There have long been problems on the narrow St Martin’s road with its high hedges, with cars struggling to safely exit from Rue des Huriaux and La Rue de la Corbinerie onto the main road.
There have been several incidents at the junction in the last five years, combined with anecdotal feedback to Traffic & Highway Services from people who have had near misses.
‘Especially at peak times, there are high volumes of traffic going straight through, but even throughout the day there is a lot of traffic from the two arms and quite low visibility,’ said road safety officer Paul James.
‘A filter works really well because it reduces overall speed on the whole road and giving equal priority to all four arms.’
THS has been waiting for contractor availability and was only alerted on Thursday that the work could now be carried out.
When asking residents their thoughts on the new road layout, the Guernsey Press found most had not heard about it until being contacted by the newspaper.
‘It is dangerous trying to come out of there, but I’m not sure how well a filter will work as it won’t improve visibility,’ said one resident of La Rue de la Corbinerie.
‘Traffic hasn’t told us anything about it, this is the first I’m hearing about it, but nothing can make that junction any worse. I quite like filters.’
She added that originally there had only been one mirror opposite her lane to help pull out on Les Varioufs, but recently a second one had been added.
‘Still, that doesn’t help when coming out from the other way. There’s been several times I’ve had to wave at people to stop because there’s something coming in the mirror but they can’t see it.’
Mr James said that there was one other road area where a new filter was being planned due to a combination of bad visibility, a sloped road and being on a bend.
‘We collate lots of data including monthly statistics from Guernsey Police about any incidents which take place and feedback from the community,’ he said.
‘We use that data to prioritise where any changes can be made and Les Varioufs has come up a couple of times over the last few years.
‘Everything goes in on a nine-to-12 month trial and after that, it will be re-evaluated, we’ll get some more feedback and see whether it’s worth making permanent.’
In recent years, THS installed a raised table filter at the Longfrie in 2017, and the filter on Route de St Andre near the Underground Hospital was installed in 2021.
The junction will be closed from 9am today for most of the day.
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