Will the travel problems be communicated to the senior organisers

[crimsonking]

there were roadworks on the a303 just before chickdale. They had put in temporary traffic lights and it took us about 30 mins to get through. who's bloody great thinking was this???? luckily we didnt pass through there until about 10pm on the wednesday. Cant imagine how bad it would have been during the day though

Edited July 1, 2009 by crimsonking

[Snodgrass]

I came off the A39 just after the motorway and went round the lanes and came out the other side of the festival. I think I saved myself around 3.5 hours in the jam. FYI.

[bombfrog]

I don't know what else people expect organisers to actually do about the volume of traffic?

You've got a huge amount of people arriving along narrow country lanes, ofcourse there's going to be traffic problems!!

[howlin_pete]

The way to avoid the queues is to avoid the queues by not joining the queue. I don't bother to pack-up my tent until after 5pm on the Monday, and then get to drive straight out with no queuing. Why spend hours in the car when you don't have to?

[mott the hoople]

I've heard some people talk of car accidents on arrival to the site on Wednesday, but don't car accidents happen every year given the volume of traffic? My arrival jouorney was increased by 6 hours and my leaving journey was increased by 4 hours.

This really does make me think twice about next year. Surely it must affect many people's enjoyment and memory of the festival?

Does anyone know if the people that should listen to these problems are aware of them?

[MsA]

The problems arriving were commented on to Michael Eavis at the Q&A session on Sunday. He was already aware of the issues which he put down to so many people arriving on the Wednesday (about 100,000 apparently) which they had not expected. He said they would think about opening on the Tuesday next year.

So far as leaving is concerned, I was in W29 at 8.30 Monday morning and there was a queue of traffic going nowhere and which looked like it had been there some time. Cars were moving from another car park into a lane whuch ran by the side of the field but the steward would not let us out that end of the field (nearest the site) into the moving traffic. Thanks to some enterprising people who opened another gate in the middle of the field I got out onto the lane. This led to traffic lights joining the main road and I got away in about 45 minutes and had no problems after that.

Definitely more organisation is needed by the stewards in the fields when people are leaving.

[reni]

Open site on Tuesday???

It's got to be worth the effort(and maybe £5.00 cost) to lessen the hassle.

The Nat Ex bus was a 15 hour job from Newcastle only helped by the brilliant attitude of the driver.I know if I'd have been behind the wheel I'd have been going banzai.

Once again a BIG thank you to the driver.

[Jutt69]

The way to avoid the queues is to avoid the queues by not joining the queue. I don't bother to pack-up my tent until after 5pm on the Monday, and then get to drive straight out with no queuing. Why spend hours in the car when you don't have to?

[crimsonking]

Must admit when snaking back towards Bristol and the M5 I saw a turn off to Weston Super Mare and took it knowing that you could get on the M5 one junction lower, had to negotiate twisty roads through little villages and the occasional tractor but otherwise kept moving and got on the M5 with ease, and probably saved myself a bit of time

[Rufus Gwertigan]

-1

There's plenty of things that could be done about it.

After taking 5 hours to move 6 miles on the A39/361 a local driving instructor told us to just go off the main road and take some small B roads around Street and Glastonbury town. This we did and all the roads were completely empty. Within 20 minutes we'd travelled a further 6 miles and had got within a mile of the west car parks entrance.

The trouble is that there was simply nobody managing the traffic. Nobody re-routing cars to emptier roads, no decent information about what was going on etc. ALl of the traffic was converging on a single point too. More roads being used and more entrances to the car park could avoid the same problem again.

Either that or I'm going by helicopter.

[TomfromStroud]

Pleased to report we rolled straight in and straight out on the M3-A303 route. After spending 10+ hours in the car park one year we have started leaving around 6am on Monday. Works a treat. I was at the local outdoor pool in East London by 1pm.

[eisha]

As a newbie this year we were ready for the long queues and were then very surprised that we had no queing to get in. I collected my friends from Bristol airport and my sat nav took us down all the B roads....we turned a corner and were then directed left in the orange gate and we were parked...took us 50 minutes from the airport to parking ...guessing we were very lucky. That was Thursday morning at 9am we were sat outside our tent with a beer by 10am....just before the rain began...pheww

We left on Sunday night after Prodigy and were out of the car park by 2pm.

[musky]

...

The idea of allowing coaches to bypass the traffic is a good idea, and should be a permanent arrangement if the festival is serious about it's commitment to encouraging both more sensible ways of travelling and ways that are also more eviromentally friendly.

...

[andymk]

I know the A39/A361 is a really bad road to get in on, there are far too many junctions you don't have right of way that then causes a knock on effect all down the line.

It is for the organisers to work with Avon and Somerset police and Somerst council to look at this to see what can be done next year.

I live next to Silverstone circuit and before they dualled the A43 the traffic used to be a nightmare (minimum 5 hours to get the last 3 miles into the car parks) every year. The traffic plan they put in place makes the traffic 1 way into and out of the circuit each day for the last few miles to ensure there are a minimum of delays. I know they close the A361 to eastbound traffic to help on the Monday but I think they are going to need to put a lot more road closures and single direction traffic into the site on the Wednesday if we continue the same volumes as this.

