20 mph - Jon Rogers says No to Officers

Councillor Jon Rogers, Executive Member for Transport and Sustainability, has sent in a comment (below) on his council's 20 mph proposals which we've been covering extensively on this blog.

The most contentious issue is the number of streets to be excluded from the 20 mph coverage within the pilot areas, with the officers taking a predictably cautious approach with the exclusion of all streets which already have an average speed above 24 mph (so excluding the ones that most need calming).

Jon Roger's rejection of his officers' report and insistence on fewer exclusions represents a major showdown on a matter that Jon Rogers clearly feels very strongly about. Jon's comment -

Morning all

I would appreciate some help.

I have this week rejected the officer report on 20mph areas.

To be fair, they had added the following previously excluded roads to the list of 20mph roads...

Inner East Bristol:
Mina Road
Ashley Rd
Stapleton Rd (part) – between its junctions with Easton Way & Robertson Rd.

Inner South Bristol:
North St (part) – between its junctions with Dean Lane/Cannon St & Luckwell Rd
Dean Lane
Cannon Street
West Street
East St/Bedminster Parade.

I hope we all would agree to those.

However, officers had recommended that I reject residents calls for the following streets to be included as 20mph.

Inner East Bristol:
Whitehall Road
Easton Road
Church Road (western end)
Ashley Hill
Sussex Place
Sevier Street
James Street
York Street
Fishponds Rd (between junctions with Robertson Rd & Muller Rd)
Old Market
Pennywell Rd
Lamb Street/Lawfords Gate

Inner South Bristol:
St Luke’s Road
Greenway Bush Lane
North Street (between junctions with Luckwell Rd & Ashton Rd)
Ashton Road
Duckmoor Road
Luckwell Road
Smyth Road
Malago Road

I know very well and use regularly only the five in Ashley Ward...

Ashley Hill
Sussex Place
Sevier Street
James Street
York Street

I had previously emphasised (as Ashley ward councillor) to officers, that in my opinion, they should include all these 5 roads in the pilot (as well as Mina Road and Ashley Road, which they have supported).

This would mean that on entering Ashley ward, there would be a 20mph speed on ALL our residential roads. This could reduce the need for 20mph signs, limiting them to the entry roads, and perhaps reminders along the main routes.

I therefore, on the basis of what I know about Ashley ward, rejected the report.

However I can see that some of these roads should be kept at 30 mph, for example major bus routes or where the police have major concerns over enforcement.

What I need help on is the other roads. Does the same apply to them, or are officers right to recommend exclusion.

Comments?

Jon

View 20 mph in Bristol in a larger map

I've marked up the roads listed on my 20 mph map which you can get a better view of by clicking on it. The streets now accepted for inclusion are marked boldly in green (of course). Those remaining excluded (at 30 mph) are in red. The 20 mph pilot area boundaries are marked in blue.

So let's have your comments and freedback, particlularly for those areas in south Bristol and east Bristol that you know best.

Total Twenty for Bristol

Just a quick post to remind you all that today is the last day of the formal consultations on the proposed 20 mph pilot areas so please get your comments in if you haven't already (see here for details). But the campaign doesn't stop here so let's keep plugging away at local councillors and officers so that they know this issue isn't going to go away.

The big issue is not whether the pilots go ahead but whether they go ahead as Total Twenty areas where all residential streets are covered, or as timorous, tepid twenty/thirty areas where speed limits chop and change in a confusing way. The streets the officers want to keep as 30 mph  are the streets where cyclists and pedestrians are in the most danger, have the most difficulty crossing and are subject to the most harassment. Leaving these streets unchanged renders the whole exercise largely pointless since the streets currently proposed for 20 mph already have speeds of that order anyway.



Many of us have questioned the need for Pilot schemes in the first place. We already know 20 mph areas of the sort proposed bring some benefits so what is there to trial? But what we don't know in detail is how much more might be achieved by a Total Twenty approach including all residential streets without exception. That would be something worth trialling, giving some purpose to the Pilot schemes. In the unlikely event that a Total Twenty approach turned out to be counter productive then something useful will have been learned.

And if Total Twenty proves to be an altogether better approach then that would surely be something that Bristol could be very proud of having pioneered. Bristol likes to think of itself as innovative and entreprising. Well here's a chance to prove it. After all what's the worst that could happen with Total Twenty? It's hardly likely to deliver worse conditions that we have with the 30 mph limit. If the city council can't find the courage to seize this opportunity to make a step change then they will show themselves truly deserving of the odium heaped upon them by certain bloggers.

Twenty's Plenty for Bristol

Bristol City Council have announced plans to trial a widespread 20 mph speed limit in two areas of the inner city, centred on Easton and Southville as shown in the map below bounded by the blue lines. Consultation on the general arrangements takes place this month but there will be an opportunity to object to specific Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) when these are subsequently put forward. Implementation is planned for next spring. The plans were actually leaked back in January and the current proposals are much the same as those shown on the leaked maps.


View 20 mph in Bristol in a larger map

The idea is that 20 mph should replace 30 mph as the normal, default speed limit in residential areas of the city although without the introduction of physical traffic calming measures or police enforcement. Some people have expressed scepticism about the effectiveness in the absence of such enforcing measures but experience elsewhere suggests that average speeds will be slightly reduced as a consequence of changing the notional limit. Nevertheless the idea seems surprisingly popular with the general population so very much an idea whose time has come.

