Royal Elm Park

[RoyalBlue]

The options for us having a stadium in the centre of Reading are limited !

Pretty obvious why there is a huge need to discourage car usage. The flip side is that the alternatives have to be viable. some people will never give up their desire to drive from their front door to outside the venue but it's not realistic to expect to do that. There is a huge responsibility on the developers to show their alternatives work though.

Best way do discourage it is to make the alternatives really attractive. However, the anti-car facists at RBC aren't interested in doing that and simply want to make life as difficult as they can for car owners.

They can't even be bothered to make life easier for pedestrians - look at all of the potential pedestrian/car conflict zones around the stadium and approach roads, and the ludicrous provision of a just a normal width pavement along the incredibly busy A33 relief road (even the thin pavement that is there is obstructed by overhanging vegetation in places !).

[RoyalBlue]

Public transport is for other people, right RoyalBlue

Public transport is fine for those who live in the locality. And if I did, I would probably walk or us a bike. However, I live some 35 miles away and would have to incur the time and cost of travelling into London and back out again in order to get to and from matches. I reckon what takes me an hour or less by car would take the best part of 2.5 hours each way by public transport (I don't live on the door step of a station). And the cost would be ridiculous. Journey time alone would mean that I would be unable to attend evening games.

[genome]

Replace "capitalise" with "exploit" and yeh I'd say you're spot on there.

TBF they're not alone, train fares are similar.

It's the way of the world Greeners.

Watch the fares shoot up when REP is built and people have no choice but to use public transport.

[RoyalBlue]

I doubt the tossers at RBC will give a damn though. Those idiots say people should walk to and from the stadium and then only provide narrow pavements along the very busy approach roads!

Which approach roads in particular do you have a problem with?

Perhaps approach road is quite the right term for that road so road approaching the stadium.

I assume you don't walk along the A33 relief road before or after the game? Standard width pavement obstructed by tree branches etc. that the council can't be bothered to either clear themselves or get offending land owners to clear.

Then you have the roads leading to the stadium and the car/pedestrian conflicts that they create (lack of crossing points etc.). Not sure where the council ownership of these ends and the club's starts. However, the council approved the layout, even if the roads are the club's responsibility.

[Silver Fox]

I know how to avoid car/pedestrian conflicts! Get rid of the cars!

[AthleticoSpizz]

Try saying that after imbibing in a dozen pints a few miles from home when the buses stop running ( general pro-car comment )

[Nameless]

RB- you have no idea what the public transport option will be so you cannot say it would cost you more or take longer.there simply
A free park and ride at Winnersh with a free bus service to the ground would save you money and probably time.. Rather than simply adopt a negative stance why not wait for the details
You may also need to accept that there isn't.t room to build a 24,000 space car park so everyone can take their own vehicle, neither does living 35 miles away entitle you to any special privileges. The transport consultants seemed very well aware that they have some significant issues to overcome and also that the club need to get a full stadium for every game. They aren't stupid. But it will involve some open mindededness and willingness to change by the fans. Other clubs operate a no onsite parking set up which seems to work pretty well. The club need to come up with a workable plan for us. I suspect some people will just find fault with whatever is proposed, short of a plan to send a limo to the suburbs of west London to bring fans to the ground and then a sedan chair to deliver them to their seat.

[PieEater]

I get concerned when they talk of transit hubs as if that fixes the problem. It's just bullshit. They have enough buses now, they are just incapable of loading them quickly.

Loading buses is certainly an issue, particularly the time it takes for numpties that have stood in a queue for 20mins to get the front then suddenly realise they need to pay.

FWIW I've often paid £3.50 for prematch beers in town then get picked up to go home. Every time the driver has pocketed my fiver.

[Nameless]

At Twickenham they run a really good free bus shuttle from the ground to Richmond after the games. The buses get loaded quickly, at least partly because there are no payment hold ups. What looks like a huge queue when you join it moves rapidly as 100 people at a time get on buses which are loaded in 3s before moving off. Can't see why that would not work, but it relies on the buses being funded from general income. Twickenham is a really easy place to get to and from if you know the ropes, way better than Wembley.

[Platypuss]

They can't even be bothered to make life easier for pedestrians - look at all of the potential pedestrian/car conflict zones around the stadium and approach roads, and the ludicrous provision of a just a normal width pavement along the incredibly busy A33 relief road (even the thin pavement that is there is obstructed by overhanging vegetation in places !).

Totally agree that the stadium design was almost wholly driven by vehicular access concerns - both public and private, with minimal regard for pedestrians. Not sure how that chimes with your anti-car slant though!

I agree that the road/footway provision around the stadium itself is totally shocking. The Hoops Way roundabout is a particular delight. Can't see how the design of that is anything to do with RBC though and I'm not even convinced the off A33 roads are even adopted.

The biggest, yet most foreseeable problem with road congestion was the lack of alternatives to the A33 at the design stage.

