STATION DEVELOPMENT
THIS IS THE GRIM AND CHAOTIC REALITY
FOR ANYONE ARRIVING AT THE STATION
BY ANY MEANS OTHER THAN ON FOOT
OF THE CURRENT LAYOUT AND VEHICULAR ACCESS
TO THE SHEFFIELD MIDLAND STATION
TOGETHER WITH A SOLUTION
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this document is to put forward suggestions on how to improve the chaotic situation that exists for private cars, taxis and delivery vehicles at Sheffield Midland Station.
I have been prompted to write this through sheer frustration as a station user, as nothing has been done to design a system that works for anyone.
If you have not witnessed the problems I suggest you stand on the footbridge at the corner of the multi-storey car park for half an hour on a Friday afternoon when a London train is due.
As an outsider it may be that I do not have all the facts, but on the other hand I have no restrictions or agenda which might influence the way I look at the problem.
Design problems are there to be solved and there must be a solution.
WHY IS THERE CHAOS?
LET’S ANALYSE THE PROBLEM BY PLAYING THE GAME
‘GETTING TO THE STATION ON TIME’
Looking down Fornham St. from Suffolk Road.
Obstacle 1 Cross Turner St.
This section of the approach is shown in the photo at the begining of this report. Believe it or not, this is a two-way stretch of road. Despite the daunting prospect of confronting this barrage of traffic, many vehicles return down here in an attempt to make an exit from the station only to find there is no way out, with resulting mayhem.
Drivers already treat this street as one-way.
Obstacle 2 The crossover junction at the corner of the multi-storey car park, Turner St. /Cross Turner St.
The aim at this point in the game is to get to the golden space as soon as possible as this is the only route in, but this is just a honey trap as further difficulties lie ahead.
This is where the confused car driver meets the frustrated Taxi driver.
Four vehicles are all vying for the golden space. (See diagram and photos below)
Outbreaks of road rage occur here. Taxis usually score higher points as they have practiced it many times. Enthusiasm to get to this space often blocks the junction and prevents other vehicles from exiting with the resulting log jam.
At this point many drivers, including taxis, decide not to continue and attempt a three-point turn in the junction right in front of the golden space, a daring manoeuvre.
Those with trains to catch and time running out disgorge their passengers and luggage anywhere they can. Others picking up, ‘phone a friend’ who, minutes later, rolls up with their luggage, which they bundle in, whereupon the car makes a three-point turn and drives away. A lot happens in this 36sq. metres
Obstacle 3 The in and out corridor. 
Proceed to the next part of the game, but beware of weaving taxis. This is due to the flow interruption zones which hinder the taxis’ progress. Taxis and cars jostle for a position in the queue along this lane, further disrupting the flow.
Pedestrians, exiting from the multi-storey car park, find that their crossing point is blocked, so they start walking diagonally towards the station, negotiating this jostling traffic. The very thing that was designed to make a safer crossing for pedestrians, namely the narrowing of the carriageway, is in fact one of the main factors in creating this dangerous environment.
Obstacle 4 The waiting zone.
This is where the car driver has to decide what to do “shall I drop off, pick up, wait for a parking space?” This could also be called the humiliation/intimidation zone, where innocent players get caught up in other peoples’ games. The longer the car driver waits, the greater the pressure from behind, as the taxis try to get to their passengers, ‘pass go,’ and collect their fares. For taxis this is nearly the end of the game. Once a gap appears they are home and dry, protected in their well-designed pickup zone.
(This is the only part of the system that works)
Obstacle 5 The drop off zone.
Vehicles waiting to drop off or pick up have one more hurdle, ’the drop-off zone’.
This, unfortunately, is approached from the wrong end, as drivers (already delayed) are anxious to drop off their passengers near the door; others follow to release the pressure from behind, thus blocking the taxis’ exit. The drop off zone becomes merely an exit route.
I once witnessed a Range Rover trying to play this game whilst towing a glider trailer. On another occasion two coaches were playing the game at the same time.
Coaches? Fire engines? Emergency vehicles? What provision is there for them?
This is all very entertaining but in reality it is a constant nightmare for everyone involved and genuinely upsetting and dangerous. Some people have already found a solution; they collect their passengers from Chesterfield.
THE ESSENTIAL PROBLEM
This can be broken down into two main issues.
1. The two different types of transport, taxis and other vehicles, do not mix. They operate at different flow rates and hinder each other. To work properly, these should be given separate lanes.
2. Car drivers dropping off or picking up are not given a clear set of rules as to how they should do so. What happens is that everyone makes up their own rules, with varying degrees of success.
