Written 19/06/01

At a Milton Parish Council highways meeting last night an officer from Cambridgeshire County Council outlined their plans for traffic lights at the Butt Lane/A10 Milton bypass junction.

The background is that this junction has the second worst accident record of any road in the county (the worst being the A10/A14 junction). It is also, due to the nature of the accidents, one where the accidents tend to be more serious (A10/A14 accidents are generally less severe) and there was a fatality in 1999. Most of the serious accidents involve vehicles attempted to turn right out of Butt Lane being hit side on by cars coming north.

In order to make the junction safer the county council proposes to install traffic lights and to put street lights along the whole bypass. The traffic lights will be phased to give a long phase to north and south bound traffic and very short phases for southbound vehicles turning right in Butt Lane and vehicles from Butt Lane turning right (and left) onto the A10. There will be a give way filter allowing northbound vehicles to turn left into Butt Lane at any time.

The planners are worried that, even with this long phasing, there may be problems in the evening with northbound traffic backing up to the A14/A10 junction so an additional "jam buster" sensor will increase the time given to clear that if it detects traffic backing up.

There will be no 40mph speed limit on the bypass (which was originally planned as part of this scheme).

The lighting of the bypass will be the modern cowled type which only throws light downwards but the lights will be visible from upstairs (and in some cases) downstairs windows of houses near the bypass.

The County Council hope to put this scheme in place late in 2001 at the earliest.

Your parish council have long said that they would prefer a roundabout at this junction, but that would cost significantly more (around four times as much!) and, allegedly, encourage "rat running" through Impington.

If you have concerns about this scheme you need to speak to your district councillor, Richard Summerfield, before Monday. He's on the committee who are making the decision.

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