Investing In Britain's Future?

George "ten quid burger" Osborne has undertaken his spending review and he has decided to free up funding for capital projects over the next several years.

Silly Burger: Gideon Geoffrey George Osborne makes the finishing
touches to his road building review.
Image from London Evening Standard.

I am sure that children who have to sit in dilapidated classrooms will be happy with the £21bn to be spent on new school places needed because of demographic changes and clearing the maintenance backlog. But of course, this lot stopped rebuilding schools in 2010 and a rise in the birth rate has come as a massive surprise. Oh, and this won't be spent until the next parliament and a great deal will go to free schools.

I am also sure that shale gas investors will be happy for the unflinching support by the Government for their industry and when they have to do their tax returns on all of the profits, they can be safe in the knowledge that £200m is being saved from HMRC by doing away with paper and people to answer the phone.

Still, this is a highways and transport blog and so I must turn my attention towards the roads and the rails. Before I go on, I will be quoting from "Investing in Britain's Future" which is the formal plan to spend lots of money after they have cut lots of money. You can download the document here. I also want to link to Notes From A Transport Planner for a critical analysis of the spending review, whereas I am probably just going to rant. Oh, I have checked and the review document does not mention walking and cycling once, but it does mention museums, prisons and Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.

Isambard Kingdon Brunel - one the greatest Britons of all time,
probably the most famous civil engineer ever and a dynamo of
Victorian infrastructure construction. What would he make of the
people running the UK today?

So, George and his unholy sidekick (Danny Alexander of the Lib Dems - remember them?) are setting the UK up for the "biggest investment in our roads since the 1970s", the "largest investment in railways since Victorian times" and, er, that's about it for George'n'Dan for the forword, but we did invent steam trains and jet engines, so well done us.

Why the need to update our infrastructure? (other than dealing with the effects of running it into the ground 30 years) Well, this answer is in the foreword:

"We are in a global race, competing with countries like China and India – countries which understand the importance of modern infrastructure to a thriving economy and are investing billions in updating everything from their road networks, to intercity railway lines and power stations."

I bet India and China are quaking in their boots. The skint UK is going to spend lots of money it still doesn't have on stuff so they can complete on a global basis with two space-faring nations and they are going to pay for it by cutting funding from loads of other stuff to do it. Wow, I should have paid more attention in maths (I am a civil engineer and not a structural engineer of course)

HS2 - what was a *really* expensive train set has just got even more
expensive! Image from HS2 website.

Let's get the railways out of the way first as after all, that's what politicians have been trying to do for decades. There are some good things involving electrification of tracks and supporting rail freight, but the headline is that they are spending £42.6 billion (plus £7.5bn for rolling stock) on High Speed 2 (HS2). Wait a second, I looked at this in March and it "only" cost £34.5bn - someone really cannot add up here and it is not me. HS2 is a huge mistake and will be paid for by us for decades to come.

Roads. They really are an important daily piece of infrastructure and without them, society would not function. Food would not get to supermarkets, buses would not run, there would be nowhere to run utilities, the emergency services would not be able to get around. The news always carries stories of potholes in the winter and spring and so I welcome the announcement that £10bn will be going to maintenance which is split with £6bn to local authorities and £4bn to the Highways Agency (HA). 

This sum is pretty much the backlog reported by the Asphalt Industry Alliance, but I hope it will not just be spent on resurfacing roads, we have thousands of bridges in the UK and many which are weak, propped up, closed and restricted and they need substantial investment too. Look at the Hammersmith Flyover - £10m was spent on emergency works before the Olympics and £60m is to be spent soon on strengthening the bridge. Still, with all of the cuts to local councils over the last few years and the substantial loss of local authority engineers, I wonder if there is anyone left who knows how to spend it properly. Perhaps this is just the old take with one hand and give with the other con trick and highway budgets are always the first to be raided.

Bridges are not like wine, they do not get better with age. The older
they are, the more it costs to maintain them. If you don't, you end
up closing them.

The big headline, though, is that they will be ploughing a fortune into widening roads, building the huge list of HA schemes which are planned, dealing with hotspots (congestion that is, not casualties) and making the HA a publicly owned corporation (like Network Rail), so that private investment can be better sought (or the costs can be kept of the public accounts books - PFI anyone?). 

