There are fresh hopes of tackling at least three of North Yorkshire’s worst congestion hotspots after it emerged railway bosses have agreed to examine reducing level crossing closure times.
North Yorkshire County Council’s transport and environment scrutiny committee heard level crossings at Starbeck in Harrogate, three level crossings in Northallerton, one in Malton, one in Selby and one in Crosshills near Skipton were continuing to cause lengthy tailbacks in the towns.
About 40 passenger train services and between 30 and 40 freight services a day pass through the Low Gates level crossing in Northallerton, meaning the barriers are down for about 4.5 hours in every 24.
In Starbeck, campaigners have this summer claimed the situation is getting worse as traffic increases with housebuilding.
In 2016, Richmond MP Rishi Sunak outlined a number of possible solutions for Northallerton which included a bridge, a tunnel, moving the railway line and a road bypass.
Officers said the issue across the county had been examined by the authority for many years, but solutions came out at costs between £10m and £30m.
However, members of the scrutiny committee were told while the solution to the traffic congestion at all the crossings was likely to involve major infrastructure works and significant expenditure, this in all cases was “not affordable or deliverable at this time”.
The meeting heard the council had approached Network Rail to seek some joint working to try to identify whether there were any opportunities for more affordable rail schemes, one costing up to £1m, that could significantly reduce the closure time of key level crossings.
Officers said Network Rail had indicated there may be opportunities to make changes at Starbeck, Northallerton and Crosshills.
Officers said Network Rail was undertaking further investigation work on the feasibility of the rail schemes and what impact the possible reductions in closure time may have on traffic congestion at these locations.
In parallel to those studies, the county council has commissioned traffic and queuing surveys at the level crossings so they can gauge the difference a reduction in level crossing closure time of for example 40 seconds out of three minutes might make to the tailbacks.
It is hoped the work will be completed by December for consideration of possible funding opportunities early in 2020.
After the meeting deputy leader of the county council, Councillor Gareth Dadd welcomed the ongoing studies and said any action to tackle the tailbacks that build up on a daily basis at the crossings would help remove blocks to economic growth.
He said: “This is really good news after decades of issues surrounding these level crossings. We can only hope that these solutions will be fruitful.”
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