Great Western Coffee Shop

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/scarecrow_bowing.jpg) I may be about to ask a very silly question ...

Filton station was closed when a new station was opened a short distance away to service the MOD at Filton Abbey Wood, employing around 7000 staff at that time, now risen to well over 10,000.

A little further north, the line to South Wales passes beside Aztec West, with around 100 companies with offices there employing around 7000 staff. But the nearest station to Aztec West is a significant distance away - at Patchway, and the train service is only hourly though 4 trains each way per hour pass through.

Filton Abbey Wood station attracts around 850,000 passenger journeys per annum (2500 per day). Would a station at Aztec West also attract significant traffic and make significant inroads on the daily traffic jams around the A38 and M5 corners?

The railway line is in a deep cutting with split levels near to Aztec West, and on a gradient.  The idea of stopping a steam train there would make the operational folks shudder, and first generation long distance diesel trains (i.e. HSTs) would be significantly slowed too.   However, now that we've got modern electric systems coming to the line, perhaps still mixed with modern diesels such as 165s and 166s from Hampshire and Wiltshire ... and now that lift technology has advanced so that it's installed in many stations where it didn't use to be, is there a case for following the Filton model and moving Pilning station south too, renaming it Aztec West, and stopping a few more trains than call at the current station?

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/aztecwest_station.jpg)
Red - Station entrance / Buildings.  Blue - Platforms.  Green - Walkways

The question is asked as a curious outsider who occasionally works at Aztec West and is familiar with the hardy bunch of people who walk up the lane from Patchway!

The question I'd ask is, is there sufficient space in such a deep cutting to build a station to modern standards and access requirements?

It's a very steep sided cutting.

There are certainly engineering questions.  The separation between the lines is 8 metres (horizontal) and considerable (vertical).  How about something out-of-the-box ... stacked platforms between the tracks, rather than what I drew.   Been done - Roslyn is one I know (DC Metro)

Interesting idea!

I worked at Aztec West for a few years, up to about ten years ago. There was a very large number of car parking spaces there, but not enough - by about 8.50 people were finding 'innovative parking solutions' and tempers would start to fray. It was a good motivation for getting to work on time, as once the car parks were full there was nowhere else to park within quite a distance. Traffic was truly terrible at home-time, as everyone left by a single exit onto the Aztec West roundabout. (This is when I took up cycling!)

I believe the bus service has improved in the intervening years (it used to visit every cul-de-sac in Bradley Stoke) but I don't imagine anything else has got any better.

The paradox was that most people didn't see the hideous traffic and parking stress as a problem; when our office moved close to Temple Meads station the majority were up in arms because they considered that central Bristol, next to the main railway station, was an almost impossibly difficult place to get to. Discuss! (This was when I took up travelling on the Severn Beach Line, back in the good old days when the trains turned up about half the time).

Prior to this office move, they did a postcode analysis which showed that most people commuted from South Wales, South Glos and North Somerset - essentially the M4 and M5 corridors. So if it were possible for this station to be served by stopping trains to/from Weston SM to Cardiff, connecting with a service from Yate at Abbey Wood, then I think it could have legs if properly promoted. I'll leave it to others to judge whether such a service could be timetabled!

grahame - I assume you are proposing the relocation of Patchway station, rather than Pilning as stated in the text?

I don't know what I'm proposing, Lee ... I'm asking if there would be a logic in opening a station for Aztec West, and coming along with that is a look along the track.  We may be looking at an extra station (a la Lelant Saltings) just as much as at a replacement (a la Abbey Wood).

The attached photo gives an indication of the lie of the land...

That's at the A38 Bridge?   Yes - room for a double deck station there  ;D

Actually it's the B4057 - the A38 is on a wider, lower bridge a few metres to the west. I think this bridge was the original course of the A38 though, before the dual carriageway was put through in the 'seventies.

Shows my age  :-\

I probably have too fertile an imagination ... but now that you have given me the vertical section

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/aztecwest_2.jpg)

I had best "lay off" these ideas ... had my knuckles rapped a couple of times recently ...  ;)

Heath-Robinson would be proud to know his legacy lives on - though those brackets should be more twiddly, and there should really be a knot in the lift cable!

I too used to work at Aztec West and was surprised that the nearest station was Patchway. Given the density of housing in the immediate area (northern Bradley Stoke and Patchway) there would seem to be some justification for a new station.

