There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool

[venta]

On the way to collect zandev for work this morning I noticed a sign near the Original Swan which read:

"Holloway Closed
Use Ring Road"

Now, to the best of my knowledge Holloway is (a) perfectly open and (b) part of the London Borough of Islington.

On the other hand, Hollow Way in Oxford is currently closed and using the ring road is a sensible alternative.

I'm not seriously suggesting that anyone is likely to confuse the two, I just think it's really rather uncceptable to have errors like that on road signs. Even temporary road signs.

Although if wikipedia is to be believed, Holloway got its name from a sunken cattle track, and is thus presumably a contraction of Hollow Way anyway. I'm not sure etymology is really an excuse for producing inaccurate road signs, though.

Can anyone who's been closer to Hollow Way than I have confirm or deny my suspicions that there aren't diversion signs in place ? "Use ring road" is a fair enough instruction for a local, but no use at all to a visitor.

Which reminds me. Just before Christmas a bunch of circumstances conspired against me, and I was forced to call the AA out. The call I had with the AA operator went (roughly) like this:

Me: I'm on the Oxford ring road between the end of Abingdon Road and the Heyford Hill roundabout where the ring road joins the A4074.
AA: Oxford doesn't have a ring road.
Me: Yes it does. I'm on it.
AA: No it doesn't. What is the number of the road you're on ?
Me: I've no idea. <E starts walking back towards the previous junction to read the sign>
AA: Are you on the Eastern Bypass ?
Me: I'm afraid I don't know. It's always referred to as the ring road. Can you find the Heyford Hill roundabout ?
AA: I don't have roundabout names. Are you on the A4142 ?[*]
Me: I'm sorry, I don't know. By this time, I've reached the sign at the junction. It says "Ring Road".
AA: So, are you on the Eastern Bypass ?
Me: I don't know. If you follow Abingdon Road out of Oxford, and turn left at the first roundabout, I'm there.
AA: There isn't an Abingdon Road in Oxford.
Me: There is!

Some more minutes of this followed, with me becoming increasingly convinced that the Oxford I lived in was a complete work of fiction. We concluded with the AA man deciding "So, you say you're on the A4142" and me agreeing on the assumption that he was presumably somewhere in the right area, and, since the actual mechanic would call me to let me know he was on the way, I could sort the finer details out with him.

Shortly after, the police happened by to ask what a nice girl like me was doing loitering on a ring road bridge at that time of night. They seemed friendly, and even rang the AA for me to tell them my position correctly.

And even then, the conversation with the actual mechanic who rang me to say he was arriving went like this:

AA: Where are you?
Me: Are you in an AA van[**] which just turned right at a large roundabout ?
AA: Yes
Me: Go back to that roundabout and take the other exit.

So, in summary: all road signs in Oxford - plus temporary roadworks signs - refer to the ring road. But the ring road is known by completely different names on maps, and these names are never mentioned on the road signs. This does not seem sensible to me.

I would have thought that, if you looked at a map of Oxford, it'd be obvious which road people would call the "ring road". Although I can see confusion arising because that's actually a whole series of A roads and bypasses, all with different names, chained together. It clearly wasn't obvious to the bloke on the other end of the phone just before Christmas.

Today's advice: learn your local road numbers in case you ever need the AA. But learn them off a map, because that's what they AA operator will be reading.

[*] The more Oxfordly astute among you may have deduced by now that I was on the bit of road which is about (a) where the Southern Bypass becomes the Eastern Bypass, and (b) where the A4142 may or may not become the A4074 (before joining the A34).

[**] Not as stupid a question as it sounds. The AA contract out sometimes, so you may well get a local garage coming to your rescue.

Comments

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing anything to be non-obvious about the Oxford ring road on multimap, certainly. It's a big green ring that goes all the way round Oxford - what's the difficulty there?

Nor would I really call 'three' a 'series of A roads and bypasses'. A34, A4142 and A40 are the only roads involved.

I'm also gobsmacked by the idea of a map that doesn't admit to Oxford having a ring road, but is willing to mark an 'Eastern Bypass' despite the fact that that could describe either of two different roads.

Maybe we should just get the AA some better maps.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

There's at least one diversion sign in place, at the Slade end of Hollow Way. Whether there's currently any convincing reason for a diversion yet, I haven't explored.

[uitlander]

I would be very tempted to send the AA some photographs of all the signs around Oxford with the words 'Ring Road' on them, preferabley with you in the foreground pointing at them and waving a map. Even more tempting would be the prospect of correlating the location of each sign with their own road map in the hope that they might update their map to correctly reflect the local environment.