Astonishingly, the "source material" on which the plans for the strategic road and motorway network are based will not be published until "later in 2013", but 2 maps are provided showing congestion on these routes in 2010 and the projected congestion in 2040 (pages 15 and 16 of the document). It is stated that "traffic levels [are] estimated to be anywhere between 22 to 71 per cent higher by 2040" and so the Government clings desperately to the traffic growth forecasts which have been discredited, and so I can only guess at why they want to start road building again.

There is no mention of walking and cycling in this document at all and indeed outside of London, things are looking grim (Boris seems to be trying to protect cycling funding at the moment). The current funding pots against which local authorities can bid against for cash for walking, cycling and public transport is being shaken up with a large chunk being given to Local Enterprise Partnerships to use. LEPs are comprised of "local business leaders, local authority leaders and other partners". In essence, unelected bodies will be making decisions on what to fund and these decisions will inevitably mean funding going to support new commercial development, rather than infrastructure to support existing communities.

Still, with all of this "new" money sloshing around, there must surely be rejoicing in the halls of the professional institutions? Well, no. The Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation has a membership with many consultants and contractors who will benefit from work out of any large funding announcement and so would normally be rather supportive. In this case, CIHT was rather scathing (in a very polite and professional way of course). CIHT's Chief Executive, Sue Percy said this week;

Sue Percy.
Image from the Engineering Council.

"CIHT are pleased to see the importance and recognition being given to the role that is played by the transport sector in the UK’s economy. Whilst we initially welcome the high level announcements of investment in a number of transport schemes and projects, we will be reviewing these statements in more detail and assessing the finances behind them. It is unclear at this stage whether the figures announced represent any significant new investment or are recycling of existing finance.”

“Although pleased with this recognition, the UK must develop an integrated long term transport infrastructure investment strategy. To achieve success the strategy must have cross-party agreement and look beyond the political cycle to a 20 year timeframe.”

In other words (well my words) 

"You know what politicians? We have heard it all so many times now that we simply don't trust what you say any more. You are all short so termist, it is no wonder we are in such a mess and unless you all get it together and provide leadership beyond the politics, we will remain a burnt out and knackered little island"

Percy went on to state:

“Whilst we welcome the investment outlined for the highways sector, CIHT believe that this must form part of a long-term multi modal strategy. This and future investment must not only be in large-scale high profile schemes but also in smaller scale projects that can have a direct positive impact on local communities and economies.’

“Everyone relies on or uses transport daily, integrated transport is fundamental to the economic, social and environmental well being of the community. The whole transport network (including rail, buses, walking & cycling) is important to different users in different ways and must be effective to provide a safe and efficient level of service.”

Believe me, these are very strong words from the CIHT and would have been unheard of even 5 years ago. Do you know what? Sue Percy has summed it up for me and so I will leave it there this week!

Update 1/7/13
Oh, and what about the Office for Active Travel? Zip, that's what!

Sign & Vote (Please!)

Short post this week with me asking if my readers would consider signing a really important petition and vote to give recognition to a Lottery-funded walking and cycling project.

First, we have a Government e-petition calling for the implementation of the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group Report "Get Britain Cycling". The convention is that if a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it is considered for a debate in Parliament.

I know I have posted about this a couple of times, but it is really important we keep the pressure on as sadly, the Government have been quite dismissive so far and in particular David Cameron feels it is best left to local councils to deal with rather than providing any real leadership.

The summary and recommendations of the report can be downloaded here and the petition can  be signed here. At the time of writing there is about 68,000 signatures and so it needs a big push. Please let your friends, family and colleagues know if they currently cycle or would like to cycle.

The second thing is that the National Lottery are running the The National Lottery Awards 2013 Vote. The awards are an annual search to find the UK's favourite Lottery-funded projects. In the "environment" section, there are seven projects vying for the award and among them is the Sustrans Connect 2 project, which has expanded the National Cycle Network over the last 3 or 4 years with emphasis on schemes which deal with physical barriers preventing longer routes from "connecting up".

The Two Tunnels project in Bath, part of the Connect2 project and
the longest cycle tunnel in the UK.
Image from Sustrans.

I will declare an interest as I have been involved with the construction of one of the individual projects (out of around 80 across the UK) and I am a volunteer for the organisation, but it would give recognition to the expansion of the NCN and the work put in by the hundreds of people (if not thousands) who have been involved including Sustrans themselves, landowners, local authorities (including engineers!), volunteers, cycling groups, users, schools - the list goes on.

