Batts Ford Bridge: The Road to Nowhere?

Road building projects around Bedford take a really, really long time. The idea of bypassing the town was first mooted in the 1930s.. but it will finally be completed in 2016 when the last section is built.

Batts Ford Bridge is a similar scheme that has been around for decades [1] [2].. but what is it? Basically it is a road bridge squeezed in between County Borough Hall and Bedford College on one side, and ending up where the old marketplace used to be on the other.

You can see more details of the scheme here [pdf]. Now, while having a truckload of cash thrown at the town is a good thing and, you know, well done and all that.. do we really need a bridge in this location?

"Of course we do!" you might say. "The traffic is bloody horrendous!". And yes, look at a traffic map anywhere near rush hour and it looks pretty grim.

A great deal of that traffic is trying to squeeze down the High Street and the complex St Pauls Square to Union Street mess that forms the A6. Trying to travel from South to North on the A6 is always something of a challenge due to the complicated route, although thank goodness that the town bridge was widened in 1940 allowing four lanes of traffic. And of course there's always a mass of traffic trying to cross the County Bridge and go up or down Prebend Street.

If only there was a way of getting rid of all that A6 traffic from the middle of the town. Oh wait.. isn't that what the last section of the Western Bypass is going to do?

So, anybody in their right mind would go along the bypass instead of through town. Except there is a problem.. the A421/A428 junction (known to just about everyone as the "Swan Roundabout") can be horrendously busy at rush hours. Sometimes in the morning the southbound traffic on this section queues beyond the bridge over the Great Ouse.

I would suggest that when the bypass is completed that the traffic in the town will ease somewhat.. but the traffic at the Swan Roundabout will become even worse (and I'm not just saying that because I live near there!).

Perhaps Batts Ford Bridge is the wrong solution? After being on the table for decades, the challenges surrounding twenty-first century traffic management around Bedford are going to be quite different from those of the past?