Hollow way/Holloway. The fine tradition of English freeform spelling. We should think more about place names - I come from Edgware, mentioned in the Domesday book as 'Eggsware'. Apparently renown for its poultry market at the time. The main road through it is called 'Stonegrove' which is the local name for Watling Street (one of the main Roman Roads out of London). Apparently 'Stone Grove' was the generic Saxon term for Roman roads, which were much better built that later paths. Funny how some things persist.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I lie: the sign at the end of the Slade says the same as the one you've quoted, including the contraction of Holloway (sic.).

I don't know what the sign says as you come off the ring road. It'd seem a bit mean for it to still say "Use the Ring Road!"

[chrisvenus]

I believe that "eastern bypass" is actually the name of the road. I'm sure I've seen that on maps before. Its not a description, its a name.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Local Oxfordites pronounce it Holloway... maybe Hollow Way is a relatively recent atempt at gentrification, fiercely resisted by elements in the roads dept.

[chrisvenus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/4605768.stm is another interesting road sign. In brief the english warns pedestrians to look right and the welsh warns them to look left. Somebody suggested it might be an attempt at selective evolution on Welsh people. :)

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

The fact that the road is closed should be reason for diversion, but it didn't deter some drivers last night...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Which is why I added my convincing requirement.

Signs, but no activity, isn't very convincing.
A sodding huge JCB coming in the general direction of your car is makes the closure more credible...

And, if the road is closed (not just "closed except for access"), how do you guys get in and out?

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Not on any map I've got. Is it the A4142?

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Hollow Way is closed between Horspath Road and Marshall Road, so we don't have much of a problem, except for the lack of buses.

They'd just about finished resurfacing that bit last night, so the next stage is to close the road between Oxford Road and Salegate Lane, and to resurface that bit.

It's unclear as to whether they'll resurface the bit in between...

[chrisvenus]

See http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=eastern+bypass,+oxford&btnG=Search&ll=51.747704,-1.188025&spn=0.017084,0.057421 for example.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

The A4142, then :)

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

AA Roadmap (http://www.broadmeadow.plus.com/aaroadmap.jpg)

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I'm really hoping that ain't recent, cos the A34 appears to vanish a bit south of Oxford, and I can't see the A4142 at all.

If they are using that, though, I have sympathy :)

[neilh.livejournal.com]

I can't say I'm entirely surprised - they had quite a lot of trouble finding Thurrock in their system too, although that is a few years ago now.

Norwich has an interesting variant on ring roads, it has two, an inner ring and an outer ring, however there is a portion of the circuit for which they join.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

multimap does, quite distinctly, slap numbers on them.

[stegzy.livejournal.com]

Green Flag are just as bad. ;-)

[wimble.livejournal.com]

The lack of an M4 might be considered a lack as well.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Well, d'uh. Full marks for repetition there!

[venta.livejournal.com]

But if you look carefully (http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=452500&Y=205000&width=500&height=300&gride=451503.03091282&gridn=206162.379846936&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=freegaz&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&keepicon=true&zm=0&scale=50000&down.x=188&down.y=3), the bit I was on is actually probably called the A4074 at that point :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

The bypasses are labelled by name on any map large-scale enough to give road names - an A-Z, for instance.

[(Anonymous)]

We have an "inner ring" road which is actually a horseshoe as the final section was abandoned after they built the semi-circle of outer "ring" road which they should have built in the first place (the A66 vanishes at Scotch Corner to resurface at jct 57 of the A1M to become the A66M and then our semi-circular road. Just don't break down on it, the AA will never find you.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

they had quite a lot of trouble finding Thurrock in their system too

That's not entirely surprising, though, since it's an administrative division rather than an honest place name. You might as well ask someone to go to "Avon". And it's probably slightly confusing to non-locals that the place West Thurrock is west of is Grays.

Those not from Essex have a tendency to assume that Billericay is probably somewhere in Ireland, so you might even say that Thurrock gets off lightly.

[venta.livejournal.com]

A34, A4142 and A40 are the only roads involved.

Not technically true - there's a very short stretch of the A4074 involved as well. possibly others, I haven't checked.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Good point, I hadn't spotted the A4074. Largely because I'm sure it doesn't look like that in the real world :)

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Some more minutes of this followed, with me becoming increasingly convinced that the Oxford I lived in was a complete work of fiction.

You clearly, unwittingly, went through a window into another world and an alternative Oxford (possibly spelled Ox Ford), said window having been opened by a magical knife. There is always a perfectly simple explanation at hand...

[neilh.livejournal.com]

Searching for Thurrock is clearly more useful that searching for West...we had a road name and a district name, which should have been enough for them to give me a couple of choices.