How about moving it slightly further north, to the farm land just the other side of the M5, with pedestrian walkways and cyclepaths under the motorway linking it to the office and residential areas. With it's own motorway exit, it could be become a replacement for the now traffic-jammed Bristol Parkway. Perhaps it could be called Patchway Parkway.

It's not that surprising that it's hard to get to Aztec West by train. Aztec West was planned and built in the Serpell era, and developers would probably have laughed in your face if you had suggested a local station - public transport was very much an afterthought. For many tears the only alternative to private motor transport was (from memory) the No.73 bus which ran at long intervals and took a very circuitous route, and possibly another occasional service which ran to the Radburn-inspired sub-suburbs north-east of Bristol.

To locate a station north of the M5 would, in practical terms, mean putting it to the west of Over Lane. When (as presumably it will one day) Cattybrook Brick Works closes, quite a good level site will become available - but it's no closer to Aztec West than grahame's proposal, and users would have to climb quite a steep hill to get there.

There is no chance of adding a junction to the M5 between Almondsbury and the Avon Bridge, if that's what you are suggesting by the way - it is already overheated; for the same reason the planners would not allow anything other than a local station near Aztec West.

Until now, I hadn't appreciated just ho tw close to Coniston Road the railway line is. If built, the station could save the people of that neck of Patchway - quite a few - from the perils of MetroBust, and traffic from Filton Keynes, as the airfield development  has been dubbed. That is on top of transporting people to Aztec West, which could make it a rare case of a commuter rail service that is busy in both directions at peak time.

I currently work at Aztec West and have over the past couple of years looked at the adjacent railway line and thought "what if?"  The traffic is eye-watering during rush hour. My experiences of getting buses to work and home are best left un-recounted for fear of my having to lie down in a darkened room for the rest of the evening. It would certainly be a challenging candidate for some creative engineering solutions and with that comes, I fear, some considerable expense.  That said, it's getting so bad there that there could now be a credible business case in it's favour. The observations from the previous posts only serve to add force to this notion.

Got into a Facebook discussion on this ... where I'm assured that Patchway is closer to Aztec West than the end of the tunnel. My idea may be silly / impractical, but I'm darned sure it's not 2.63km from 1 (Station suggested site) to 6 (where the station entrance would pass people onto the Aztec West estate / nearest workplaces to the railway.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/azmap.jpg)

I know someone who works in Aztec West and lives in Axbridge. Occasionally he cycles along the Strawberry Line and takes a train to either Patchway or Parkway, but he's found the trains too unreliable – not just late but cancelled altogether (at least when he tried this a few years ago) – so he usually drives or goes on his motorbike. Perhaps the trains are more reliable now but he'd need a lot of convincing.

I also used to work there but that was 20 years ago. I used to drive – from Horfield. I can't now imagine why on earth I would do this. However, I don't recall much trouble with parking or particularly with congestion, but I think that was partly down to the hours I worked (I can't remember what they were but I don't think they were 9-5).

If I were to start working there again tomorrow, and living not so far away from where I did then, would I take a train? Probably not, because I'd first have to get to Temple Meads, and TBH I might as well just ride my bike up to Aztec. Not something most people are going to do, though. Would it make any difference to my hypothetical commute if there were a new Aztec West station? No, unless there were also another new one at Ashley Hill or thereabouts; or if there were a through train from the Severn Beach line.

You highlight an issue that I hinted at in my discussion on Facebook that travelling to work by train involves not only a stations at /near work, but also a station near home, and a reliable service at the right times between them.   Bristol at present has one of the lowest proportions of its commuters travelling to work / college by train, as well as capacity issues  on the few routes it has.  Solutions include things underway already such as four tracks up Filton Bank and new(er) trains with more capacity and one hopes better reliability, leading on to other improvements such as are offered by MetroWest and suggested by other ideas from the likes of FOSBR.

A network with 10 stations offers 45 different journey opportunities ... with 20 stations, that rises to 435 opportunities. In almost any network there will be some journeys that very few people want, but with reliable, safe, affordable provision at the right time and frequency both ways, you'll find passengers making all sorts of journeys you hadn't expected and probably hadn't factored into your anticipated modelling.