So, you can look at the environment category here and read more and vote for Connect 2 here. It shows the amount of effort required to improve walking and cycling networks, but it also shows that there is an appetite from the public for better provision as they voted for the scheme to be funded in the first place back in 2007! The projects have helped more people access walking and cycling routes, with many away from traffic. For cycling it has help local areas improve their modal share and hopefully helped to get people to demand more dedicated infrastructure.

BUT IT'S GOING TO COST A FORTUNE!

a technical question in the office quite often turns into a wider discussion, debate or indeed a rant. what started as a question about how to build a small access to a site ended in row over spending money civilising neighbourhoods where the driver becomes the visitor.

Many people are aware that the roads system in the UK is pretty much set up these days to service motor vehicles. Many people are happy that the roads system is geared towards vehicles and feel that motoring-related tax should be hypothecated to spending on roads (I am not going anywhere that one). But there are many people who are fed up with car-dominated neighbourhoods and realise that something needs to change and this is where the debate headed. I am not anti-car, they are a great tool, but I want to see things reworked to put walking, cycling and indeed public transport on a more equitable footing.

The question developed into a debate about my suggestion that we didn't need to build a site access like a road junction, it could be a simple dropped kerb to send a message to drivers that they were crossing the pedestrian's domain. 

I went on to show some colleagues images on Google Streetview of how other countries had taken the simple concept much further and applied it to junctions serving much larger areas.

A random example of a junction treatment, Amsterdam.
Image from Google Streetview.

It doesn't take long to find what I mean on the outskirts of Amsterdam where the footway and indeed cycle track continues with priority and those driving into and out of an access serving a residential area are expected to give way to them.

One of my colleagues wondered why we would want layouts like this. I said that they would civilise our residential areas and make drivers feel like visitors which can help with reducing speeds, and improving subjective safety. I then explained that if the estates were self-contained instead of having roads through to other places, then the only traffic in each little area would be either those who live there, those who are visiting and of course deliveries - we would get rid of rat running.

Church Langley Way, Harlow. It could have been built a different
way to create an access to residential road - the distributor road
had plenty of verge to have a protected cycle track.
Image from Google Streetview.

My colleague was concerned about the cost of making these changes - "but it's going to cost a fortune". Well, retrofitting existing road layouts will need funding, but building civilised layouts for new build should not cost more than the "traditional" approach. Of course, building densities are high in new builds and developers do not want to build any more road than they need to. 

It means that if we introduce protected facilities for cycling, then in many cases an access road may need to be one way. The immediate roads serving a group of dwellings probably don't need any protected infrastructure for cycling and so long as the estate is permeable for walking and cycling, we have a ready made low-speed civilised neighbourhood and the construction work will be the same as for the traditional approach.

To build a new estate road, one can work on a cost of around £210 to £250 per square metre depending on ground conditions; (the poorer the ground, the thicker the road, the higher the cost) and this makes an allowance for drainage and street lighting. This rate also assumes that some of the area will be carriageway and some footway. If an access road is made a one way loop, then the cost of a reduced width of carriageway can be used for cycle tracks. 

High Road, Seven Kings. LCN Route 12 and just paint with a bit of
green surfacing here and there. Image based on Google Streetview.

For a retrofit scheme, the costs can vary wildly, especially when utilities are encountered and need diverting. Converting carriageway to footway or cycle track will cost in the region of £150 per square metre for a tarmac or block paved finish. Add £10 per square metre for a coloured surface and £50 or higher for natural stone.

Where we are looking at schemes such as the London Cycle Network (LCN), it is no wonder that lots of it is just white paint and logos when we are looking at around £1 per metre of cycle lane, £20 per cycle logo and the £10 per square metre for a bit of green surface. The routes were developed and installed on the cheap with nowhere near the amount of money required to provide facilities for all. The engineers who installed the LCN were set up to fail by those making the decisions on where money should be spent.

Take the example of High Street, Seven Kings which I have mocked up as having the Copenhagen treatment. This is LCN Route 12 which runs from (nearly) the M25 to Stratford before becoming Cycle Superhighway CS2 between Stratford and the City (well it fizzles out just after Aldgate East). The pair of routes together are some 16 miles (25km) in length and apart from the odd section of cycle track and a bit of mandatory cycle lane/ bus lane (part time) it is all paint and logos. 

