| Topic: | Is It Time To Consider Opening Chiswick Business Park To Through Traffic? | |
| Posted by: | Paul Corcoran | |
| Date/Time: | 17/01/20 10:32:00 |
| This point occurred to me when discussing elsewhere on this forum about the planned development on Bollo Lane. Collectively the amount of building in that area is going to bring in about 3,000 new residents and the available road infrastructure is already struggling to cope. At the moment any vehicle approaching the site from the south or the east would need to travel from Acton Lane along Bollo Lane. This stretch is primarily residential and the road is quite narrow so traffic jams occur regularly. In addition you have two level crossings. Add to that the extra number of vehicle journeys that will be necessary when the project is built and it seems a reasonable assumption that Bollo Lane will be at a standstill more often than not. The notion that this issued will be solved by the developments being car free is not realistic. A person owning a car will only be responsible for marginally more vehicle movements than one without one as the majority of journeys we generate are for services that we require rather than personal transport needs. One solution to this issue would be to allow traffic to pass through Chiswick Business Park. Traffic could follow the route around the eastern end. That would minimise the disruption to the central area of the park. Doing this would also make it more realistic to close Bollo Lane at the railway junctions which may be necessary anyway due to the planned increased frequency of trains on those lines. Without the safety valve of traffic through the business park if Bollo Lane was closed, the vehicle movements through Bollo Bridge Road and Gunnersbury Lane would be too high for the existing roads to handle once the new flats were built. Some may object that we shouldn't be opening up new roads as we wish to discourage people from driving but the reality is that for the forseeable future a population increase is going to lead to a traffic increase and the choice we have in Chiswick is should that traffic go through a residential area or a commercial one. |