Road users warned of delays as busy Tadcaster Road/St Helens Road junction gets upgrade

City of York Council is warning of severe disruption as it replaces ageing and unreliable traffic lights at the junction of Tadcaster Road and St Helen’s Road from Monday (30 April).

The work is expected to last up to six weeks, and will include temporary lights. The council is advising drivers to allow more time for their journeys, consider alternative routes or travel options “like Park and Ride“!

While replacing the traffic lights,  the council is making changes to the junction which will improve traffic flows, take advantage of new technology and also prove cheaper and more efficient to run.

The changes to pedestrian crossing arrangements were discussed last summer (click).

Work is scheduled to take place from 7.30am – 5.30pm, Monday to Friday and from 9am – 3pm on a Saturday. Evening work will be required during certain phases of the work, this will be kept to a minimum to minimise disruption to local residents.

Bus routes should remain unchanged throughout the junction improvements.

Work will be suspended from Wednesday 16 May – Friday 18 May and on Saturday 26 May due to race meetings at York Racecourse.

The five year traffic signal asset renewal programme was given the green light by the councillor responsible for transport and planning in November 2015.

The total replacement programme will cost £2.62m over five years and will be funded through the capital programme budget and the existing Local Transport Plan budget.

For information on travelling in and around York visit  www.itravelyork.info/roadworks

In a separate development the Council says it is “pioneering intelligent transport technology to tackle congestion on the city’s roads”.

In the first of two Department for Transport projects which could change the way traffic is managed in the UK, the council has installed special sensors from Lendal Arch gyratory and along the A59.

These will pick up anonymous (‘hashed’) mobile phone signals and data from ‘connected’ cars.

The council can then combine this with other data – like real-time bus movements – to give a complete picture of how traffic behaves.

This will help the council to set traffic signals which respond to how traffic actually behaves, especially in events like sudden downpours.

What’s on in York: Finding the Words with poets Harry Gallagher, Judi Sutherland and Chérie Taylor-Battiste

Apr _26 Finding The WordsYork Explore Library :

Thu 26 Apr :

6.45pm – 8.00pm :

£3 (£2 with a YorkCard)

Finding the Words is a regular poetry evening every month at York Explore Library. Each evening brings together three poets and we aim to include both published writers and those working towards a collection. We’ll have a bar available and readings last around an hour. The evening is also a chance to share and chat, so please feel free to bring any news or information about poetry local, regional or national.
Harry Gallagher hails from Middlesbrough, though now lives on the coast near Newcastle. His latest book ‘Northern Lights’ (published by York press Stairwell Books) has just entered its 2nd run and Harry describes its contents as “a collective love letter to the people of the North East”. Poet John Hegley described it as containing “gems herein”, while the Yorkshire Times said “Gallagher excels at finding harmony in unlikely places, in juxtapositions; extrapolating subtleties of nuance towards an expression of love, he is, in the end, a poet of hope.” Harry is delighted to be coming to York, one of his favourite cities anywhere.
Judi Sutherland is a poet and would-be novelist living in Barnard Castle, County Durham. Her pamphlet ‘The Ship Owner’s House’ has just been published by Vane Women Press in Darlington and this will be its first ever airing at a poetry reading.
Chérie Taylor-Battiste. After graduating from SOAS with a degree in African Studies, Chérie  worked first in television production as a Researcher,  then  moved onto acting gaining various parts on stage and screen and with the BBC. Alongside this, she engaged in another passion, facilitating drama and video workshops in prisons PRUs and schools.
Finding herself a single parent of two, she was drawn back to her first love of writing, embracing the flexibility that allowed her to write around her baby daughter.  She  began by getting a prose piece published in the Tangled Roots anthology, then winning a competition to have a poem included in the Saboteur Award winning anthology Remembering Oluwale. After winning the Pitch and Pen event at the Headingley Literature Festival, she began talks with Valley Press.
She has just completed her debut collection “Lioness”, due to be published alongside an audiobook by Valley Press in Autumn 2018.

To book tickets please click here.