No wonder I'd forgotten that. It was from April. My memory for detailed facts like that isn't so great at times.
Improving the top end of Wray Lane as you suggest would be very problematic. It's not only steep, it also runs along the crest of a narrow spine of land with the ground in places falling away steeply to either side, almost from the edge of the existing (single lane) road. The only way to widen it would be to lower the level to gain width, but that would increase the steepness of the hill to the north even more. A cutting through the ridge could reduce that, but it's National Trust land which (AIUI) is inalienable, needing an Act of Parliament to acquire. (The A27 Shoreham Bypass was tunnelled at Southwick Hill to avoid a similar problem at the South Downs).
While south of the railway is mostly commercial buildings, and businesses are usually pragmatic for the right price, there's much residential property immediately north of the railway which clearly COULD also be acquired through compulsory purchase theoretically, but the emotions of removing people from privately owned expensive homes of many years can make that very difficult politically. Reigate crossing is a very hard problem, which is presumably why it hasn't been solved yet. Just to reiterate though, it's a road traffic congestion problem, not a safety concern in this case.
Thanks to all for the local knowledge. I now see the problems improving or paralleling Wray Lane. Improving traffic flow in Reigate is clearly a very hard problem. Better put my road crayons away...
No problem, I drive up it on my way home on most working days, and if there's a problem on the A217 or at Junction 8, I get plenty of time to study the topography from the resulting queue. It's good practice for hill starts, too, as the queue shuffles slowly up the hill.... Fortunately I only have another couple of weeks of commuting via Reigate (after 13 years) so the effects of the 3tph across the level crossing there won't worry me
I once missed an hour train at Reigate because the rail replacement bus from Gatwick Airport got stuck in traffic. Thus was probably a Sunday during the period where they only ran 1 train an hour.
There is one foot xorssing where you go up an embankment, cords the line and then down another embankment. I think that's on the North Downs Line either east or west of Guildford but not too far away. I remember being surprised at coming across it on my walk as I wouldn't have expected such a crossing.
What did they do to fix the foot crossings?