The combination of these two issues results in chaos, intimidation, frustration, anger, and abuse and leads to accidents. On two of our last five visits we have witnessed people exchanging credentials. It is not a good working environment for taxi drivers nor a pleasant introduction to Sheffield’s new gateway to Europe.
Drivers deserve a well ordered and logical scheme.
A SOLUTION.
The area involved in this report can be split into three sections .
1. APPROACH AND EXIT
2. IN AND OUT CORRIDOR
3. DROP OFF, PICK UP AND TURNAROUND
SECTION 1 APPROACH AND EXIT 
The approach road, Fornham St. and Cross Turner St. and the exit road, Turner St. should be designated one-way, anti-clockwise. This simplifies the junction at the corner of the car park and prevents the misguided exit down Cross Turner St. as described earlier. This arrangement also allows more exit space for vehicles leaving the car park and station, thus preventing the back up at the Turner St./Cross Turner St. junction. A parking area for emergency coaches could now be created on the right hand side of Turner St.
The approach road, Fornham St./Cross Turner St. would now be the only way into the station. This is currently a dark and dismal backwater. This approach needs upgrading generally. It should feel like a ‘welcome to the station’.(The word 'Station Approach' used to conjure up a sense of arrival).
This section should be marked out for three lanes. On the left, two lanes for the taxi rank, and on the right a lane for all other vehicles.
(see diagram, Taxi RED, Others BLUE).
Taxis in the rank would thus be self-regulating, forming two queues and exiting by a single lane from the rank in sequential order. There would be no ‘golden space’ as the route ahead would be for taxis only and this could be entered in a leisurely manner when space allowed. When the taxi rank is full that should mean full and it should be designed so the could not be abused.
Other vehicles would proceed on the right in their own lane though the junction without any interruptions. Vehicles using the multi-storey car park would turn left.
All roads to be well lit, re-surfaced and clearly lane-marked and signed.
SECTION 2 IN AND OUT CORRIDOR
This area has to be three totally separate lanes. This is fundamental and is difficult to believe that it wasn’t achieved at the beginning. This would have been much easier if the electric sub station to the left were not there (I understand that this will eventually be relocated) and a little more space were allowed from the Network Rail Yard. These points could be looked at later, but in the meantime let’s see if this layout could be made to work within the existing boundaries.
It will be seen from the diagrams and the photographs at the end, that with a little adjustment of the pavements and kerbs it would be possible to achieve three independent lanes all along this corridor.
Taxis would now have their own route on the left of this corridor joining up with the existing turnaround, unhindered and unhurried.
Likewise other vehicles traveling on the right side of the corridor have an uninterrupted run up to the drop-off / pick-up zone.
The crossing for passengers exiting the multi-storey car park should be more clearly defined and marked to ensure it is ‘left clear’ of vehicles. Crossing three lanes here is not the best situation but would be less dangerous than the present one. A more satisfactory result could be achieved when the sub station is relocated.
SECTION 3 DROP OFF AND PICK UP ZONE 
Here, vehicles in the right hand lane would turn into the covered way to either drop off or pick up passengers. They will naturally go to the front of this lane nearest to the station door. Other vehicles would follow in an orderly line, dropping off and picking up. In fact if this queue ever backed up, people could safely drop off and pick up all along this lane. Once people have been delivered or collected the pressure is off the drivers as they follow the turnaround and interlace with the taxis in the exit lane.
For vehicles that have reached the end of the drop-off / pick up zone, and whose passengers have not yet arrived, there would be three choices, which should be
indicated by good signage:-
1 Use one of the parking spaces in the area in front of them. (With the new layout, the no. of spaces could be increased).
2 If no space is available, they could opt for the multi-storey short stay car park.
(It would be well received if this were free for the first 40 mins. as it used to be)
3 They could try the one-way circuit again which gives them a few more minutes.
This new layout presents the driver with a sequence of choices in preferential order, namely – quickest and cheapest first. This is a known system that will greatly help the traffic flow. It works in harmony with human nature, not against it.
With a few adjustment to kerbs, signage and road markings, this new layout could be up and running within a short time and would revolutionise the fraught process of picking up and setting down passengers at the station. A lot of time and money has been spent on the station and environs for passengers on foot and it is now a real joy to walk up to the City. I guess we could say that the taxi and car are here to stay, and its only right that they should be given a little more consideration thus helping to make the ‘Station experience’ complete.
Some other issues and questions:-
What access arrangements are in place in case of a major incident at the station?
What provisions are in place for coaches and cycles?
