Sheff Council - Shalesmoor Road Layout

[onewheeldave 22]

8 minutes ago, forgeman said:

I would have thought the pavement width on the stretch of road in question is wide enough for dedicated cycle lane. There would probably be more cyclists than pedestrians on there.

You still have issues with shared lanes as pedestrians often walk on the cycle paths, plus the dangers of pedestrians getting hit, and, one that stretch, several breaks in the path due to side roads.

None of which happens with dedicated proper [motor vehicles excluded] cycle paths on the road.

 

I think it's the future- this excessive car use is not only a major contributer to total ecological disaster [end of human civilisation] and a major cause of the chronic unecessary disease epidemics destroying our medical systems [obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease etc], but it's now been established that widening roads/increasing capacity always leads to more congestion long term.

 

Progressing roads to becoming cycle based rather than car based is the best solution to the climate disaster and public health issue.

[forgeman 18]

16 minutes ago, Brooker11 said:

There are very few pedestrians on that stretch.

That is my point

[carosio 185]

2 hours ago, Brooker11 said:

There are too many motor vehicles on the roads because successive Governments have not attempted to use rail as a major means of freight (as the French do), they've allowed private companies to monopolise public transport making it expensive and unreliable and in the past encouraged people to travel further to work, they were very happy to pick up the vehicle excise duty on all these vehicles and not re-invest it into better schemes, before you alienate motor vehicles further you need to have an infrastructure in place that is a viable replacement, I travelled for work in Holland for a while and public transport there was excellent.

 

 

Quote from Rail UK forums :

(2013)

"Rail freight is very competitive over any length of distance - short or long where both producer and supplier are rail connected - the classic is coal from mine or port to power station. When we still had a coal industry many of these flows were very short in terms of distance.
There are lots of reasons why rail struggles elsewhere. One, there is rarely a backhaul so almost half the freight trains on the network are empty - this compares poorly to road where empty running has declined considerably in recent years although I recall around a quarter of all HGVs are also running empty. Second is the need to double or triple handle goods. So goods have to be moved by road from factory to rail terminal and from rail terminal by road onward to the customer's warehouse. The cost of this triple handling of goods reduces rail's ability to compete dramatically except on very long distance hauls which we dont tend to have in this country. Traffic from ports means only one additional transhipment is needed which improves rail competitiveness of shorter distances. Third, the sheer volume of goods that need to be carried from A to B on a train means there are not that many freight flows available which rail can easily compete for. The big growth in UK freight has been white vans - small flows from lots of places to lots of other places - rail can't compete in this market. HGV traffic has been declining or static for many years"

[Brooker11 10]

3 minutes ago, forgeman said:

That is my point

I know I was backing your comment up.

6 minutes ago, onewheeldave said:

You still have issues with shared lanes as pedestrians often walk on the cycle paths, plus the dangers of pedestrians getting hit, and, one that stretch, several breaks in the path due to side roads.

None of which happens with dedicated proper [motor vehicles excluded] cycle paths on the road.

 

I think it's the future- this excessive car use is not only a major contributer to total ecological disaster [end of human civilisation] and a major cause of the chronic unecessary disease epidemics destroying our medical systems [obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease etc], but it's now been established that widening roads/increasing capacity always leads to more congestion long term.

 

Progressing roads to becoming cycle based rather than car based is the best solution to the climate disaster and public health issue.

This vision is all well and good but you have to have viable alternatives in place, at the moment we are miles away from that.

[BoroB 10]

45 minutes ago, Brooker11 said:

The road is gridlocked again today and this is with current traffic at about a 1/3 of normal levels, if it can't cope with that were going to need a hell of a lot of cyclists to lessen it in future, the whole thing is indefensible. Whats also very annoying is its stated that it's temporary and could be removed - so they've spent all that money and time (it took forever) to create something that a 5 year old could have pointed out that it wouldn't work only to scrap it later, incredible.

You could set an experiment for a five year old based on the new Shalesmoor scheme:

 

First take an empty half pint pot.

 

Take a full pint pot of water and start pouring in into said half pint pot. 

 

Continue pouring until all the water has gone.

 

Discuss the potential outcomes.

