Traffic in Hereford City Centre can get really bad around the morning and evening rush hours....
You're looking at 10-15 minutes of crawling as standard and more than 30 mins of delays a few days a month.
It's traffic from the North and West heading to the south of the city that's the problem and ofc the river with only a couple of bridges doesn't help!
The long touted solution to this is the bypass... a Western North South link road taking traffic from the North direct to the South and then a Southern link taking traffic from West to East.
The council have been threatening this for decades now... and the current cost is estimated at £350 million which I guess is just the cost of roads....
It's kind of a long talked about probable white elephant in waiting.
The massive downsides....
I think the main thing is the total non-necessity of it. I mean about half of the problem on one of the entrance roads could be solved by putting in bus stops that mean busses don't have to stop IN THE ACTUAL ROAD.
Park and bike is also a possibility. It's flat in Hereford for the most part!
Or personally I'd be inclined to put in free park and rides and hike the parking fees in town, honestly at only £3 a day it's cheap.
Not to mention that all of this isn't going to work, one report has estimated that traffic will simply be back to its current levels within 3 years of the bypass being completed, and the reason for this is the council is going to allow development of more houses ALONG THE DAMNED bypass.
Oh and it goes through my absolutely favourite running route around Breinton, the locals there must be really pissed. NB this is actually going ahead after many many years of wrangling so I just found out.
And the final straw is - COUNCIL TAX, clearly this is going to keep going up to pay for this!