Trixi Mirrors are not decent protected cycle infrastructure no matter

how much the Mayor of London bullied the DfT to agree to them.

If we were to upgrade this route to a protected cycle track in each direction, 2 metres in width and at £150 per square metre, we are looking at £15 million and that doesn't even cover the junctions - perhaps a budget of £30 million might be more reasonable. So, "it's going to cost a fortune" isn't it? Well, no, I don't think so. It is all about priorities. LCN 12 and CS2 run parallel to the Shenfield to Liverpool Street railway line (which will also be part of Crossrail) and while I am not suggesting that those on the eastern end of the route would cycle to the City, those closer could easily do it and decent provision would help with local utility trips or commuting between the various town centres along the route (Romford, Ilford and Stratford) and it might take pressure off a very crowded railway corridor.

Compare my off-the-cuff £30m with the New Bus for London which will cost £200m for 600 buses, the Government's £170m "Pinch Point" fund, £1.2bn to £3.04bn for a Lower Thames Crossing (see 9.2 on this link) or £32bn for HS2. I think that investing in retrofitting for cycling (and walking) represents excellent value for money on the engineering alone and then we have the other benefits in terms of health, social exclusion, personal mobility and a reduction in pressure on other modes of public transport. Oh, and it will create construction jobs.

One of the things I like about my job is the debate it often generates, but it is a pity that these sorts of debates don't play out in the popular press, TV or with our elected representatives at all levels. If all new developments were designed for walking and cycling from the start, we would lock in civilised neighbourhoods and never need to spend money reworking them. If we spent our limited funds of measures which would make a difference to people at a very local level, then we could avoid spending money on huge political vanity projects. Perhaps that is the problem - a cycle by-pass at a traffic signalled junction is never going to be a newsworthy or political photo-opportunity - a new railway is.

Cycle Superhighway 2 - Stratford Extension Planned to Start This Month!

Well, it is going ahead! TfL has published the outcome of the public consultation on the extension of Cycle Superhighway 2 from Bow to Stratford Town Centre and announced that work starts at the end of June.

You can download a full copy of the consultation outcome report here, but the headlines are that 19 stakeholders and 600 individuals responded; 83% of respondents supported the scheme outright; access & disability groups raised concerns about shared-use areas and the bus stop bus passes (conflicts with pedestrians essentially); Living Streets, like the access groups, had concerns where pedestrians here impacted on.

The current "quality" of CS2 on Mile End Road. CS2X needs to carry
on to the City. Image from Google Streetview.

The Licenced Taxi Drivers Association and London TravelWatch were concerned about the loss of the bus lane (LTDA members lose their priority, LTW from a loss of priority for bus passengers, plus other things); the Motorcycle Action Group didn't like the mandatory cycle lanes as their users would have to use normal traffic lanes (what, they admit to using advisory cycle lanes to filter?).

The Road Haulage Association was concerned about loading and cyclists undertaking lorries and the Brewery Logistics Association were concerned about reduction in road capacity and impact on deliveries to pubs and hotels.

I covered the scheme consultation in January where I raised three concerns;

(i) This scheme is actually on Newham's highway network and so will their politicians have the proverbials to see it through?

(ii) When this is shown to be a success, will TfL and the boroughs roll it out?

(iii) If the organised cycle lobby in-fights, then it might be another excuse not to do a proper job.

Well, the second will obviously have to wait, but TfL really must apply the concept of CS2X (yes, that's the shorthand) to the rest of CS2 all the way to the city because it is mostly awful. It is one thing reprioritising cycling space on Newham's road network, but what about on TfL's?

West Ham Lane - No contraflow here. Image from Google Streetview.

On the first issue, Newham has essentially required that the cycle contraflow on West Ham Lane is deleted as there are other aspirations in the area. Beyond that, Newham support he scheme and indeed TfL are going to work with them on what could be done on the Bow Flyover and on removal of the Stratford Gyratory.

My third point didn't come to fruition, cycling groups lined up their ducks giving support for the scheme - London Cycling Campaign, Newham Cyclists, Tower Hamlets Wheelers and Stop Murder of Cyclists Southwark (!) all agreed, but wanted even more. 

