Leeds road in Harrogate

Signs to aid traffic flow at Leeds Road junction

29 January 2016

North Yorkshire County Council has erected lane designation signs to aid traffic flow at the A61 Leeds Road/Leadhall Lane/Hookstone Road junction in Harrogate.

The signs, which are on both the northbound and southbound approaches, are designed to help drivers ensure they are in the correct lane and to help to tackle congestion.

The erection of the signs follows a series of changes last autumn to create the best solution at this very busy junction, taking account of both technical analysis and views expressed by road users.

The current road layout was installed as part of the Marks and Spencer’s development on the former Nidd Vale Motors site on Leeds Road. The County Council closely monitored the new junction layout and consulted widely on an officer working group report on the junction, which was then modified as a result of further public feedback, along with extensive traffic modelling.

County Councillor Don Mackenzie, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Highways, said:

These new signs, which have been erected following a request from the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce, provide a highly visible guide for drivers approaching the junction. We continue to address issues of congestion, and we hope these signs will encourage drivers to get into the correct lane early and to be courteous to one another and merge in turn from both of the lanes going straight ahead at the junction.

Drivers seem to believe one lane has priority over the other as they merge, but that is not the case. This system requires drivers to merge alternately from each lane. The key is to get as many cars over the stop line on each green phase as possible and that is achieved by both straight ahead lanes being full and then cars merging alternately once across the junction.

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