COMMUTERS heading into Nottingham from the north and east have long been accustomed to rush-hour hold-ups around Huntingdon Street, the Capital FM Arena and London Road roundabout.
But yesterday was different. There was near-gridlock in the Arena neighbourhood at 8am.
One driver from Carlton reported traffic backing up into the NG4 suburbs and a bus passenger from West Bridgford told of a slow crawl northwards up London Road.
It was summed up by nottinghampost.com contributor Postdaz: "Mad morning in Nottingham. God, what chaos. Would have been better walking to work."
So what happened?
There were separate problems at the ring road near the junctions of Wollaton Road and Hucknall Road because of roadworks and an accident respectively.
But the suspect-in-chief for the central chaos is the workman who parked his vehicle in Canal Street.
Contractors had completed some overnight electrical repairs under the pavement and the workman effectively closed off one lane as he top-dressed the pavement.
Frances Ashton, traffic control and safety manager for Nottingham City Council, made the short walk from the authority's Loxley House headquarters and invited the workman to shift the vehicle within 15 minutes.
There was, she said, "a frank exchange of views" on the matter. "Yes, the pavement has to be made safe," she said afterwards. "But there could have been a temporary solution and the main work could have been done after rush-hour."
Unknown to the hapless contractor, the knock-on effects of his bad timing were crawls for southbound traffic in Lower Parliament Street and Huntingdon Street, westbound traffic in Carlton Road and Pennyfoot Street, and northbound traffic in London Road. Leaving aside roadworks connected with Nottingham's tram extension programme, this was the second bad rush-hour snarl-up in six weeks.
On the evening of October 7, commuters were caught in prolonged jams caused by roadworks, in Canal Street, connected with the district heating scheme. Bus services were disrupted, with some drivers being forced to work beyond their legal working hours.
From the start of the morning rush hour to the end of the evening peak, employees in the city council's 20-strong control and network management team keep a watch on a wall of camera images showing traffic conditions at scores of points from Worksop to the Leicestershire border – the city operates the service in partnership with the county council.
The system is part of a holistic approach to traffic management, says Steve Hunt, the council's head of traffic and safety. "About a quarter of all public transport passengers have a car available to them, so there could be more cars on the road," he says.
In fact the council was recently identified in the TomTom Traffic Index as one of only three of the UK's major urban areas to have actually reduced traffic congestion in the last year.
A superior bus network and a successful tram project may have something to do with that – but Steve Hunt concedes: "The council is responsible to all road users. We know people have to use cars and lorries and that they are important to the local economy. It's a question of getting the balance right."
So what do you do if you're trying to get in or out of Nottingham at the beginning or end of the working day and you're listening to the same news bulletin for the third or fourth time?
"Think beautiful thoughts," advises Tim Shallcross, head of technical policy at the Institute of Advanced Motorists.
"I used to work in Keyworth, so I know the journey through West Bridgford to Nottingham has a pretty good roads infrastructure, but there will be jams – although from my experience they are just as bad in Leicester."
Mr Shallcross said drivers could give themselves an edge by following developments in the sat-nav market.
"Under the old system, sat-navs calculate an alternative route – the trouble is that they do the same for other drivers, too.
"You'd end up heading from one bit of congestion into another.
"More modern systems can use positional information to gauge who is going where and at what speeds and take you down some funny routes – but you have to learn to rely on what the sat-nav says."
Mr Shallcross added: "The choice nowadays is to put down more Tarmac or make better use of the Tarmac we have – and the latter is the cheaper option."
Any ideas for improving rush-hour traffic flow in Nottingham? E-mail opinion@nottinghampost.com