You make some interesting points - your analyses are always interesting. Can we clarify something though:


When you say 'Bristol', do you mean the area covered by Bristol City Council? Or Greater Bristol? (or South East Wales, or whatever the dog-wagging tail of South Glos insists on calling it this week?)

When you say 'lowest', what are you comparing with? The core cities? (https://www.corecities.com/)

I presume you're referring to Bristol network rather than general opportunities but could you explain the maths here, please? Preferably using nothing more complicated than arithmetic, if possible!

With 1 stations on a system ... Just a pleasure ride
With 2 stations on a system ... 1 flow
With 3 stations on a system ... 1 + 2 = 3 flows
With 4 stations on a system ... 1 + 2 + 3 = 6 flows
With 5 stations on a system ... 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 flows
etc

Let's look at inner Bristol

Aztec West
and ...
Bristol Parkway
Patchway
Yate
Stapleton Road
Lawrence Hill
Temple Meads
Parson Street
Bedminster
Montpelier
Redland      =>  55 (11 stations on system)
--------------------------
and ... more general Bristol area
Clifton Down
Sea Mills
Shirehampton
Avonmouth
Nailsea
St Andrews Road
Severn Beach   =>  153 (18 stations on system)
--------------------------
and ... with some suggested new lines / services stations
Pilning
Coalpit Heath
Portway Parkway
St Annes
Horfield
Ashley Hill
Portishead
Pill
Ashton Gate
Hallen
Henfield
North Filton
Charlton
Long Ashton
Flax Bourton
Thornbury    =>  561 (34 stations on system)

Volume on flows likely to be very low where stations are close together, increase as distance increases, then decrease again as distance gets even longer.

Aha! You're counting A to B and B to A as one flow. Now it makes sense!

Maybe. But it's still not 435 is it? try 190. (You'd need 30 stations for 435 pairs.)

1+...+n=n(n+1)/2, so yes if n=19 then the answer is 190.

I thought it was n * (n-1). So if there are 20 stations, from each station you can go to 19 others. Multiply that for each station 19 * 20 = 380. Divide by 2 for flows gives 190.

If you have 5 stations then you have 1+2+3+4 possible flows (=10)

Using the formula you have n=4, and 4x5/2=10.

You're really just expressing it in a different way, but doing the same calculation as you end up dividing by 2!

Looks like I typed in "30" not "20" to my program - sorry about that!

Yes.

Though it's not directly applicable anyway because, as Graham mentioned, it takes no account of where stations are relative to each other thus the likelihood of any individual journey.

Hello and welcome to this weeks edition of Accounts Corner !.

But there is so much to learn from a bit of arithmetic on published data  ;D

These are all very good points.

With the extra development at East Works (old Rolls Royce site), Charlton Hayes and Cribbs Causeway, it would be better to to leave Patchway station, be, save possible renaming it Patchway South and adding a new station where you suggest, at the bottom of Aztech West.

The effect on Pilning station would be interesting as well. A large carpark at Pilning, with a regular service to Aztec West, East Works area, Filton Abbey Woord/UWE and then Bristol Centre  must surely be sensible?

Our Bristol office is located in Aztec west, its currently a drive job for me from Andover... putting aside the lack of a station close by my morning commute....timetable as it stands would  require driving to Salisbury and then changing at Westbury for unit with no seats no first class and an unacceptable number of cyclists on board (nothing like ruining a new suit when some selfish idiot rams his dirty oily bike on to an already full train)

The alternative is via reading however that comes with a significant cost increase which i have only been able to justify once

ANYTIME DAY R
SDR   Route
WARMSTER-SALSBRY   Validity
ON DATE SHOWN   Adult
£23.70

ANYTIME R
SOR   Route
NOT VIA LONDON   Validity
Outward: FIVE DAYS
Return: ONE MONTH   Adult
£167.80

The current location of Patchway station is a bit suboptimal though, isn't it? It somehow manages to be in the middle of everything without being near to anything.

The best place for a station to serve Aztec West, Bradley Stoke, Patchway and Charlton Hayes is, as grahame suggests, immediately north-west of the B4057 bridge. Trouble is it would not be cheap, given the extremely 3-dimensional character of the site, and sadly the Western Super Mayor looks set to spend all our money on roads.

