Monday 30 September 2013

Road safety - Sinderins junction

A constituent recently expressed concern about the operation of the Sinderins junction, stating:

"I have become increasingly conscious of a potential danger at the foot of Blackness Avenue. There seems to be a great increase in traffic flow at this junction.

Traffic going east from Perth Road into Hawkhill can take so long that the lights change to red forcing traffic turning from Hawkhill into Blackness Avenue  to do so on the red light.

Is there a need for a green arrow to allow the Hawkhill into Blackness Avenue traffic safe passage?"     

I raised the matter with the Head of Transportation at Dundee City Council who has responded as follows:

"I have had my staff in Urban Traffic Control (UTC) to have a look at the Sinderins junction and the signal settings relating to the right turn from Hawkhill into Blackness Avenue.  

The traffic signals allows a significant amount of time for vehicles to make the right turn movement up Blackness Avenue after the main road signal turn red.   Once vehicles have passed the stopline they are allowed to turn right on a red light as the intergreen periods are set up to allow them to do so safely and clear the junction. It is possible to install a right turn indicative arrow however this will require a re-analysis of the junction performance and it could be detrimental to overall junction capacity.  

In the last three and a bit years there has been two slight injury accidents at this location,  one involved a pedestrian who was under the influence of alcohol the other one was a rear end shunt and did not involve vehicles turning right up Blackness Avenue.

As far as increased traffic levels I would assume that this may be related to roadworks in the Central Waterfront area displacing traffic onto other routes such as the Perth Road.  I will arrange UTC staff to monitor this junction to see whether this is a prevalent problem during the peak periods as this is when the problem is most likely to occur."