I’m sure the Executive Member is as deeply underwhelmed by this fraud of a ‘People Street’ plan as I am. Last week the Living Streets Walking Summit revealed that S Yorkshire schools taking part in their ‘walking challenge’ saw car use cut from 40% to 19%, without any physical changes. Badger Hill school could sign up for the year for just £500, compared with 200 times that for these measures.
In the words of your own Transport Policy Manager, Annex D ‘The junction near the school entrance looks more or less the same – doesn’t do much to discourage non essential vehicles, seems to miss the point of what a school street is supposed to be.” He goes on “Forcing all parents and children onto a narrow crossings will potentially create a big bottleneck… If through traffic could be removed, then parents and children would be able to cross in any direction, as seems to be the case now ”
Your Transport Planner makes similar observations about the low fencing ‘constraining and herding pedestrians away from the diagonal desire line, with ‘increased dominance for motor vehicles.”
I would ask, has this new trip hazard been risk assessed? Why not zig zags on both sides of the junction instead of fencing?
As yet, no comments from funders Active Travel England, but I’d doubt very much they would see this plan as achieving objectives in para 2,3,4 ,
In fact many public responses express similar doubts:
- ‘A very weak scheme unlikely to achieve the stated aim
- Weak and will have very limited impact
- Dangerous for cyclists in this area
- Complete waste of money
- The roadway outside the school entrance should a raised table, coloured red (what a great idea!)
- I cannot see the proposals changing behaviour of parents causing the problem
- A missed opportunity to remove school-run vehicles completely at the start and finish of the school day, if not completely with a point closure.
- A people street outside a school should allow emergency access only – this is an ideal location, with an obvious diversion route available on adjacent streets.
- Cyclists and pedestrians disadvantaged by the lack of ambition..
So £35k out of the £100k largely wasted already on work which failed to ask the right questions, other than establishing feasibility for minor INEFFECTIVE measures, scoring critical fail for cycling.
Yes, I approved this work 18 months ago, but something must be seriously wrong for the scheme to reach this point with Transport staff in effect questioning the value of throwing good money after bad.
This project should be deferred for a month or so to discuss with the school, Active Travel England and Transport colleagues, taking account of scorings for the Clifton Green Scheme. Hard choices might still need to be made, but at least reflect more deeply on the consultation outcome before wasting £100k on option 1.
