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SEVEN.. Reducing, managing and taming traffic
The avoidance of dangerous traffic-calming measures
We support the principle of traffic being calm – this means lower speeds, safer crossing points and fewer rat runs. However, there have been concerns in the past that some traffic calming measures have had the effect of putting cyclists at greater danger.
Traffic calming is important but must be designed in a way that avoids creating more casualties. Pinch points, like those on King’s Hedges Road, have caused all sorts of problems and a collapse in the levels of cycling
Road narrowing is sometimes used as a way of reducing traffic speeds and one way of making roads narrower is to create a cycle path. Street planners need to make sure that cycle lanes – and cyclists - are not used as traffic calming measures.
Cycle-unfriendly traffic calming can also encourage bad behaviour. Where there are pinch points in the road which make it difficult for cars to overtake cyclists – for example where there are narrow traffic islands – drivers often react by speeding past the cyclist before the pinch point and cutting in front of them. As a result, measures designed to slow down two-tonne vehicles travelling at 30/40 mph often end up being injurious to 70 kg vehicles travelling at 12 mph.
King’s Hedges Road is the most recent example. We must see the changes undone that were made in 2006 with the Arbury Park development. Instead, good quality, hybrid cycle lanes could be created on the road, so that well before 2020 the area could become a cycling mecca.
Another example of problematic traffic calming is the A10 through Harston. This work was completed in 1999 and comprises 16 central islands along a mile-long stretch of road. Traffic speeds are reduced as a result but cycling is now much more dangerous and unpleasant because impatient drivers overtake at the very last possible moment before a traffic island. The pavement is poor quality, but cyclists have been forced onto it and now face cars emerging from driveways and a bumpy surface that makes journeys slow.
Another important measure is the addition of gaps at the side of road humps. Humps should be there to slow cars down, not cyclists.
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