But there is, predictably, a major problem with the current proposals, leaving aside the enforcement issue. The plans exclude most main roads in the areas concerned (red lines in the map above), even when those main roads are also shopping streets, designated cycle routes and serve schools and parks. Precisely the sorts of roads that most need to have lower speed limits. The two most glaring examples are perhaps Mina Road in St Werburgh's and Dean Lane in Southville, but there are many others like North Street (Southville) and Stapleton Road (Easton), both important shopping streets that serve as focuses (or foci if you like) for their respective communities.



So what is the big problem about applying 20 mph limits to main roads? It's actually been tried and tested here in Bristol with a short stretch of the A420 Church Road in Redfield (pictured above and shown as a green line on the map). Admittedly it's not very obvious that it makes much difference, but then it is still the exception to the general 30 mph rule and unlikely to be taken much notice of. But at least it establishes that 20 mph on main roads in residential and shopping areas does not bring the world grinding to a halt. Everything carries on much the same but with speeds gradually edging downwards.



Another big problem with having so many streets excluded is the need to sign all the transitions from 30 to 20 and back, as pictured above with the existing 20 mph zone just south of Church Road. Not only do all the signs cost us money but they add to the general clutter on our streets and result in road users losing track of whether they are in a 20 mph or 30 mph street.

What we need is for 20 mph to replace 30 mph as the general speed limit on all urban streets except those roads that are clearly not residential like Easton Way, the Portway and of course the M32. The 20 mph default needs to be consistent and ubiquitous and not something confined to backwaters where speeds rarely exceed 20 mph by much anyway. The current propsals, even though claimed to benefit cyclists and pedestrians and to be funded by Cycling City money, will do little for cyclists or pedestrians where they experience the most intimidation and danger, on the main roads which are set to be excluded.

Another Ghost Bike for Bristol

We now have details of the cyclist killed on Tuesday as a result of a collision with a van at the junction of Winterstoke Road with Brunel Way (below). He was 52 year old Bristol University professor Stephen Morris from Backwell. The Evening Post report gives us some idea of the tragic consequences of such an untimely death on the victims family, friends and work colleagues, especially close family members who suddenly find themselves without a partner or father.


View Cycle and ped injury incidents in a larger map

This is the second cyclist death in Bristol this year and there have been others on the urban fringe beyond the Council's boundaries including one on this same road (A370) at the other end of the Long Ashton bypass last December. We should not of course speculate about the causes of this collision and consequent death when so little information is available to us. However it is I think appropriate, while minds are focused on this tragic event, to note certain circumstances which may or may not turn out to be contributory factors.



The most obvious point to note is that, in common with the most other cyclist deaths, this occurred on a road with a higher speed limit than 30mph, in this case 40mph. In practice that means that speeds significantly above 40 mph are normal and largely tolerated by the authorities. Such speeds are simply incompatible with safe cycling. Where cyclists have no practical alternative but to share such roads a 30 mph limit would be more appropriate and might possibly have avoided this latest tragic death.

Sustrans have cobbled together some plans for a convoluted alternative cycle route which is now being developed by Cycling City but the route proposed will be of little use to utility cyclists and commuters who want to follow a fairly direct and fast route. So let's not accept for one minute that Sustrans type 'recreational' routes are any sort of solution to the problem of excessive speeds on main roads. Besides we've already waited 30 years for new infrastructure and the highway engineers have consistently failed us. We need determined action on excessive speeds now before more cyclists are killed. Two Ghost Bikes in Cycling City are enough.


Tribute to Nick Abraham, 29, killed by a motorist while cycling on the Portway in January this year.

Another Cyclist Killed

On Tuesday we learnt of the death of a young cyclist following a collision with a car on the Portway at the junction with Sylvan Way (below). Today we learn that the cyclist was the 29 year old son of a veteran Bristol Councillor, Peter Abraham. A needless death is always tragic for friends and relatives, especially when the victim is so young with so much to look forward to in life. But so many of us know Peter Abraham in some way, even if only from the odd picture in the local paper, that the grief will be widely felt in Bristol.



Nick Abraham's untimely death as a cyclist is, regrettably, not such a rare event. Just a few days earlier a female cyclist suffered serious injuries when run over by a car near Clevedon, last month a 39 year old cyclist, Paul Conley, was killed by a car while cycling into Bristol on the A370 and over last summer a 58 year old cyclist, Peter Taylor, was killed in collision with a car on a country lane just south of Dundry and another the victim of a hit-and-run motorist near Cribbs Causeway.

There are also hundreds of less serious but nevertheless sometimes devastating injuries being sustained by Bristol cyclists, often as a result of collisions with motor vehicles. It is too early to start apportioning blame in the most recent cases, but there are general indications of a fundamental problem when motorists and cyclists co-exist on roads where higher speed limits apply, as was the case in all the examples cited.

All roads, except motorways, are cycle and pedestrian routes, even if the number of such users is relatively small. As such all roads must be managed and maintained in a manner that is consistent with their safe use by pedestrians and cyclists. That is a legal obligation for the local authority. Above all that means containing speeds, with effective enforcement, within the limits of what is compatible with the safety of the most vulnerable users even if it is inconvenient for those protected by metal shells.

Bristol's Cycling City project is hoping to encourage many more people to cycle. To do so without first addressing such fundamental safety issues would be irresponsible.