TOWN centre-bound motorists realistically have two options if they’re using the M1 – and both are as bad as each other.

I’m not exactly renowned for my patience but it’s often frayed during my morning commute, whether that’s down to lane-hogging idiots on the motorway or Barnsley Council’s insistence on spending wads of taxpayer cash on supposed road improvements which ultimately achieve the polar opposite.

There’s no point going as far as junction 36 if you’re coming via the southbound section, so you either place your bets on junction 38 at Haigh or junction 37 at Dodworth.

However, given the goings-on with new roundabouts, road surfacing schemes and seemingly never-ending roadworks recently, it’s a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other.

You take your pick, then grin and bear it until you finally reach your town centre destination at a time way past what you were initially aiming for.

Opt to get off at Haigh, drive through Darton, and you’ll be confronted with tailbacks at the recently-enlarged roundabout.

This will get much worse when the new road into Barratt Homes’ 170-property Lock Keeper’s Gate development finally opens, too.

Queues seemingly stretch from there, past Aldi, the for-sale VW garage, Tesco and right up to the town centre; call it two miles of first-gear, stop-start irritation.

Choose the Dodworth turn-off and you’ll contend with the now-infamous Penny Pie Park gyratory – a much-criticised, multi-million pound scheme that’s been in these pages for several years due to the ill-feeling towards it.

A key thing stands out when using the multi-million pound creation: gridlock traffic. Another aspect soon rears its head, too: poor lane discipline as rushing commuters attempt to push in.

I believe everyone – even the most ardent council detractor – wants it to work. Nobody wants to see millions being wasted, a park being carved up and several years’ worth of chaos to be for nothing.

But, as it is now, the council’s highways team’s insistence that they had ‘explored all options’ before settling on the one-way gyratory appears to be a little hard to believe.

I was invited to the town hall when they revealed the scheme and heard all about how important it was to have a better route into the town centre.

If this was the best of 30-plus alleged schemes on the table, I’d absolutely love to drive one of the department’s clever engineers from the M1 to the town centre at 8.30am on a weekday, because they would not make their 9am meeting.

Tuesday morning, for instance. After a torturous journey in 24 hours before when I opted for the Haigh junction, I chanced my arm and thought it couldn’t possibly be a worse choice if I chose Dodworth instead.

I was wrong: tailbacks as far back as the sliproad, chaos as incoming traffic on the motorway bridge blocked exits… pandemonium and the exact thing the council wanted to put right. Quite simply, zero progress has been made.

You queue on the sliproad, you queue in the first of two lanes along Dodworth Road, you hold your breath as someone undoubtedly attempts to push in at the traffic lights and – having navigated the park – you sit in traffic all the way to Townend roundabout.

Don’t bother going via Pogmoor, either: Barnsley Hospital’s traffic is another thing entirely.

My Chronicle colleagues say that my hair is thinning – it really isn’t, I must add – but if it was I’d be wanting an all-expenses-paid trip to Turkey for it putting right at the council’s highways department’s cost for inflicting such misery on hapless commuters…