Greengates Crossroad queues attempted by T&A reporter

Before the works, and pandemic, I would happily tootle down Apperley Lane/Harrogate Road from the Rawdon/Yeadon area and pass through the junction at a breeze on my daily commute.

Instead, I’ve been avoiding the area during peak times for the best part of a year, going through the equally frustrating – but slightly less time-consuming – Horsforth route, onto the ring road.

Greengates Crossroads traffic lights

That’s not to say there were never issues with congestion in Greengates before; and the route was notoriously busy even before the roadworks - I mean, that’s a major reason why the improvement scheme has been implemented.

But the queues were never at the levels they have been at various points throughout the works schedule, in particular at the backend of it now, and you could escape it all via the Apperley Bridge swing bridge, if worst came to worst.

Now even that alternative is clogged with angry motorists who don’t know their right-of-way, and many a road rage incident has been witnessed over the past two years.

I decided to tackle the mayhem head-on on Wednesday.

The frustration of being stuck at Greengates Crossroads

I set off at 7.36am for an 8am start, as I would with no roadworks.

More than an hour later, I arrived at our new offices just off the M606 - this was double the actual journey time of 20-30 minutes.

I watched as cars battled for position in the two-lane zone heading up the huge hill of Harrogate Road towards the crossroads and flicked between dancing and singing to my Spotify playlist and listening to some sport chatter on the radio.

It’s stress inducing and, although I’m in no way condoning it, leads to these moments of road rage.

My advice is: set off earlier, do your best to relax and enjoy a podcast or radio show on your journey and ride it out for the next few weeks in the knowledge it all should be over soon.

The joys of getting through Greengates Crossroads