Best Of

This is my photo quota for today - quite interesting.

It's a junction in Nottingham City Centre being changed from a traffic island with traffic lights to a signalised T-junction.



You can see how the T-Junction running lanes have been added first, so that traffic flow is maintained. The increased landscaping, footways and mobility tracks will be built round it.

The junction is at one end of Maid Marian Way, which is a 4-6 lane dual carriageway built through Nottinghams ancient street pattern in the 1960s, splitting the city centre roughly 3/4:1/4 .

The traffic down Maid Marian way is 16k vehicles per day, down from 27k per day in approx 2003. One reason for that is that Nottingham built a tramway system in the early 2000s, which now carries around 50k passengers per day.

Source:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4z811v18jo
Scheme:
https://www.transportnottingham.com/project/maid-marian-way-roundabout-improvements/

Have they resolved the issues yet? Nottingham city transport were having to add up to an hour to their schedule last month for some routes because the light phasing simply wasn't fit for purpose. I do like some of the changes. Coming out of the Castle Quarter onto Maid Marion Way is now much better

I don't know.

If I'm in Nottingham it's usually tram and walk, car and walk, or train and Brompton

I know the area really well though, going back a .. very .. long time. I used to go down there to catch the bus from MOunt Street to go and do cross-country running torture in Wollaton Park when from age 11. Then I lived on Lenton Road in the Park for 6 months later.

I'll be honest, I don't think the Democrats will have as strong a candidate as the 2020 version of Biden for quite a while.

I'd probably rank the recent Dem candidates as follows:

08 Obama
12 Obama
20 Biden
16 Clinton
24 Harris
24 Biden

I would put Harris 24 above Hillary, despite the worse result. The bad result for Harris wasn't her fault. It was inflation and Joe not stepping down sooner.

I think this is absolutely right: Harris was not a great candidate, but she was not as bad as Hillary.

Do you think Clinton would have lost to John McCain in 2008?

Yes. And I think she would have lost to Romney in 2012. And I'm certain she would have been defeated by Trump in 2016.

(Actually, maybe not. The reality is that the incumbent administration was very unpopular in 2008. Maybe even Hillary could have won then.)

Counterfactual time: either Clinton or McCain would have been much tougher on Russia than Obama was.

McCain would certainly have been tough when the chips were down.

I'll be honest, I don't think the Democrats will have as strong a candidate as the 2020 version of Biden for quite a while.

I'd probably rank the recent Dem candidates as follows:

08 Obama
12 Obama
20 Biden
16 Clinton
24 Harris
24 Biden

I would put Harris 24 above Hillary, despite the worse result. The bad result for Harris wasn't her fault. It was inflation and Joe not stepping down sooner.

I think this is absolutely right: Harris was not a great candidate, but she was not as bad as Hillary.

Do you think Clinton would have lost to John McCain in 2008?

Yes. And I think she would have lost to Romney in 2012. And I'm certain she would have been defeated by Trump in 2016.

(Actually, maybe not. The reality is that the incumbent administration was very unpopular in 2008. Maybe even Hillary could have won then.)

I'll be honest, I don't think the Democrats will have as strong a candidate as the 2020 version of Biden for quite a while.

I'd probably rank the recent Dem candidates as follows:

08 Obama
12 Obama
20 Biden
16 Clinton
24 Harris
24 Biden

I would put Harris 24 above Hillary, despite the worse result. The bad result for Harris wasn't her fault. It was inflation and Joe not stepping down sooner.

I think this is absolutely right: Harris was not a great candidate, but she was not as bad as Hillary.

Do you think Clinton would have lost to John McCain in 2008?