A Town, A village - a Traffic and Economic quandary

Me

• I don't live in a city.
• I don't even live in a Town
• I don't own a car.
• I don't drive.
• I get around by a combination of cycling (mainly), public transport and walking.
• I am in the minority though.

This is a blog about my Town and My village and the traffic and economic issues facing them. But it will I am sure resonate with many towns and villages throughout the UK.

Our Cities are being dealt with, slowly, our Towns and Villages are being ignored. I am certain that this is due to the simple expedient that millions of voters gain from changes in Cities whilst only thousands do in Towns and hundreds in Villages. This has to change

The Facts

• Most adults in my village drive a car,
• Over half of them drive to work, even if work is only a couple or more miles away.
• They all complain of the fact that the roads get congested when they want to go to work.
• There is insufficient parking spaces for all the cars that want to park.
• Over half of all vehicles on the roads of my village and local Town are diesel powered.
• The Local Town gets regularly congested.
• To avoid the congestion drivers use rural roads as rat runs.
• Limitations on free school buses means children are regularly taken to school by car.
• Congestion is worse during school term.
• The village I live in lacks even moderate scale employers, our largest are hotels.
• The local Town is losing retail outlets just to be replaced by coffee shops and charity shops.
• The local Town has at least one AQMA (Air Quality Management Area) and I suspect it probably should have two more.
• The local District Council seems to have stopped monitoring Air Quality in the AQMA.It has not published any since 2011
• The Supreme Court has ruled that the next Government must do something to reduce pollution in AQMAs by 2020.
• Public Transport by bus only serves the main villages and only starts at 7.30am and finishes by 6.10pm.
• Public Transport fares are inconsistent, the longer distances are expensive as are the fares between villages.
• The Railway links from my local Town start early in the morning and finish quite late.
• Many industrial estates have no footpath or pavement approach for workers to safely walk to work.
• The Local Town and Village where I live has no high quality cycling infrastructure and what there is is faulty and low quality and not fit for purpose.
• There is no organised and especially free education given to cyclists beyond Bikeability at some schools

The quandary

• The local District council have a duty to solve the AQMA.
• The county council control Highways and want to solve the AQMA and resolve traffic congestion issues
• The town council wants to resolve the AQMA, boost the local economy, encourage tourism and retail and encourage walking and cycling
• The people living in the town and the village just want a solution that works.
• The planners want to do something about this.
• The politicians want the planners to do something about this.
• The residents in the AQMAs want them both to do something about this.
• The Retailers want more footfall and more customers.
• The Drivers want less traffic congestion and a solution to the parking problems
• Cyclists want safer cycling conditions
• Pedestrians want a safer and cleaner experience and footpaths and pavements where they are needed
• The Supreme Court ruling once filtered down means that the Planners and Politicians will have to act.
• They would like to do this without negatively impacting the local economy
• They would prefer a solution with a positive return on investment

The only current proposed solution - A bypass for the local Town

• The politicians think building a bypass to bypass the local Town from outside my village to beyond will solve the issue.
• Many residents and drivers see it as the best solution
• The bypass would costs £50 to £90m.
• Repeat fact most commuting traffic is 2 miles or less.
• The bypass would not solve commuting traffic congestion.
• The bypass would not resolve the school run.
• The bypass would not promote the local Town's retail experience.
• The bypass would blight part of the local Town's beautiful water meadows.
• The bypass would be built almost entirely on greenbelt agricultural land
• The economic case for a bypass would at least in part by justified by industrial and retail (out of Town) infill development
• The bypass would reroute some of the HGVs away from the centre of the local Town.
• The bypass would reroute some diesel motor vehicles away from the centre of the local Town
• No current study can tell how much traffic would be rerouted

Other alternatives being considered

• Alternative: Reroute the Strategic Lorry route away from the local Town.