What is being planned for the vacant building plot? (No plans have yet been submitted.)
How will this site be accessed and serviced?
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19 comments:
If the station has to be approached via the back lanes then this has to be the best solution.
Of course the perfect answer would be an entrance opposite the station with direct access off the main road via a roundabout possibly with a modest water feature but this would be far to mundane I suppose. Dream on.
I was extremely annoyed to discover this when I had to pick some-one up.
This idiot scheme is part of the Gateway to Sheffield project and the problems - huge concourse, limted vehicle access - were raise in the "consultation" period, I remember speaking to the chief planner about it,
Richard Roper
Hi, I too have lived with this and fumed for ages! Did you mention the taxis that enter the maze via the cycle gate, up on the curb? Also, at present, because of the new road layout elsewhere, it is pretty well impossible to approach the multi storey via the direct approach of Turner Street unless you have come either from the Parkway or have driven all the way through town and back again! A mini roundabout at the end of Turner Street might be an alternative instead of traffic lights! There is also the chaotic one way system of Suffolk Road south of Fornham Street to negotiate before you even get to the bit you described. I think you are absolutely wrong about lack of planning: this area was designed this way to deter motorists from approaching the station!
Your scheme is very sensible. For that reason it is very unlikely to be adopted. This is Sheffield, home of a council which will do anything to make driving difficult.
I noticed your letter in the weekly Telegraph today 22 Feb. How are you going to get some of these ideas discussed in public? The Council and planning people have a tendency to say: we've considered your suggestions and decided not to accept them. This doesn't make for great debate. I've used the station since 1980. I love the work at the front. I have presumed that this exhausted everyone and there was just no more imagination left to design a practical scheme for cars and taxis - and, indeed, the new free small bus. In Manchester the free bus is outside the station doors; here the closest it gets is a considerable walk. Crazy. I don't know enough about urban planning rules and road design to comment properly but looking at your proposals as a constantly frustrated station user I applaud what you're suggesting. It would be good to know if you ever manage to get a public hearing.
Gerry Burke
Looks like a winning idea that due to Sheffield Council and its slow acceptance of good ideas and its reluctance to say "we're wrong' will never get put into practice. A great shame that a long overdue station revamp has been utterly ruined by the lack of car/taxi sense. Its a real head ache that needs sorting.....
Thanks very much for all the thought and hard work that you've put into this - it all seems very plausible to me (as a non-driver who uses trains a lot and is sometimes driven to the station by someone else)
You have made some very helpful suggestions here. I am incredulous that anyone can possibly have designed the present system and thought it had any merit at all.
A couple of thoughts. Allowing say 20 minutes free parking outside of peak times in the multi-storey car park would improve the situation at a stroke.
Also, the pedestrian access from the car park could be made via a bridge from the first floor across to Platform 1. A simialr means of access (without need for a bridge) works at Derby station, so why not Sheffield?)
I'm very impressed with your suggestions - thanks for all your work. I'm generally a pedestrian, but I've seen how awful the station approach is and what a dreadful impression it makes (as do those buildings on the left when you've come out). I'm no planner, but your suggestions make really good sense and I hope they get endorsed.
The conspiracy theorists are wrong, of course: it's not a vendetta against the car, I'm afraid the reality is rather more frightening - it's incompetence. The official planners are just not very good at this kind of thing and it's rather sad that you're doing their job for them. Is no-one in the council's planning office talking to the station management to get to grips with this? Where are the articles in the paper from the planning office reassuring the station-goers that the problem is acknowledged and being worked on?
Anyway, is there anything that we who would like to see your plans put into effect can do .... ?
Your ideas seem sensible and should be adopted asap I have just met my son from the london train and had to do a three point turn near the sub station in order to get out it was grid lock.
I'm agree with all of this that has been said the report and I think that what Keith Albans said about having a bridge to platform 1 is a great idea. However this would have to built inkeeping with the station like like the new brick facarde on the west side of St Pancras is in keeping with Barlow's train shed. There is one major problem with what you have said. The station is eaisly accesible by the Freebee, the Tram and the Bus Interchange so the all other transport, excluding foot, should be all private transport excluding foot. Prehaps the Freebee ought to have better signage form the station.I agree with what lots of people have said about bringing back the free fourty minutes. This is an exlent idea and should be implemented at once. What you have said should be implemnted at once with a new footbridge.
Very well thought through. It would be a great improvement. The Sheffield Taxi Association needs to see this as they may be able to influence the owners/council to adopt it.
