Harlow's Future

Strategic Transport Corridors is a bit of a mouthful; in any official document, they call them S.T.C.
What is an S.T.C?
It's a bus lane designed to get buses to their destinations quicker; at least, that's the theory.
To do this, the S.T.Cs will have traffic lights on roundabouts, stopping all other traffic and enabling buses, Minicabs and Taxis to travel quickly.
The roundabouts will also have pedestrian crossings controlled by traffic lights, and Minicabs and Taxis and motorbikes will also use the bus lanes.  

Comment: If only buses were using the bus lane, the traffic lights would be triggered less, but with so many Minicabs and Taxis using the bus lanes, it will bring future Harlow to a halt, drive industry away, but then, the Harlow area will have lots of houses.
Taxis and minicabs using the bus lane are not only Harlow-licensed but can be from anywhere, they might not even be working but use them because they can.

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Years ago, there were traffic lights on the Burnt Mill roundabout the main route to Hertfordshire.
They were removed because the traffic lights jammed all of the traffic around the town centre and the Pinnacles Industrial estate.
At the Pinnacles, there are four main road options away from the Pinnacles, and all of them suffered greatly.
Elizabeth Way A1169 was at a standstill, and Fourth Avenue was jammed up at the town centre roundabout, blocking access to the hospital.
Other routes out were Third Avenue A1025 or Second Avenue A1025, all of which are now subject to the proposed new Strategic Transport Corridor.
The only other possible route out of Harlow is Southern Way A1169 towards junction 7 of the M11, and we all know how busy that can be.
It also had a major impact on the A414 Edinburgh Way, Templefields Industrial estate, which is now Harlow’s main shopping centre.
Anyone who lived in Hertfordshire but worked in the Pinnacles struggled to find a way home.
Villages and towns to the West of Harlow had an increase in traffic as everyone tried to find another route to Hertfordshire or the A10, those affected were Roydon, Roydon Hamlet, Hoddesdon, Stanstead Abbots, Nazeing, Waltham Abbey, Broxbourne.
All of these events happened decades ago, and traffic levels have increased in Harlow in line with the increase of the population.
All of the examples were presented to the representative of Gilston Town, who dismissed them, stating that traffic light technology had greatly improved since then.
When asked which road will have priority at the Burnt Mill roundabout?
A414 Edinburgh Way, or A1169 Elizabeth Way, or Fifth Avenue A1019? He declined to comment.

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How will it affect the people of Harlow? 

If you travel by bus, you might get a quicker journey depending on the design of the S.T.C. and regular traffic.
But if you travel by car, van or lorry, you will have your journey time lengthened by the series of S.T.Cs planned by Conservative-run Essex County Council Highways; you might even find walking quicker. See Roy's Maps section

Because of all of the new housing developments around Harlow and the more than doubling of the local area population,
Conservative authorities decided to build the S.T.Cs all meeting at Harlow Town Centre. SEE New Project MAP

The problem is all of the East-West traffic coming and going from M11 junction 7 and now 7a.See Roy's Maps section

Schools 

Add to this all of the school traffic; the days when children are sent to their local school are gone.
Some parents choose a school on religious grounds be they primary school or secondary school.
Parents have much more information to analyse which school would do the best for their child.
Subsequently, the road network is overloaded even before the STCs are built.
You can see parents rushing away from school in their cars to work daily, adding to the traffic problems.
From late July 2023 to September 2023, one of the councils, Harlow or Essex, monitored Harlow's roads; of course, the roads were quiet when the schools were on holiday. Was it a possible waste of taxpayers money?

Conservative-run Essex County Council Highways leads this plan, and the man responsible for it is Mr David Sprunt.
He aims to encourage people to travel by public transport, cycle, or walk.
The problem is that Conservative-run Essex County Council has not maintained cycle tracks or pavements to an acceptable level for decades; most surfaces and pavements are over 70 years old, leaving cycle tracks with potholes and pavements with trip hazards and potholed or flooded.
All of which are on top of the now normal potholed roads, where Conservative-run Essex County Council Highways have had a bodge and bodge again policy to road surfaces rather than relay them.

Mr David Sprunt doesn’t have the money to fix the many defects in Harlow, so he concentrates on new work and has new money for the Strategic Transport Corridors.
It is quite a bit of “Blue Sky” thinking, Mr David Sprunt and his Conservative-run Essex County Council Highways department admits they are looking at the year 2030 before there are any new buses. Could this be six years away?
Meanwhile, German-owned Arriva Buses struggle to keep their old buses on the road.

Conservative Harlow Councillor Michael Hardware, Harlow Council portfolio holder for economic development, states
“This scheme isn’t just about the future as it will benefit our existing residents too, helping to make the town a safer, greener, healthier, and more sustainable place to live and work.”
Comment: He seems to forget that all of the A414 and Gilston Town traffic will be running through Harlow on its way to the M11 because Hertfordshire Council didn’t want a direct link to the M11. It can hardly be called healthy.
As you wait in your car in a traffic jam for five or six years, I urge you to recall his statement and question the benefits Michael Hardware supposedly provides.

