After eight years, still a budget compromise that discounts eastbound users.

The alternative

An answer exists. It isn't a good one.

The scheme removes the direct right-hand turn out of the station onto Haslett Avenue East — the only straight route for anyone driving, or taking a taxi, to Maidenbower, Pound Hill, Worth, Forge Wood or Copthorne. That change was first raised with the council in February 2018. The council's own 2019 traffic survey counted 69 vehicles turning right in the morning peak hour and 128 in the evening peak — a small share of total traffic, but a real, specific group of people with no other direct route.

In its place, two routes are offered: both add roughly 0.8 to 1.2 miles round trip, cross several extra sets of lights, and — because of where the two roundabouts sit — both loop back through Three Bridges itself before heading anywhere else. Neither route has been shown to have been modelled for the actual queue and delay drivers face joining traffic travelling the opposite direction at peak times, as distinct from the scheme's wider network-level modelling.

The one piece of vehicle mitigation ever proposed for the east side — a small drop-off at a new Station Hill entrance — was dropped years ago on cost grounds. What's being built there is pedestrian, cycle and bus access only, at a junction with limited sightlines.

There's also a design change to the forecourt itself worth knowing about. Today, two separate junctions serve exiting traffic — one for each direction — so eastbound and westbound vehicles never have to merge with each other on the way out. Under the new layout, one of those junctions is removed, and all exiting traffic is funnelled through a single junction that, as far as the published material shows, isn't signal-controlled — right next to one of the busiest junctions on this stretch of road.