Bank Holiday Gridlock shows M4 Park & Ride needed
Residents in Windsor are up in arms after the town groaned to standstill on Bank Holiday Monday with traffic heading for a special event at Windsor Race course, the usual Legoland traffic and bank-holiday trippers to Windsor itself.
Liberal Democrat Plans for a rail-based M4 Park & Ride which would have kept traffic out of the centres of Datchet, Eton and Windsor, were cancelled by the new Conservative Council in May 2007.
Sadly the Conservatives had not been honest enough to put cancelling the M4 Park & Ride in their election manifesto.
Conservative Isolation on the issue of the M4 Park and Ride was shown up in great relief at a recent Cabinet meeting where the Lib Dems, West Windsor Residents and the Windsor & Eton Society all spoke up in favour of the principle of the Park & Ride.
The Conservative's main alternative Park & Ride scheme is actually at the Windsor Race Course right in the middle one of Monday's traffic jams. This particular Park & Ride was branded a "Park & Queue" in the the local press a few months ago.
The M4 Park & Ride survey conducted by the Lib Dems in 2008 showed 87% support for the M4 Park & Ride amongst residents in Windsor & Datchet with 73% saying that traffic and parking were one problem that needed to be solved together in a joined up way.
The M4 Park & Ride proposed by the Lib Dems would have intercepted the 53% of traffic which came into town along the M4 Spur Road, with the possibility of intercepting Lego traffic by running a bus along the spur road from the Park and ride to Legoland with signs directing Legoland visitors to the Park & Ride.
"The Conservative so-called Park 'n' Ride schemes are all within Windsor. The Conservatives (who last year said Park & Rides didn't work) have completely missed the point of a Park & Ride Scheme - which is not to have a ride on a bus - but to keep traffic out of town." says local Lib Dem Julian Tisi.
Related Links
- Read Article from The Royal Borough Observer
- Read more about the Lib Dems' "Keep Traffic Out of Town" campaign