In January 2023 there was a big announcement from HGGT that work would start on Fifth Avenue, the central Harlow road to Hertfordshire or as Conservative-run Essex County Council Highways department likes to call it the A1019 which runs from Harlow Watergardens/ Police Station roundabout to the Eastwick roundabout in Hertfordshire.
Trees were cut down, traffic light positioning was relocated or made ready and eventually some of the potholes were repaired, although the existing temperamental traffic lights remain, they do not seem to work when its too cold or too hot.
January 2024 there was another big announcement from HGGT that work would start on Fifth Avenue, this time some signs were erected telling the residents that work would start.
On April the 5th during the Easter school holidays cones appeared blocking one lane access to the roundabouts and jamming the roads.

This road becomes very busy when there is a crash or holdup on the M11 or M25.
To avoid any holdups, out-of-town travellers switch to the A10 to reach Stansted Airport.
The problem is the town of Harlow, and the A1019 is in the way.

Above is a basic map where I am trying to show where the A1019 and this Strategic Transport Corridor will be, the black blobs are roundabouts and the red cog roundabouts are where the traffic lights on the roundabout will be.
It will have a great impact on East-West and West-East traffic not only at the Burnt Mill crossing but also at the town centre at Velizy Avenue (Central Avenue).
Its traffic lights are on three major junctions, affecting Second Avenue, Forth Avenue, First Avenue, Elizabeth Way, and the A414 Edinburgh Way.
It seems Mr David Sprunt and his Essex County Council Highways department has gone all out, "go big or go home" approach.
It is a major test before adding the many more Strategic Transport Corridors blocking every primary East-West direction with traffic lights.

Comment: Everyone needs to remember the new hospital in Sheering is not estimated to open until 2030 if at all, the traffic flows will remain the same for years.
No new bridge has being built, either the additinal bridge at Burnt Mill roundbaout or the massive East Crossing of Latton Island.
All of this disruption to Harlow and not a spade in the ground in Gilston Town.
There are no new buses in Harlow or Gilston or any additional routes and timetables; I have been told by a rummer that there is no money for new buses, and even if there were, it would be around 2030.
It is a trickle approach; try it without any new Harlow buses and Harlow bus routes.

2030-2032 it seems it will be exciting years for everyone who hasn’t moved away from Harlow or died waiting for everything promised to come to pass.
A new hospital in Sheering might be open, and Harlow might have new buses with new bus routes running at speeds of one every six minutes to places people want to go to other than the town centre.
Harlow Town Centre might have stopped looking like a building site, as it has been under both Labour and Conservative Councils for decades.

I think it might be time to get the old motorbike out of the garage or even get a minicab plate, so I can ride the Bus lanes as well.

The STCs will not be finished until after the local and general elections, so the wrong politician might have to take the blame,or pass the buck, either way Harlow and the taxpayer will pay.

I have always thought that Essex County Council takes a bodge-it-and-leg-it approach to anything they do within Harlow.
I often wonder if there is a university degree in bodge-it-and-leg-it and if all Essex County Council managers have degrees in this subject.
The managers seem to know how a job should be done but nearly always find a way to bodge it.
I don't know if budgetary constraints or bureaucratic rules and restrictions cause them to lose their common sense, bodge a project, and leave it either half done or worse than when they started. 

I do hope there will be constant monitoring this time so that mistakes can be rectified quickly.
Unlike Harlow’s first attempt at a Strategic Transport Corridor, The Church Langley Express, this failed to be a success, it was blocked because of the design and volume of traffic from M11 junction 7 and two sets of traffic lights.
On the A414 by the housing estate of Church Langley, there are still redundant remnants of infrastructure from the Church Langley Express.
The Church Langley Express STC was designed with two sets of traffic lights on Second Avenue, one for pedestrians going to the Leisure Zone and the other for the Bus Lane; they operated independently of each other.
One traffic light would say stop; the other would say go, the distance between the traffic lights was four cars or one HGV.
It took years before a friend of mine managed to speak to anyone from Essex County Council Highways at a meeting in Sheering where the shortcomings of the two sets of traffic lights were pointed out; subsequently, the bus lane traffic lights were removed.
It was not the frequency of the buses that caused the problem.
It was the use of the bus lane by the many Minicabs and Taxis triggering the traffic lights, blocking all other traffic.
There is still the option of providing a bridge to the Leisure Zone, if you are fit enough to swim or go to the gym a bridge will be no problem.
They propose to put the traffic lights back when the new A1019 S.T.C. roundabout is built.

Conservative-run Essex County Council Highways Mr. David Sprunt and his team has failed to hold any meetings in Harlow.