[Nameless]

Not going to be solved now but the A33 should have gone to the other side of the stadium, making pedestrian access completely separate to vehicles. Would have screwed the new development though. There was talk of a second M4 junction going via Green Park but that seemed to disappear.
Originally there were no pedestrian crossings over the A33 which was criminal. I believe STAR campaigned for that to be sorted.
Not sure about the pavements on the A33, I walk that way every game and it's not a big problem. The bushes were also cut several weeks ago, but would have been better if they had been done preseason.

[Platypuss]

The footways on the west side of the A33 coming north from the M4 are definitely too narrow,

[Ian Royal]

I doubt the tossers at RBC will give a damn though. Those idiots say people should walk to and from the stadium and then only provide narrow pavements along the very busy approach roads!

Which approach roads in particular do you have a problem with?

Perhaps approach road is quite the right term for that road so road approaching the stadium.

I assume you don't walk along the A33 relief road before or after the game? Standard width pavement obstructed by tree branches etc. that the council can't be bothered to either clear themselves or get offending land owners to clear.

Then you have the roads leading to the stadium and the car/pedestrian conflicts that they create (lack of crossing points etc.). Not sure where the council ownership of these ends and the club's starts. However, the council approved the layout, even if the roads are the club's responsibility.

I walk to and from the ground from town most games and the paths are absolutely fine, in fact they've recently been significantly improved.

I'm not sure about the other direction as much although i have walked from the old HP carpark a few times over the years and never seen any issue at all. You seem disproportionately angry about something that no one else seems to think is a big issue.

[notloyalenuffroyal]

Park and ride is clearly the way forward for us out of towners. Living over an hour away it is currently lovely to get there early enough to park at the stadium with the family, but this is a luxury really. It wouldn't make a huge difference to my life to park the other side of the M4 and get a park and ride bus if it improves the experience once there. I quite like the idea of parking up, bussing across then getting a drink or some food in the 'plaza' or whatever it would be called. Then into the stadium..... sounds good to me. Obviously a 'spoons would help for those days when we don't have the kids. Kids probably old enough by the time it is built anyway!

[loyalroyaldaz]

The new Park and Ride at Mereoak will be useful to many. Just about a minute off junction 11 toward Basingstoke. I understand the plan is a group ticket for £7 that will include parking your car and bus to and from town including drop off at the Stadium. The dedicated bus lanes should get you through the Junction quick enough and i am also told that there are plans to extend the bus lanes down toward town and past the b&q roundabout. This is pure conjecture of course and was the answer i received when i posed the question of access at one of the public exhibition things about Royalelmpark.

[3points]

Still think getting the Green Park office car parks opened up is a sensible strategy. I was surprised that wasn't part of the original planning consent for the business park. Just seems such a waste of ready made parking. However, it would complicate traffic flow further on the roundabout between the ground and the speedway stadium parking. But, In terms of traffic flow on match days the British could learn a lot from the Americans. They will put a lot of police on duty to manually control traffic flow, rather than rely on normal (non match day) traffic signals to sort it out.

[3points]

The new Park and Ride at Mereoak will be useful to many. Just about a minute off junction 11 toward Basingstoke. I understand the plan is a group ticket for £7 that will include parking your car and bus to and from town including drop off at the Stadium.

With the right pedestrian access, a lot of people could walk from Mereoak I would have thought. Probably about a mile? Is it big enough though?

[loyalroyaldaz]

570 parking spaces apparently.
And we are talking about 2021 before the development is finished so anything can happen in the mean time.
Suprisingly they are doing the conference centre, hotel and retail development first as well. I would of thought they would have done the housing first to get them sold off and some cash back in.
Not too worried about the whole thing at the moment. These things rarely work to timetable and there will of course be objections and maybe even a crested newt or two in the former shitty ditch!

[PieEater]

Still think getting the Green Park office car parks opened up is a sensible strategy. I was surprised that wasn't part of the original planning consent for the business park. Just seems such a waste of ready made parking. However, it would complicate traffic flow further on the roundabout between the ground and the speedway stadium parking. But, In terms of traffic flow on match days the British could learn a lot from the Americans. They will put a lot of police on duty to manually control traffic flow, rather than rely on normal (non match day) traffic signals to sort it out.

I thought the idea of the extra set of lights at Rose Kiln Lane was so they could do exactly that remotely from the control centre, if they do they seem to be pretty inept at improving the traffic flow. I vaguely recall when they forgot to reset the light phasing on Jn11 after an evening match it caused massive tailbacks the next day.

[The Cube]

I went to the exhibition the other day. I asked what I considered to be some pretty difficult questions, using experience gained as a councillor, and received no satisfactory answers.

One of the slimy property developer types i was talking to tried to divert the conversation by telling me that it was all about making more money for the football club so that they could buy players. I suspect he thought that argument might work on me because I was wearing an RFC sweatshirt. Actually, he might have been right, but I didn't believe him.