A £14million scheme to ease congested roads around Ystrad Mynach has been completed.
The work – centred around Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr – will help tackle congestion and improve traffic flow at the intersection between the A469 and the A472.
Cllr Harry Andrews, leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council, unveiled a special plaque at the site on Friday to mark the completion.
He said: “I am delighted to officially mark the completion of three major phases of work that will help improve the highway network at this busy location. I’d like to thank local people for their patience during the works and now look forward to seeing the benefits that the improved layout will bring.”
Work started in 2009 on phase one of the scheme which saw the construction of a new bridge from the A469 allowing vehicular access to the new hospital site at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr.
This was followed by two further phases of work aimed at cutting congestion and improving traffic flow through the area.
The approaches to the Cwm Ddu roandabout have been reconfigured and a new dedicated link road – named Ludwigsburger Strasse in honour of Caerphilly’s twin town in Germany – has been constructed to carry traffic direct from the A469 to Maesycwmmer.
Two small mini-roundabouts adjacent to the Royal Oak public House have been replaced by a single roundabout which now has an earth sculpture of an Oak Leaf at its centre.
Funding for the improvements has been provided by Aneurin Bevan Health Board and through a Welsh Government Transport Grant.
At last they must have been being paid by the hour.
Fair do, the new system appears to be working very well. For those old enough to remember travelling through Llanbradach to Nelson and vice versa the new system is very good.
It had better be brilliant, not just good. Paid by the hour? It must have been by the minute, with overtime as well.
The configeration is a car crash waiting to happen, I have witnessed, already, two near accidents, when cars have followed the wrong green light and actually crossed cars coming from the other direction.
It is not carelessness but the confusing angles of the lights and the fact that traffic flows crosses each other at the hospital entrance.
The new road layout is ridiculous, i have seen 3 accidents, 2 on the main entrance to the hospital and 1 on the crossing near Maesycwmmer since it has been open. The number of lane crossings coupled together with people being confused as to which lane they should be in and which lights they should be following, is the definition of an accident waiting to happen.
As for the congestion, it has eased the flow of traffic heading from Blackwood to Ystrad but if your heading the other way things are much worse. Although the roads are now 2 lanes wide giving traffic room to clear from the roundabout, the 4 lanes then merge into 1 which is chaos in "rush hour". I have witnessed more than a few accounts of road rage as people try to beat the lights and not allow each other into the single merging lane.
Then there's the name, you would think that a road, in Wales, between a town called Maesycwmmer and Ystrad Mynach would be called something, maybe, Welsh? but no, the whole idea of "twinned with" is a useless waste of time and money but the idea to name the road after a town somewhere in Germany (that no-one who uses the road has ever heard of) is as idiotic as the road layout itself. in my opinion the road is just an extension of the Maesycwmmer main road and should be named accordingly.
Basically the new layout has eased congestion in a very small way at a very big risk to safety. It is only a matter of time before there is a serious accident on the "Ludwigsburger Strasse" but at least there's a hospital nearby.
I experienced first hand a road accident at the traffic lights 3/12/12 when a vehicle exiting the hospital pulled out in front of me causing collision – possibly due to confusion at traffic lights, as myself and the other driver also claimed the lights were green (there are too many in one place).
What I need to make clear is that even though we were outside a "hospital" no victim of a road accident can be taken there, victims of this particular accident had to be taken to Prince Charles in Merthyr Tydfil.
What a waste of money and resources.
That’s the lower Rhymney Valley relief road, completed in the early 90s, not the recent changes around the hospital.