It would be fun though. I was reminded of Roger Bacon's observation in Flight International that all the best aeroplanes were ASCLOFs (Aviation Story - Costly, Late, Overweight and Fun). Grahame's new station would for certain be a RSCLOF (Railway Story - Costly, Late, Overspecified and Fun). But that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good idea.

Doctor Mirabilis indeed to be writing on such subjects 725 years after his death!

As for a service from Pilning, it's not that close and I don't think there's room for a car park. Besides the lack of platform.

Pilning is not close to Aztec West ... way separate case.  No lack of platform (unless they've been doing things I hadn't heard about) ... just lack of a footbridge.   It will be very interesting to see where the supports for the catenary are places at Pilning - whether or not they obstruct any future options to bring the unbridged platform back into passenger use.

Not that Roger Bacon, silly. The real one. who wrote this kind of thing, in his Straight and Level column:



Well it has two platforms, it's just that you can't get to one of them any more. The other problem with Pilning Station is that it is a long way from anywhere other than Pilning, but Pilning is better-served by Severn Beach Station.

Well yes, I know it has two platforms, but the unusability of the westbound platform might be a problem. Most commuters want to go home at the end of the day. Some want to go home before lunch but they usually try to hide this from the boss. And some leave work, go to the pub and then straight back to work the next morning. They usually get a seat in the boardroom.

I'm trying to work out what the point of involving Pilning is. The idea seemed to be a bus from Pilning station to Aztec (and back again!) but in that case why the car park? I suppose instead of train to bus, it would be drive to P, park, take bus to AW. Then the lack of westbound platform ceases to matter. A shuttle bus from Patchway might work as well or better though?

There's the germ of a catchphrase here:

"I'm trying to work out what the point of involving Pilning is. You're trying to work out what the point of involving Pilning is. We're all trying to work out what the point of involving Pilning is."

(No Tim Vine fans out there? I'll get me coat.)

In what I've posted, I've not intended to link passenger flows at Pilning with passenger flows at Aztec West.   There is/was talk of Pilning - near to the Severn Bridges and with lots of space for potential parking - being another Parkway station that's easily accessed off the motorway.   And if you had significant extra traffic at AZW and at PIL they would be using the same trains, justify a better rather than a worser service which in turn, and up to a point, would bring more traffic still.

The JSP (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18688.msg220485#msg220485) has got Park and Ride covered - the nearest location to Pilning under consideration is 'A4018' which I presume would be located close to Henbury Station (though I've not been able to find details).

I can't see Pilning making the cut as a P&R - traffic coming over the Severn Bridges would presumably go down the M5 to Avonmouth and use the Portway P&R or stay on the M4 and go to Bristol Parkway which, lest we forget, is at least in part a P&R.

Best use I can think of for Pilning Station is as a shrine to St Jude (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_the_Apostle#Patronage).

Sorry, I misunderstood you then. But in that case the lack of parking (to my knowledge) at Pilning becomes a problem. Unless there's room for a car park on the south side of the tracks, by the westbound platform?

But but but... AZW is not a recognized station code!!!  ;D

Currently Pilning wouldn't be an attractive parkway station for passengers travelling into Bristol as why would you pay a £6.80 toll when you could use Severn Tunnel Junction?  However, with the tolls shortly to be abolished, that all changes.  There has been talk of house prices just over the bridge rising in anticipation of the tolls ending and thus it becoming a more attractive place to live and commute into Bristol.  

A route already exists from Jn 1 of the M48, (ideal for Chepstow and north thereof) and it would be very simple to create a non-motorway exit off Jn 22 of the M4, although the residents of Pilning would probably be unhappy at the prospect of increased traffic through their village.

Interesting. I thought St Anthony was the patron saint of lost causes. Wikipedia has him as the p.st of lost objects, but certainly many Catholics regard his as the p.st of lost causes. Perhaps this is due to the contradictory non-universality of the Catholic church!

Yet  ;D   

... in all seriousness, just because something's worth talking about doesn't mean the case would stack up. And if the case did stack up, doesn't mean it would be the best case way to provide. And even if it was the best way to provide, doesn't mean that the political or financial environment to provide it would happen.

Friend says "Given the office is almost next door to the BMX track, that would make bike + train a much more realistic option than at present."

Yeah. Given the likely engineering and other difficulties in that site, I reckon improved connections with Patchway, Parkway and the future Filton North site are probably a better option.