• This is considered difficult.
• It moves lorry routes considerable distances.
• It moves the route through other villages and not through the local Town.
• It involves politicians and planners persuading neighbouring authority planners and politicians to move the route when the residents of their authority may not benefit.
• It does nothing about pollution from non HGV diesel powered vehicles

• Alternative: Declare a Low Emissions zone in the Town

• It would ban over half of the motor vehicles from using the Town Centre
• It would probably be enforced by ANPR cameras and some form of charging
• This would be political suicide
• It would solve the AQMA issue
• It would have significant detrimental economic effects on the town
• It would reduce Traffic Congestion
• It would relieve Parking issues
• It may have a benefit for pedestrians and cyclists as roads would be less busy
• The retail effects would be unknown they may be positive, negative or neutral.
• The cost of implementation is unknown

Alternative: Improve one of the towns main junctions

• The politicians and planners are proposing changing a major junction in the local town so it works better.
• Most of the changes are cosmetic
• It may be a shared space scheme or it may be a roundabout
• They suggest it will attract visitors and shoppers.
• It is admitted will not reduce traffic levels at all.
• It will not reduce congestion or pollution.
• It does not provide safe routes for cyclists or pedestrians into town or even (according to plans I have seen) across the junction.
• It does not provide extra cost effective parking for visitors and those working in town.
• It is relatively cheap, cost is less than £1m.

A more radical solution

• Improve Public Bus Transport so it can effectively be used for commuting.
• Make public bus transport start earlier and finish later serving commuters and those travelling into town for entertainment
• Make public bus transport fares consistent so they are the same for the same distances travelled.
• Provide a ticketing mechanism so one ticket covers all journeys, like an oystercard
• Such systems pay for themselves by making the system cashless
• Such systems cut down boarding times
• Such systems makes usage monitoring simple
• Provide School bus services for all children who need it (because it is not safe to walk or cycle)
• Link up Public Bus Transport to Rail Transport so commuters can use Public Transport end to end alleviating parking pressure.
• Provide pavements on all approaches to Industrial areas where people work.
• Create 3 arterial routes around the town for cyclists.
• Link the arterial routes to schools, workplaces, rail stations and shops so cyclists have a safe route everywhere.
• Educate cyclists so they know how to ride safely on the roads with other road traffic and are confident enough to do so.
• Educate drivers so they actually know the latest Highway code rules and not those when they passed their test
• Enforce ALL speed limits for motor vehicles using Average Speed Cameras and Automatic Number Plate Recognition
• Introduce a presumed liability law to protect cyclists, pedestrians and other vulnerable road users
• The cost would be higher than the junction but lower than the cost of the bypass, probably between £1m and £5m
• When the modal shift is strong enough introduce a Low Emissions Zone in the area covered by the AQMA

Why would this more radical solution work

• Where cycling and pedestrians have better facilities retail footfall increases and retail sales increase as well.
• Because cyclists and pedestrians cannot carry as much as they would in a car they shop more often and buy more.
• Public transport users also buy more as they don't have to waste time parking.
• Better Pedestrian and cycling facilities attract more people to walk or cycle to work, school or shopping. Experience everywhere shows this, there are no modern exceptions.
• If you move enough commuters out of their cars and get them to walk, cycle or use public transport to work it takes only 10% modal shift to have a significant change in traffic congestion. With sufficient investment up to 25% is possible
• Once you reach 10% cycle commuting the modal shift rates start to snowball and quickly accelerate
• Since Traffic congestion excaserbates Traffic caused air pollution this will start to solve the AQMA issue in the town.
• Once a certain modal shift level is reached, and the Low Emissions Zone introduced, the AQMA will be solved
• The modal shift will attract more retail businesses to the Towns and Villages
• A bypass will take a minimum of 10 years to build, this solution can be achieved in less than 5 years
• It will pay for itself through improvements in the retail and other sectors of the local economy and savings to the health service as commuters get fitter
• Additionally it will attract more tourists from Holland and elsewhere either cyclists or walkers.
• The benefits would be felt in almost every village near the town and probably farther afield due to increased tourism.
• Forget Boris Johnsons plans for London, This Town and Village need a lift and this would be one way, maybe the only way to do it. Make it attractive for people and they and investment will move in stimulating wage growth, whilst for many transport costs would radically reduce.

This may all sound pie in the sky, but exactly what is the viable alternative, a bypass cant be done in time and costs too much, rerouting all diesel vehicles would be politically difficult if not suicidal.