Looking at the Options
Now that the plan to install bumps in the Padington area has been dropped, people should consider if solutions could be found that meets the needs of all people in the area.
All along, the council claimed the only way that we could have reduced speeds in the area was by means of speed bumps and this was the root of most of the arguments. Government guidelines on the issue have simply been cut and pasted into council documents across the country for the justification of road humps. Do some reading up and you soon come across many other towns where people are requesting speed reduction without resorting to road humps.
To my way of thinking, this is a council with the balls to stand up and reject the one-size fits all solution offered by the DOE transport document. No messing about, all residential roads apart from the feeders will be 20mph end of story. The cost saving from this approach has to be huge. A 20mph sign cost about £40 as opposed to thousands for a single speed hump. So for about the cost of putting bumps down on three roads in Paddington, Portsmouth manage to achieve the same result for the whole town without peeing off the majority of the people in the process.
I'm not saying this is the only solution but it's food for thought and a good starting point for a discussion.
John Regular Poster
Posts: 194
(21/2/07 11:22 pm) Reply
Re: Looking at the Options
I agree with the 20mph limit for 'residential' roads in principle Bill but I think it needs clarifying exactly what they class as a residential road. The Portsmouth web page stated that they were applying the limit to roads which have an average speed of 24mph. It needs to be explained how they arrive at an average speed i.e. is it just at peak times or over a number of hours or even a whole day. There are several residential main roads in Warrington (which have houses and footpaths) where at peak times the average speed can be less than 5mph but at other times may be 30mph. Would these be considered candidates for 20 mph limits ?
20 mph is probably suitable for most small residential roads especially where the residents are obliged to park on one or both sides of the road and perhaps the Council should test whether it works on a small number of roads before attempting to use it as a blanket solution.
There's some argument at present of which figure to use. The 85%percentile has been used for the last umpteen years but this now looks like its going to be replaced by a simple average.
The rule as it stands at the moment makes some sense in that it essentially says you can't simply slow down traffic with an artificially low speed limit if the majority of drivers don’t perceive a speed issue. Before any 20mph limit can even be considered, by law the road has to be surveyed and shown that the average speed is below the current limit and the magic number is currently set at 24mph. This is the point at which 20mph limit can be applied without resorting to bumps.
As far as I know, the average is calculated over a continuos period at a worst case point on the road. Clearly if the test is done near a junction or includes a road where large amounts of queuing traffic occurs the results would be skewed. Either way John, with increasing levels of traffic and on road parking, the numbers will only ever move in one direction.
Portsmouth had to by law carry out these checks on all their roads before they could even consider these plans.
Re: Looking at the Options
Getting back to the issue of speed, I managed to get hold of a speed gun recently to check the actual speeds on Birchdale Road. I haven't had the time to do a "proper" check but did manage to measure thirty of so cars the other day and only one out of thirty actually reached a top speed of 30mph.
All interesting stuff and shoots to pieces the claims from some residents that the average speed down that road is 40/50mph. Anyone interested in doing some more comprehensive checking just let me know.
Re: Looking at the Options
Just a update of two points:-
Firstly, response posted on Guardian Website following published article:-
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I’m getting a bit miffed off with young Sarah Hawker. She seems to be allowing a pressure group headed by councillor Maher to use your paper to repeatedly make allegations of fraud.
Sarah’s latest article said councillor Maher said.
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There was a question surrounding how the votes had been done after 162 properties objected to the scheme which produced 299 signatures, while 119 properties supported it producing 123 signatures.
"I have contacted the head of legal services and the head of the chief executive's unit at Warrington Borough Council and it has been decided that the only appropriate solution is to submit the findings to the traffic committee for them to resolve.
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Do theses figures look dodgey? Well of course they do!
Does it look like someone’s trying to cheat? Of course it does.
How come the objections average two per household but supporters only average one?
Councillor Maher knows the answer but decided to use the Guardian in cheap attempt to discredit the figures. But he’s a politician and when they loose that’s what they do.
The support votes were collected during the day on a door to door basis and given most people work, you have to be pretty lucky to catch more than one member of family in.
The objectors on the other hand were given a form to complete that was collected the following day giving ample time for each member of the family to sign.
Not exactly rocket science is it? You just can’t make direct comparisons when the data is collected in such a completely different way and by the way, the council determined the process not us.
If your going to carry out a door to door exercise to asses public opinion, then that’s fine as long as you record both for and against opinion. Had councillor Maher done this in the first place this whole sorry state of affairs could have been avoided, but he didn’t, he juggled the numbers to make it look like everyone wanted speed bumps so it’s a bit rich of him to now accuse others of using his sort of tactics.
You’re allowing yourself to be used Sarah.
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Second point. I've been doing a lot more research on the subject of reduced speed limits and the magic figure of 24mph for an 85th percentile mentioned previously, is not applicable in our case. The official guidance is that the figure should be somewhere between 24 and 27mph with the lower figure being recommended only if the police intend to enforce the limit. (Limit + 10% +2mph =24mph)
Now in our case, the police have categorically stated that they will not be enforcing the limit, thus an 85th percentile of anything less than 27mph allows any council to apply a 20mph limit without seeking permission from the government. Now I don’t have any figures as yet that would stand up to scrutiny but my rough findings suggest that we are well inside the required limits.
Looking at the Options
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