Mebbe try train or coach next year? The festival had dedicated bus / coach routes that were traffic-free and an absolute breeze!

[eFestivals]

This Year something went wrong, as a Glastonbury vet I have never seen traffic like it.

what went wrong was that the festival - in their wisdom - decided to advertise the festival as a Wednesday to Sunday festival. That caused nearly everyone to turn up on Wednesday when they'd have normally been spread over several days.

But you've clearly not been going for long - less than fifteen years ago, 6 hour queues to get in were the norm depending when you arrived.

[IGNITE77]

Thought i would listen to worthy fm to try and get some decent travel updates and advice but all i got was terrible jokes and shit music.

Was stuck on the road for around 5 hours on wednesday.........

[gizmoman]

Opening the site on Tuesday won't really help in the long run, people want to get on site early to get a good camping spot so everyone will start to arrive on Tuesday morning. The logic of opening on Wednesday is that some will arrive on Wed and some on Thur prior to the start of the festival proper on Friday, but we all know that the festival begins as soon as you get there and so we now have this mad situation where everyone tries to get there for the same time (Wed a.m.) Maybe charging more to park from Wednesday instead of Thursday may persuade some to arrive a day later but i'm sceptical, in any event there will always be problems on Monday as everyone tries to leave on the same day. I guess waiting in traffic is as inevitable as the mud, it's part of the price you pay to attend.

[scaryclaireyfairy]

it took us longer to get from the m5 to the site than to drive all the way from edinburgh. the accidents etc all conspired to make it a living hell. i don't really think much could be done to change that, it was just bad luck.

by chance, after 6 hours travelling at 1mph in searing heat a young lad in street came over and sold us directions via b-roads for a mere £2. we had been awake for 24hours by then and he saved my sanity right at the time i was questioning whether anything could be worth the pain of the queues. within a couple of hours onsite i realised it was definitely worth it and the pain was gone. like childbirth - so i believe anyway.

we also usually don't leave until after 5 on the monday but this year stewards were being right zealous from 1pm onwards saying we should have been offsite by 12.30! when we queried if cars were actually moving they said 'that's not the point!'. that conversation happened at least twice when they tried to shift us. so was the point to cook us in cars in the queues with no facilities?! i'm having none of that!

Edited July 1, 2009 by scaryclaireyfairy

[cejx]

it took us longer to get from the m5 to the site than to drive all the way from edinburgh. the accidents etc all conspired to make it a living hell. i don't really think much could be done to change that, it was just bad luck.

by chance, after 6 hours travelling at 1mph in searing heat a young lad in street came over and sold us directions via b-roads for a mere £2. we had been awake for 24hours by then and he saved my sanity right at the time i was questioning whether anything could be worth the pain of the queues. within a couple of hours onsite i realised it was definitely worth it and the pain was gone. like childbirth - so i believe anyway.

we also usually don't leave until after 5 on the monday but this year stewards were being right zealous from 1pm onwards saying we should have been offsite by 12.30! when we queried if cars were actually moving they said 'that's not the point!'. that conversation happened at least twice when they tried to shift us. so was the point to cook us in cars in the queues with no facilities?! i'm having none of that!

[r0cky]

At one point I did see the Blue Route appear to be jammed with campervans/caravans, and the whole queue was going at the speed of directing them in one-by-one. Which matched the description of the queue progress my mate saw as he queued to the carparks. He ended up waiting 8 hours to go a very short distance on the A37.

I was very very lucky, had zero queue leaving site (didn't see another car until I hit the A37 @ 60mph) at 9am Monday; and very minimal queue entering site Wednesday AM.

Edited July 1, 2009 by r0cky

[r0cky]

Opening the site on Tuesday won't really help in the long run, people want to get on site early to get a good camping spot so everyone will start to arrive on Tuesday morning.

[lofichic]

Mebbe try train or coach next year? The festival had dedicated bus / coach routes that were traffic-free and an absolute breeze!

[GotMyTicket!]

I have never had to endure a 14 hour journey into Glasto ever. Usually 5 hours on coach.

I left at Wed 9am and arrived in the festy at Thur 12.00am ish.

The coach driver was the grumpiest geezer ever. Didn't want booze on the bus or anyone to get off for a piss etc. Nightmare journey.

Coming home was a lot faster though 7 hours.

Put me off- never its Glasto!!

[Phil-itfc]

I got the bus from Castle Cary to the site and it was an absolute joke. it took 5 hours of queing to get from the train onto a bus. the organizors at the train station pu the problems down to the traffic but when we got the bus from the station to the site (around 7pm) there was no traffic at all. the buses were also being only half filled and there clearly wasn't enough of them.

[ShadyBlueBell]

I've heard some people talk of car accidents on arrival to the site on Wednesday, but don't car accidents happen every year given the volume of traffic? My arrival jouorney was increased by 6 hours and my leaving journey was increased by 4 hours.

This really does make me think twice about next year. Surely it must affect many people's enjoyment and memory of the festival?

Does anyone know if the people that should listen to these problems are aware of them?