A whole new meaning to the phrase "jump on a train"  :D

The 'B4057 Bridge' location, though, is superb. That ought to count for a lot. Building a station there would be challenging, but look what's been overcome to build Crossrail.

... I mean, think of it as like building a cut-and-cover tube station without the need to either dig or replace the roof.

Just build the station over the current track, and add lifts/stairs to two platforms either side of the track.

Make sure that there is space for a regular bus, every 10 minutes minimum that links Cribbs Causeway, Aztec West and Bristol Parkway.

As Tevye doesn't say in "Fiddler on the Roof" "Send us the sickness, we've got the cure already".

The nearest you could put a new station to Aztec West would be actually underneath the BMX track, in the tunnel. Just like a tube station but the cut and cover is already done! All you need to do is sink a couple of lift shafts (which the BMXers could jump over)!

Yes, but I'm suggesting (or is it agreeing?) that putting it near the A38 would serve Stoke Lodge, Charlton Hayes, Patchway and Bradley Stoke too.

_{Edit: Typo}

And a regular bus service that does not get struck in traffic in far away places, just servicing Cribbs, Aztec, Bristol Parkway would help make it successful.

After all, who wants to wait a hour for a 15 minute interval bus to appear, followed by two more buses.

Bristol is no stranger to stations in deep cuttings. Old photos of Horfield Station show quite lengthy stair access and a rather precarious street level ticket office supported by stilts to the rear dug into the slope. Off course lift access would also be required these days and the Aztec cutting is deeper and split level but a sloping zig zag path could reduce the amount of bridging needed, perhaps even at wheelchair accessible gradients in the event of lift failure.

See, I'd gone completely crazy and imagined lifts...

I can imagine lifts at Nailsea & Backwell station.

However, the proposed building of a ramp access has been stalled, as it would apparently cost one million pounds - so the cost of installing lifts to both platforms would clearly be astronomic.  ::)

Ha ha ha ha! PMSL!

Hang on a minute - it's a very good idea indeed. The potential impact on traffic is enormous! Stopping trains between Cardiff and Temple Meads, calling at all the present stations, plus the proposed new ones in Lockleaze and Ashley Down, would be busy in both directions during peak periods. Travellers from Yate could change at Stapleton Road, with the right service frequencies.

Anyone told the Western Super Mayor?

Slightly stretching the definition of 'proposed', methinks. Not much chance of both happening, but to continue this round of 'Fantasy Stations' I can't help thinking the B&Q site on Muller Road has potential...

Not a bad location, with car park, large local population and good connectivity with buses.

I think, barring any other limitations, Ashley Down is better placed than B&Q other than as a park and ride, and still has some access infrastructure left from before the earlier station closed - the underpass for example. A park and ride so close to the city centre would defeat the object of P&Rs, and cut the dubious benefits.

Stations there and on Constable Road (by the bridge) have certainly been proposed, if not by the unelected unaccountable self-appointing oligarchy that is our LEP, nor by the so far ineffectual Western Super Mayor, but it certainly has the support of the local councillors and MP amongst others. If part of the purpose of of transport improvements is to connect communities seen as disadvantaged, then a new Lockleaze station, smack in the middle of a large housing estate, should be high up the list. It is served by the number 24 bus, soon to have much of the southern part of its route replicated by MetroBust, and so likely to see cuts in services.

Picky of me to quibble over the use of 'proposed'.

I have got the impression that Ashley Hill is a no-go though, on the basis that it's too tight a curve, too steep a hill and too close to Montpelier station. I've not seen a gradient profile, so I'm not sure how the B&Q site compares, but the curve is turning into an inflexion at the northern end of the site.

I also seem to remember an argument that there's only timetabling scope for one stop between Stapleton Rd and Filton Abbey Wood - so a compromise location between Ashley Hill and Lockleaze could make sense.

I seem to recall that there will be some crossovers in that area, which also complicates the possibility of a station there.

Don't believe it, there's four tracking coming up. Relief line TM to Narroways Junction, 2 tph to Severn Beach, 2 tph to Henbury, 1 tph stopper to Cardiff, total 5 tph = 12 minute headway. Main line TM to FAW, 2 tph Bristol to Paddington via Parkway, 2 tph Cross Country, 1 (+ 1 proposed) tph to Gloucester (1 turnback at Yate) call it 6 tph = 10 minute headway.

