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ptigga

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About ptigga

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    Walkley
  1. No. Pardon? Avoiding what? Firstly this is not about purely about traffic flow. It's about emissions. Reducing speed is the most effective way to reduce emissions. Secondly reducing the speed to 50 MPH generally improves the flow of traffic because all traffic on the motorway (HGVs and cars) travels at roughly the same speed. There are much fewer changes of speed as vehicles aren't slowing down and speeding back up as much as they would if they were all travelling at different speeds. What is your proposed solution?
  2. I'll give you an objective analysis. Lets do some mathematics! Assume that length of affected stretch of road is 5 miles Time taken to drive 5 miles at 70 MPH = 4 and 20 seconds (260 seconds) Time taken to drive 5 miles at 50 MPH = 6 minutes (360 seconds) Fuel usage to overcome air resistance is proportional to the square of the speed. Air pollution is (obviously) directonally proportional to fuel usage. It doesn't matter what the units are for the purposes of this exercise. 70 x 70 = 4900 units of air pollution emitted by vehicle travelling at 70 MPH 50 x 50 = 2500 units of air pollution emitted by vehicle travelling at 50 MPH 4900 * 260 seconds = 1 274 000 units of air pollution emitted over a 5 mile stretch by vehicle travelling at 70MPH 2500 * 360 seconds = 900 000 units of air pollution emitted over a 5 mile stetch by vehicle travelling at 50MPH 900 000/1 274 000 = 0.7 So, as a result of valid mathematical reasoning I conclude that reducing the speed to 50MPH does reduce the air pollution significantly.
  3. Can't quite believe the amount of conspiracy theories here. The speed limit of 50MPH is purely to reduce the air pollution in the Tinsley area, which due to various factors, including the profile of the viaduct, has some of the worst air pollution problems in Europe. The concentration of Nitrogen Dioxide in the area is well above the maximum limit set for public health. Fuel usage to overcome air resistance is proportional to the square of the speed, so at 70MPH a vehicle will emit 4900 units of air pollution. If speed is reduced to 50MPH the the same vehicle wil emit only 2500 units of air pollution. That's almost half the amount of pollution. It will certainly make the atmosphere much safer for people living in the area. What's the alternative? Evacuate Tinsley and displace the population to somewhere with an atmosphere that doesn't breach public health limits?
  4. I wondered what that was. I could hear it up in Walkley. I had assumed it was a siren from one of the factories on the Don.
  5. Well there's the sanitation and the roads the primary schools and the coastguards and the hospitals and the gp surgeries and the motorways and the royal family and the government funded research and the secondary schools and the parliament and the street lighting and the health and safety regulations and the emergency response teams and the fire service and the universities and the air traffic controllers and the justice system and the prisons and the national parks and the social services and the massive subsidies to the defence industry and the ordnance survey and the house of commons wine cellar and the sizeable subsidies paid to the privatised rail industry and the museums and Scotland and foreign aid and the crossrail project and the Sheffield trams and some subsidised bus routes and the border controls and the subsidies for having solar panels on your roof and the libraries and the army and the disability benefits and the Royal navy and the serious organised crime agency and grants to small businesses and Peter Mandelson's expenses and the government communication headquarters in Cheltenham and the upkeep of historic buildings and the royal wedding and the further education colleges and the environment agency and the democratic system that allows you to get involved and make changes.
  6. I'm wary of devlopments like Sevenstone because they transform public spaces into privately owned enclosed spaces patrolled and policed by private security guards. Freedom of expression is no-longer permitted if the land-owner doesn't like what you've got to say. Streets that were once public are gated and shut off outside of opening hours (much like Orchard Square is now) and public assemblies or protests can't take place on that land. What benefit are Sevenstone going to provide that will make it worthwhile?
  7. There are often markets on Barkers Pool as well. People cycle considerately and at appropriate speeds. It works.
  8. It's all a bit hodge-podge in the pedestrianised areas. You can cycle up Charles street, you can cycle across Barker's pool. You can't cycle on Fargate or the Moor but you can cycle across the back of the Peace gardens. I say open it all up to cyclists. It works well on Barkers Pool so it should work on Fargate as well.
  9. It's been tried in Australia. It had the opposite effect. The number of people cycling dropped and the death rate from obesity linked causes such as heart attacks increased. I'd prefer to see policies introduced on the basis of sound data rather than on the basis of anecdotal evidence about polystyrene hats.
  10. The pedestrian crossings are located where pedestrians want to cross in order to get where they are going. If you move the crossings out of their line of travel then they won't get used as much and pedestrians will cross the road where there are no crossings. One possible solution I've thought of is to dig out the entire footprint of the roundabout and rebuild the roundabout and entrances/exits on stilts, leaving a separate area for pedestrians, some cyclists and trams underneath. Pedestrians and some cyclists can cross directly underneath the roundabout taking the shortest route. The space underneath is open, instead of being enclosed like a subway. Steps and circuitous ramps are avoided by landscaping the space to achieve changes in height with gradual inclines. I imagine that this would be similar to the pedestrian space underneath the Western bank dual carriageway in-front of the Student Union. Traffic exiting the roundabout will not be held up by pedestrian crossings and this will make the roundabout easier to negotiate however speeds on the roundabout should still be manageable because of the shape of the roundabout and because (as Planner1 says) the congestion is caused by the amount of traffic converging and not the queues at the exits. Relatively slow speeds (15-25 MPH) mean that the roundabout will still be fairly safe for the cyclists that use the road instead of the pedestrian space, depending on their particular journey. Extensive landscaping would be required and I have no idea how traffic could be accommodated during construction. However if those problems could be overcome then I believe the result would be excellent for all users.
  11. There's a website I've recently become aware of that shows all of the road casualties in the UK between 2000 and 2010 on a map. I've had a look at this location on Halifax road and it shows a cluster of serious injuries and minor injuries on the cross roads by the cameras. A female vehicle occupant was also killed just downhill from that spot in 2010. See http://map.itoworld.com/road-casualties-uk#lat=53.4242327760155&lon=-1.4929561181882651&zoom=16 Every serious injury on that map will have been a life changing event for person who suffered. It seems perfectly reasonable to take measures to enforce the speed limit in that area to reduce the risk.
  12. Yep - definitely miss them. They were an iconic landmark. I used to be able to see them from the top of Crookes on a clear day.
  13. Great to hear that some drivers do remember to check their nearside wing mirrors when they are turning left at the head of a queue of traffic. It doesn't always work that well. When I'm cycling in queued traffic I filter up through the queue, but I stop behind the first car in the queue. This is something I've picked up through experience. There's always a chance of conflict if you're on the left hand side of the first car in the queue and you don't know when he's going to move or what he's going to do. This also allows you to position yourself in the middle of the lane and establish eye contact with the second car in the queue so that they don't try to turn left through you. It's a technique that works well for me and I would recommend it to other cyclists.
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