Sustrans supported the scheme, but had some concern about pedestrians in shared areas. Our friends at the Cycling Embassy for Great Britain supported the scheme, but recommended some design changes to the bus stop bypasses, use of two-stage right turns and concerns about shared-use areas and the positions of some of the ASLs.

This left me with just one question - where was the response from CTC on a scheme which is such a fundamental shift in cycle infrastructure design in London - perhaps they were too busy taking up the primary position somewhere else!

TfL has made a number of design modifications resulting from the consultation which are reproduced from the report as follows;

Bye bye horrible Stratford High Street (or Stratford Motorway!)
Image from Google Streetview.

Kerbs
As requested, we will be providing kerbs to create segregated cycle lanes separated from general traffic. We received a number of requests for angled kerbs to reduce risks of punctured tyres. However we feel 2m wide cycle lane should provide sufficient space so cyclists don’t hit the kerb. We will monitor the performance of the kerb once the facility is opened.

Enforcement of motorist offences including speeding
Replacing a general traffic lane with a cycle lane in each direction should reduce motor traffic speeds on Stratford High Street. When CS2 extension opens, the Metropolitan Police’s Cycle Task Force will be present to help educate users, and if necessary tackle both motorist and cyclist enforcement issues. If required, the Police and the highway authority, Newham Council, will identify any additional measures post implementation.

Improving local cycle feeder routes
We will support Newham Council with proposals to improve local cycle routes.

Concern about impact on general traffic
Our traffic modelling currently indicates journeys from Stratford Town Centre to Bow could take up to 90 seconds longer in morning peak times. We are working with Newham Council and other delivery partners to mitigate any impacts on general traffic. We will closely monitor any impacts when the extension opens.

Hello cycle-friendly infrastructure (well for part of the A11 anyway).

Cycle parking suggestions
We are working with Newham Council to deliver 400 additional cycle parking spaces.

Of course, the notorious Bow Interchange and the less notorious, but pretty horrible Stratford Gyratory came up, TfL commented as follows;

Bow roundabout
We will continue to discuss wider improvements in the Bow roundabout area including considering how pedestrian facilities can be improved with key stakeholder groups.

We will be installing a cycle bus stop bypass and early start traffic lights at Bow roundabout westbound by Summer 2013. For more information on proposals and the consultation, visit our website. We will support Newham Council with developing plans for cycle facilities on Bow flyover.

Stratford gyratory
We received a number of requests to improve this area, including removing the gyratory.
Following this feedback, we‘ve made a number of changes such as a tighter turn into Tramway Avenue to help slow traffic down. We will be erecting a cycle route sign post at Cam Road to Channelsea Path and the Three Mills. We will continue to work with Newham Council on their plans to remove Stratford gyratory.

I think the decision on the kerb will niggle quite a few people, it was a sensible suggestion and if it turns out to be a problem, I cannot see TfL ripping out the normal kerbs to replace them with angled ones. But, I think there is an awful lot we should congratulate TfL and Newham on (as this is on Newham's network) and I for one cannot wait to give it a go later this year. 

I am confident that as well as this scheme being a massive success, we will all learn how the continental approach will Anglicise, how traffic will cope with losing lanes to cycling (it will) and it should whet the appetite to push TfL and the boroughs to start using these design layouts across the Capital. Forget 2012 being the Summer of Cycling in London, it will be 2013!

What Shall We Do With Markham's Chase?

One of my favourite blogs is "angry people in local newspapers" which takes an irreverant look at the photos staged to accompany local newspaper articles. One item caught my eye "Death trap road anger" and I thought it might be interesting to look a little deeper.

The story is taken up in full by the Echo - "School Road a 'Death Trap' for Angry Parents" and goes on to state the problems of parent traffic outside Janet Duke Primary School, Markham's Chase in Basildon, Essex. You may want to fire up Google Maps to keep track of the various locations I refer to in the post.

Here is the western half of Basildon. The area of interest is in
the red square. Note the yellow/ orange distributor roads which
encircle what is a large residential area in which Janet Duke
Primary School sits. Image based on Google Maps.

Now, some health warnings. Although I know Basildon quite well (having worked in the area years ago), I haven't visited the site and so do not have the necessary knowledge I would need if doing a "proper job" on a possible solution to the street's problems - the idea was to look at some of the issues behind the headlines. 