Pete S
All powere to your elbow. I too have felt that whilst the station forecourt is much impreoved the alterations have made it more difficult for nearly everyone except some favoured pedestrian to reach it. Your report rightly highlights the problems for car and taxi users which need urgent attention. but bus users are not all that well served either as the nearest bus stops are quite a walk from the station entrance and the new Freebee city centre service does not really serve the station at all, (and its stop in the bus station is almost as far away from the station as it could be).
Bus access could be improved by reinstating the bus stops which used to exist on Sheaf Street near the pedestrian crossing by the station entrance (and there would seem to be space to accommodate a bus stop at least on the east side of Sheaf Street). Further if the Freebee service was rerouted from the bus station via Harmer Lane, Sheaf Street, Suffolk Street, Granville Square, Matilda Street, Eyre Street,Arundel Gate to join the existing route at Castle Square, it would be better able to meet the needs of rail users, particularly if there was a stop by the station as suggested above. The slightly extended route would cost more, but it would also benefit more potential passengers.
I have read your suggestions and the responses with great interest. The problems at the
station have been discussed for many many months now, and yet it seems that we are no
further forward and, as you correctly say, any nearby station (Chesterfield, Dronfield,
Dore, Meadowhall) is preferable to the chaos which is Sheffield Midland.
The Sheffield Chamber of Commerce's Transport forum, of which I am its Deputy Chair, has
raised the issue on several occasions, pushing for a solution. Your detailed suggestion of a
one-way system, combined with 3 lanes where possible, sounds interesting, however I have my
doubts that the road space available, and the interests of neighbouring properties, may
prove problematic in achieving this solution.
The city council owes its citizens a responsibility to resolve this issue, and I will email
the members of the Transport Forum, to make them aware of your suggestions and this blog.
However, this problem needs to be taken up and resolved by the council itself, and it is to
be hoped that the appropriate members will have seen your item in the press and will respond
accordingly.
I use the station, nearby bus stops and interchange most days and also drop passengers by car. All of these are frustrating in their different ways and I personally don't like the forecourt though some of my family do. Now we read that the station are appointing marshals but I can't really see that this is going to help. I cxertainly don't ency them. Sheffield road planning has been dire for years - but I think it's lack of imagination as well as incompetence. Your solution is a really interesting one but I suspect Tim Hale is probably right that there is insufficient space because I don't think you can have three lanes with the middle one moving against the two outer ones without some physical separation. That's why I think the forecourt represents wasted space and people now drop at the bus stop when they can. Anyway I wish you luck and thanks for your hard work
This is a well thought out proposal.
Another possibility is to create a new exit loop between the south side of the new square and the north side of the vacant plot of land, emerging directly back on to sheaf street with a new traffic light controlled junction. I doubt whether that would be acceptable though in reducing the size of the plot of land to be sold to developers and the cost of the new junction. also the current rank would have to be reconfigured and there would be cross over problems for traffic heading for the exit loop.
The only reason I add that is because I don't think that your plan fully solves the "golden space" problem. It moves - to the centre of the junction of Turner/ Cross Turner Street where you are going to have taxis entering, cars queueing for the multi-storey and cars/ taxis leaving all crossing over each other. It will have to be a box junction with very clear give way priorities. who has priority, the taxi leaving the cross turner street rank or the car heading for the MSCP from cross turner street?
all in all, its damn sight better than what is there now.
Neil
How do taxis drop off quickly? presumably they are forced to go through the car drop off and then all the way around the one way loop.
It would be better if the taxi rank was where the drop off is and vice versa, taxi's would cope better with the contraflow since they're used to driving to the station. Moving the passenger drop off for car drivers outside would probably make them less likely to wait there unless they absolutely had to as well.
your proposal seems on the whole to be a vast improvement on the current situation, especially proper use of cross turner street.
The real scandal of the MSCP being sold off and no longer being free is a problem though. I hate using the drop off/pick up spaces because the 2 way traffic in a narrow space behind you makes them a pain.
April 6 th Sunday night, London train's imminent...now the marshalls are in place it's really no better. The cars were still queueing across the parked cars and getting in the way of the leaving taxis.And the arriving taxis couldn't get through the silly queue at the 'golden space' so there were thirty people waiting for taxis. I like your ideas Chris, and I'd like to add another: a bus pull in on the main road (and maybe a taxi drop-off only) right outside the station where the old taxi rank was, as close to the entrance as you could get. It seesm crazy the road goes close to the entrance yet no-one can stop there. There's plenty of pavement space. Heavens you could put ALL the taxis back where they were three years ago!!!
It is November 2008 now and still no change, just as congested as ever. Have you raised this with the new LibDem council?
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