By Alan Wilson

The massive re-structuring and repair of Dundee’s city centre roads system, soon to be placed under further strain with the partial closure of Union Street for 10 weeks, has again come under fire, this time from the city’s taxi association.

Taxi drivers are frustrated at lengthy diversions round the city centre, which is causing long delays and resulting in extra costs to passengers.

Constant delays due to road realignment in South and West Marketgait have been endured by drivers for several weeks now— added to by the closure of West Nethergate due to water and gas pipe replacement work.

The worst delays were experienced last Friday when some drivers took almost an hour to negotiate the inner-city ring road, and the delays were blamed on the closure in recent years of city centre link roads by the city council.

The situation has also badly affected the city’s public transport system, with buses being directed away from Perth Road on to the university by-pass before joining the contraflow system on West Marketgait to get to the city centre.

Taxi drivers are frustrated at the extra cost to passengers and the havoc caused by the roadworks.

Graeme Stephen, chairman of the Dundee Taxi Association said, “It’s a bit of a nightmare just now. The delays are getting beyond a joke.

“I took 20 minutes to get to the rank at the museum from Stobswell the other day. You just can’t move anywhere.

“If you come out of the train station to take somebody to Perth Road you’ve got to go right round the ring road and up on to Hawkhill then down South Tay Street.

That takes about 20 minutes when it would normally take about five.

“It’s all adding to the costs for the customers and it’s really frustrating for everybody.

“When we heard about what was going to happen we approached the city council and asked if they could lift the restrictions on Commercial Street during the day, but they said they couldn’t make a temporary order to do that.

“It seems like commonsense to us.

“Even if they could keep public transport moving that would help, because nobody wants to sit on a bus or a taxi in a queue of traffic for ages.

“Personally I don’t know why they’ve got to do it all at the same time. They should have worked out a much better way of doing it so the traffic could go somewhere.”

Last week the city council appealed for patience among drivers, saying the measures to control traffic flow during the major Central Waterfront roadworks have been worked out carefully by the city council along with Tayside Police to help ensure that delays are minimised as much as possible and that public safety is maintained.

A spokesman said, “Traffic controls take into account the wider traffic flows on the inner ring road and other major routes as well as city centre public transport corridors.

“There are also essential major water and gas works at the moment, in a bid to ensure that disruption can be minimised in the long term.”

Meanwhile, city centre traders have asked the city council to improve signage around the roadworks to help guide people through to the shops most hit by the works.

Simon Donaldson, general manager of the Overgate Centre said, “We are in discussion with the council and the planning and transportation department over improving the signage.

“We do agree that for the long-term good of the city centre these works are absolutely essential and some short-term pain has to be endured.”