Thursday January 19, 2006

Sleeping policemen

Over the years I have lived on roads where traffic calming has been put into place to slow the speed at which drivers go along the road. In Oxford the scheme was put into place on our road which was a one way street. Cars parked either side of that road and people used to wizz along the road at terrific speed. The council did a consultation where they showed us what the intended to do. The whole scheme cost a fortune and comprised of several areas where the road height was raised and also several teak wood planters were installed to cause traffic to slow as they were passed. The raised areas were high and the angle between the normal road level and the elevated bit was very acute. It went right across the width of the road. Cyclists must have had a nightmare negotiating these. The only good thing about the scheme as far as I was concerned was the fact the road was closed for these works to take place and it was nice and quiet for a few months. Where we lived was on the last stretch of the road and for whatever reason the traffic calming stopped right by our house. So drivers after having a frustrating path through the calming could floor the accelerator by our house and resume crazy speeds until the road met the Cowley road at a junction. The planters were attractive and were filled with nice plants. Those that could be were stolen and taken to peoples gardens. The trees were broken off as often happens to small trees in urban areas. A year or so later the planters were removed. The platforms they sat on remained and the raised areas.

In our current area in Twyford a traffic calming scheme was announced. Our road is two way but acts as a short cut for some cars to avoid the traffic lights in the centre of the village where bad congestion can occur. This time we have restricted parking on one side of the road and humps that most cars can go over without reducing speed - as they do not cover the entire road width. Restricting parking to one side of the road makes matters worse as before with parking on both sides cars were forced to slow down or even stop. Some drivers see the humps as a challenge - how fast can they go..

So two schemes different costs pretty much the same results ( no change in general speed of cars). I don't know what the answer is and it is not speed cameras.