. 3.1.2 Queuing traffic is evident on all three arms of the roundabout during morning and evening peak hours and journey time delays of 20 minutes on the A417 in both directions is not unusual. 3.1.3 The two way annual average daily traffic (AADT) on the A417 is currently 34,200 vehicles per day on Crickley Hill and 28,700 vehicles per day on the link towards Swindon. 3.1.4 To assess the proposed improvements, SATURN traffic modelling has been carried out using the model developed for the A417 Cowley to Brockworth Bypass Improvement which in turn, was developed from the joint HA/Gloucestershire County Council Central Severn Vale traffic model. Although somewhat dated and not re- validated, the model is considered adequate for this assessment. The model predicted traffic in 2010 and this has been used to represent current traffic flows. Traffic flows for the morning and evening peak hours at the Air Balloon roundabout have been obtained from the model and are shown in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 below. Table 3.1: Air Balloon Roundabout SATURN 2010 AM Peak Hour Traffic Flows To A417 A436 Seven A417 Total Gloucester Springs Cirencester From (Crickley Hill) (Birdlip) A417 Gloucester 0 937 1534 2471 (Crickley Hill) A436 Seven 591 0 305 896 Springs A417 Cirencester 1059 520 0 1579 (Birdlip) Total 1650 1457 1839 4946 Table 3.2: Air Balloon Roundabout SATURN 2010 PM Peak Hour Traffic Flows To A417 A436 Seven A417 Total Gloucester Springs Cirencester From (Crickley Hill) (Birdlip) A417 Gloucester 0 518 1020 1538 (Crickley Hill) A436 Seven 766 0 479 1245 Springs A417 Cirencester 1019 351 0 1370 (Birdlip) Total 1785 869 1499 4153 10545004-206 A417 Air Balloon Roundabout Improvements 3 3.1.5 The above data from the SATURN model has been compared with the automatic traffic count data from the DBFO counters as shown in Table 3.3 Table 3.3: Comparison of SATURN Flows with DBFO Counters Peak Road Section Direction SATURN DBFO Difference Period 2010 Counter Flow Flow (vehs/hr) (vehs/hr) AM A417 Crickley Hill Uphill 2471 1756 +715 (+41%) Peak A417 Crickley Hill Downhill 1650 1444 +206 (+14%) A417 Birdlip Uphill 1839 1451 +388 (+27%) A417 Birdlip Downhill 1579 1270 +309 (+24%) Total 7539 5921 +1618 (+27%) PM A417 Crickley Hill Uphill 1538 1677 -139 (-8%) Peak A417 Crickley Hill Downhill 1785 1496 +289 (+19%) A417 Birdlip Uphill 1499 1451 +48 (+3%) A417 Birdlip Downhill 1370 1270 +100 (+8%) Total 6192 5894 +298 (+5%) 3.1.6 Table 3.3 above shows that the SATURN 2010 flows are higher than flows recorded by the DBFO traffic counters in 2011, except for the PM peak travelling up Crickley Hill where the SATURN flow is 139 vehicles (8%) lower than the DBFO counter. Apart from this exception the SATURN flows are in the range of 8% to 41% higher than the counters. Day to day variations in peak hour flow is normal at Air Balloon and given the uncertainty in predicting growth in traffic, using the 2010 SATURN flows which are higher than 2011 counted flows gives a degree of robustness to the assessment. 3.1.7 In addition to consideration of the traffic flows at the Air Balloon roundabout, this report considers changes in traffic levels at key points on the local network as a result of the proposed scheme. Figures 4 and 5 show the predicted traffic flows at key points, based on the 2010 SATURN model flows, the flow increase or decrease and percentage change. 3.2 EXISTING RIGHT TURNING TRAFFIC A417 CIRENCESTER TO A436 SEVEN SPRINGS / LECKHAMPTON HILL 3.2.1 The SATURN 2010 traffic flows given in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 show 520 vehicles per hour turn right from A417 Cirencester to A436 Seven Spring / Leckhampton Hill in the morning peak and 351 vehicles per hour in the evening peak. 3.2.2 This volume of traffic amounts to 11% of the total traffic arriving at the roundabout in the morning peak and 8% in the evening peak.
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