I will also be using casualty data from the excellent Crashmap website, but it will be basic, as access to full details costs money, plus the latest data is 2011.  I will therefore make some suggestions of how some of the actual casualties in this street may have been caused.

So, Basildon. Home of Mondeo Man and typical of urban development of the last several decades. The town was one of the many 'New Towns' created after the Second World War and has been expanding and redeveloping ever since. The town is bounded by the A127, A13 and A130 (of sub-regional importance), contains many commercial and industrial areas, retail parks, a large town centre and many local shopping centres. It is criss-crossed with wide distributor type roads and car is very much king here. There are some good cycling routes around the town, but the quality is hit and miss and priority is always with traffic.

High Road? More like Urban Motorway! Image from Google Streetview.

Markham's Chase is in the Laindon part of town which is characterised by housing of various ages and tenure tending to reflect the early development and subsequent redevelopment of towns like these. This residential area has the A176 to its east and Laindon High Road to its west - both are community severing dual carriageways.

The street is largely residential, but also has the school. Google Streetview has images of the area dated July and October 2012 and it seems that a sports centre and open land is currently being redeveloped for housing. There may be have been a bus route on the road, but it is not clear - I shall assume there isn't for the purposes of this post.

Massive wide road, perhaps the residents all drive Argos lorries?
Image from Google Streetview, showing the junction with
Leinster Road.

The street is very wide with huge open junctions, plenty of off street parking and reasonably generous footways. Some smaller closes spur from the road and there are walkways to some of the older housing stock, some of which have no road access. My assumption is that speed will be a problem on this road and where junctions are concerned, there will likely be failure to give way type collisions.

Image from Google Streetview.

The school is at the southern end of the street, covering a large site. It has multiple vehicle and pedestrian accesses from Markham's Chase. There are School Keep Clear restrictions everywhere which to me hints that the area is decended upon by cars twice a day. There is also extensive residential development going on opposite the school. I would say that you could find this kind of road layout all over the country, but the width of the roads is notable along with the dual carriageways around and through the residential areas as characterised by the other New Towns.

Markham's Chase highlighted red, the school boxed
in blue and two junctions I will come back to circled
in purple. Image based on Google Maps.

The map to the left is a little difficult to read, but essentially, the red line is Markham's Chase and the area in the blue square is the school site.

So, what of the "death trap" the Echo quotes parents as being concerned about? Well in the five years to 2011 (the most up to date data on Crashmap) there were a total 6 casualties recorded in the street. Of these, 5 involved slight injury and 1 involved a serious injury. None of the collisions involved child casualties. None involved pedal cycles, 1 involved a pedestrian and 2 involved motorcycles (including the serious casualty). The rest were all car-related. Search the street in Crashmap for yourself and use the filters - aside from the fact that this is data where people actually got hurt, it is an interesting exercise.

As I stated earlier, Crashmap gives basic data and so I would need to make assumptions about the causes, but it does not appear that the street is in fact a 'death trap' and so this is a typical overreaction of parents concerned about conditions outside a school; but it is a symptom of subjective safety issues which puts people off from walking or cycling. 

The serious injury involving a motorcycle was a single vehicle crash (nobody else involved) and so my assumption is that the rider lost control. To lose control in a residential area, I would suggest that speed is the issue and the serious injury is likely to have been caused (in my opinion) by the rider parting company with the machine and bouncing off a parked car or getting wrapped around a lamp column. There is a lamp column right at the recorded crash location and such a collision could include broken or fractured limbs, injuries to ribs, internal organs, back or neck or even severe grazing and lacerations if the rider was not wearing leathers - casualty investigation is not for the squeamish I'm afraid and can affect the engineer investigating a site, even if they are just looking at data trying to work out what happened.

The pedestrian casualty (slight) was close to the junction with Leinster Road which is in the photo above. Actually, the location is just in Leinster Road and it may be an issue of someone trying to cross a wide junction with traffic turning in at speed (all assumption). For a description of what 'slight' and 'serious' injuries mean, you can download a fact sheet from the DfT. This is all cold definition and so remember we are dealing with people here.

Parking near schools creates uncomfortable and subjectively
unsafe conditions for those who want to walk or cycle with their kids
to school. Pelican crossings can help pedestrians get priority over
traffic in busy locations, but only when the green man gives
permission!