Where there's a will there's a way.

Correction ;-

Main line TM to FAW, 2 tph Bristol to Paddington via Parkway, 2 tph Cross Country, 1 tph Portsmouth - Cardiff, 1 (+ 1 proposed) tph to Gloucester (1 turnback at Yate) call it 7 tph = 8 1/2 minute headway.

Not before time, I say!  :D

...ay, there's the rub...

Two track, or not two track. That is the question...

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I found myself delivering survey forms to the building marked with an arrow here

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/20171027_01.jpg)

(does anyone know who's office that is and what they do there?)

I took the opportunity to learn a little more as I had more that enough time to walk back down to Patchway Station ... and looking under the bridge that could carry the south eastern entrance to a station, it becomes very clear that there's a good horizontal as well as vertical separation

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/20171027_03.jpg)

On top of that bridge, I've stitched together (my sewing is awful) a panorama showing the wide footpath and pedestrian access from shops and residential already in place

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/20171027_02.jpg)

A second exit at the north west end of the platforms (if there's a lift at the SE, would one or a slope, or just steps be required at the NW?) could lead up to the place I dropped the forms off, which is one of the main buildings on the loop road around Aztec West.

Will never happen, of course  ;D

I work at the other end of Aztec West and walk past there a lot but never noticed the big red arrow.😀

They manufacture big red arrows.  ;D

One possible problem or at least something to note is that pedestrian access from one side of the A38 to the other at that point is awful. Easily rectified of course but there has to be the will to do so.

Really? I would have thought that the ramped subway running from Station Rd under both the A38 and B4057 met accessibility criteria pretty well. Not that that's very relevant; in the context of a new railway station the cost of gold-plating the access would be [mixed metaphor alert]chicken feed[/mixed metaphor alert].

For fear of repeating myself, I think it would be a brilliant place for a station.

In a sensible world the station should have been built before the catenary for electrification was installed to avoid having to rebuild it to accommodate the platforms. Perhaps some passive provision could have been incorporated but seeing that no station is being considered there such provision seems unlikely.

The second picture in my series is taken from that subway.   As it's at a level with the upper track, a flat spur off that bridge could be added to fly over the upper track and access the westbound platform in a way suitable for wheelchair users.

I didn't know there was a subway, so I looked at Streetview and found both ends of it. I must have passed its western end hundreds of times.  :-[ Most subways are pretty awful IME – probably not actually as dangerous as they feel, but certainly as depressing – but this one seems to be largely open, so hopefully it's not so bad. Nevertheless, I can pedantically claim I was technically correct in saying pedestrian access from one side of the A38 to the other is awful, as the subway only connects to one side of the A38.  :P

The subway connects both sides of the A38, and is very heavily used every morning/evening for access to Patchway High School. school.

I can't think of any reason to cross the A38 there that would no be better met by using the subway, but having said that the access to the subway from the bus stop on the A38 is via a flight of steps, which could do with improving.

The A38 infrastructure between Filton and the M5 is very much 'of its time' - which is to say massively overengineered, and totally unfriendly to non-motorists. It's interesting to compare the huge flyover at Gypsy Patch Lane with the new junction just to its north, which presumably takes about the same amount of traffic or more, without all the civils.

I quite enjoy the flyover.  :D And there are in fact pelican crossings underneath it, though I've very rarely seen anyone using them. A point against the new junction is the far greater land take compared to the flyover, and it still doesn't look very pedestrian friendly.

True. But try crossing here: https://goo.gl/maps/yCKyC86pTFn

By which I mean that for the most part the flyover is a bit of an obstacle.


True: I wouldn't want to try crossing here: https://goo.gl/maps/q9j4utKBCt52. Not sure how the land take:traffic throughput ratio compares; the 'spare' land in the middle of the circulatory system does have a hotel on it...

Six lanes of fast traffic are probably enough of an obstacle to crossing the road without the physical obstacle of a concrete flyover.

What they need is a subway (https://goo.gl/maps/3eDAG1c7Eoy)  ;D

You never get something for nothing and the price of providing a subway is the removal of some motorist-oriented retail infrastructure. That's right, it will cost a drive-thru.

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