In the wider context of funding being provided for a casualty-reduction scheme, it is very unlikely that Markham's Chase with a casualty rate of just over 1 per year would ever be funded - there will be areas in Basildon with a more serious casualty problem to be addressed. 

This is the traditional approach to engineering interventions where funding is always very constrained - in other words, with little cash available, we go after the locations where we judge we can make the greatest impact. The problem with this approach is that the "easy" sites have been treated over the last 20 years in terms of issues on a "traditional" road layout (like Basildon).

The challenge for the future, if policy moves towards supporting active travel as I hope it will, is making sure that changes to the network themselves do not create safety risks and where numbers of people walking and cycling increase, that that casualties do not increase as well (the subject of a future post which I am thinking about).

Back to the angry parents in the article. They are calling for two new pelican crossings in Markham's Chase - "installed the length of the school". (I assume they mean one at each end of the school frontage). Failing that, they want a pelican crossing at one end of the road and the (existing) school crossing patrol at the other.

Eric Street, Bow, East London - a good example of a cheap road
closure with cycle bypass to create filtered permeability and to
prevent through traffic using a residential area.

A new pelican crossing will cost in the region of £40-50k to design and construct and so for two, the parents need a working budget of about £90k as a first stab. Assuming a pair of pelican crossings are built - one at each end of the school, then there will still be chaos twice a day outside the school with parents driving and there will be complaints about some parents choosing to cross their children on a red man and children crossing in other parts of the street. More seriously, for the rest of the day, nobody will be using the crossings and local drivers and regular rat-runners will get very used to them showing green - this is a safety issue off peak when drivers do not expect to have to stop. Statistically, the crossings will generate annual pedestrian casualties over time (less then one a year would be my estimation, but casualties nonetheless).

Markham's Chase closed half way with Eric Street style closure.
Image based on Google Streetview.

The solution here is not expensive crossings, it is removing the through traffic from Markham's Chase. The road can be accessed from three other streets and essentially means people can drive through the whole area and out the other end, rather than use the major roads bounding this residential area. These major roads are wide and fast and so why shouldn't non-local traffic be forced to stick to them? I would close Markham's Chase in two key places which would mean that the only traffic to use the street would have business there. Without knowing local traffic patterns in detail, I would close the road at the southern end by the school (at Great Knightleys) and just north of Leinster Road which creates the opportunity for a pair of turning areas for each half of Markham's Chase - it also means that Leinster Road cannot be used as a rat run any more.

Road closed at Great Knightleys.
Image based on Google Streetview.

These two closures would cost in the region of £10k - perhaps using the layout above from Eric Street which maintains cycle bypasses. My scheme costs significantly less than that the parents' pelican crossings and when it comes to lobbying Essex County Council, I reckon more likely to be funded.

My scheme will not stop the parking by parents, but it will deal with traffic speed outside the school and it may put off some parents from driving to the school, it would also remove general through traffic and so start to make it feel safer to cross the road outside the school. There might be displacement of traffic and parking to other areas and so road closures should not be looked at in isolation. The road to the south of Markham's Close (Great Knightleys) is undoubtedly a busy and fast road because of its layout. If I had the money for a pelican crossing, it would be for here.

Returning to the article in the Echo and the Angry People in Local Newspapers post. "Dangerous" roads are a mainstay of local papers and it is always easy to stage a photo of "angry residents" (which is the point of the blog) and get quotes from them. In fact, the story writes itself and the journalist doesn't need to do an awful lot of work and more's the pity. In this story, I wonder why the journalist didn't undertake some basic research into the actual casualty record and why he didn't examine whether or not the pair of pelican crossings was a sensible idea?

The rest of the article explains that a meeting on site has been held between parents, Police Community Safety Officers (whatever that means), the local MP's secretary (!), a local councillor and the head teacher of the school. The head teacher explained that she has written to parents asking them to take more responsibility for their parking, but I wonder if she has written to find out why they drive their kids to school and what it would take to get them out of their cars?

The solution to improving walking is rarely a crossing outside a school (unless the school is on a major road) - the real barriers will be the busy main roads away from the school gate. But where schools are not on main roads, it should be possible in many cases to change the balance away from catering for the rat running traffic so that at school times, pedestrian activity dominates. With £10k, we could make a difference to Janet Duke Primary School, what could we do with the £90k the parents want spent on two pelican crossings which will probably end up creating pedestrian injuries?