 

A five year old with common sense would see there's going to be a problem as the half pint pot nears fullness and stop pouring and seek further advice.

 

A bright five year old would not start pouring, having anticipated a problem at the start of the experiment and noticed that water would be displaced everywhere as it is not going to disappear and has to go somewhere.

 

A really bright five year old would ask why don't we start off with an empty pint pot before we start pouring, thus the water has somewhere to go.

 

SCC just starts pouring, continues pouring, gets water eveywhere, causes mayhem and then shrugs shoulders. 

 

 

[Planner1 427]

50 minutes ago, RJRB said:

Some of the money could have been better spent on increasing the speed limit on Penistone Road to the sensible limit of 40 mph.

Planner did say at one time the cost of new signage would be an issue.

 

The money the council have used for this project has been specifically given to them by the government for measures like this to help cycling and walking.  They could not spend it on other projects.

A lot of the money councils get for transport measures is like that, it must be spent on the specific things it's given for.

 

Penistone Rd speed limit would cost a lot to change because the detection equipment requirements at traffic signals are more onerous  (and costly) on 40mph roads than they are on 30 mph ones. Other things like safety barriers, street lighting, protection for street furniture all get more onerous and costly the higher the speed limit goes. There is far more to it than just changing a few signs

Edited July 8, 2020 by Planner1

[forgeman 18]

I do not agree with increasing the speed limit on Penistone road. Not due to costs but safety. There are too many pedestrians on that particular road.

[Brooker11 10]

3 minutes ago, Planner1 said:

The money the council have used for this project has been specifically given to them by the government for measures like this to help cycling and walking.  They could not spend it on other projects.

a lot of the money councils get for transport measures is like that, it must be spent on the specific things it's given for.

 

Penistone Rd speed limit would cost a lot to change because the detection equipment requirements at traffic signals are more onerous  (and costly) on 40mph roads than they are on 30 mph ones. Other things like safety barriers, street lighting, protection for street furniture all get more onerous and costly the higher the speed limit goes. There is far more to it than just changing a few signs

Are the government aware its been totally wasted?

[onewheeldave 22]

12 minutes ago, Brooker11 said:

I know I was backing your comment up.

This vision is all well and good but you have to have viable alternatives in place, at the moment we are miles away from that.

I disagree. The things that have been tried, such as  thin strips of red paint right at the edge of the road where they are often a positive hazard to cycle in, haven't, and clearly won't, work.

 

I don't think there is any possible solution to the problem of grossly excessive numbers of motor vehicles overloading the roads and destroying our climate and public health, over than to ensure that using cars just gets so increasingly more inconvenient than, for many, it's better to not use a car.

 

This has been successful in some european countries where cars can be used, but the routes accessible to them are so convoluted that it's way, way faster to cycle in instead.

 

When viable alternatives are non-existent you either stall, or implement the end point vision regardless. It tends to work out. To choose stalling instead is to fail to acknowledge the existing massive problems through fear of possible future problems that may, or may not, manifest.

Edited July 8, 2020 by onewheeldave

[Parkside 0]

1 hour ago, nightrider said:

If the van driver was turning right either the cyclist was overtaking the van or the cyclist was not in fact in his blindspot, but rather the van turned across the other lane and hit the cyclist.

That is what happened . the van just turned right without even noticing a cyclist coming down hill , it happens on a daily basis to cyclists and motor cyclists .

[Planner1 427]

1 minute ago, Brooker11 said:

Are the government aware its been totally wasted?

The government will be well aware that any road space reallocation is an emotive subject and might not be universally welcomed. They are giving the money for temporary / pop-up measures to be introduced, which by nature might well be removed if / when they are not needed or cause unexpected issues.

[Brooker11 10]

2 minutes ago, onewheeldave said:

I disagree. The things that have been tried, such as  thin strips of red paint right at the edge of the road where they are often a positive hazard to cycle in, haven't, and clearly won't, work.

 

I don't think there is any possible solution to the problem of grossly excessive numbers of motor vehicles overloading the roads and destroying our climate and public health, over than to ensure that using cars just gets so increasingly more inconvenient than, for many, it's better to not use a car.

 

This has been successful in some european countries where cars can be used, but the routes accessible to them are so convoluted that it's way, way faster to cycle in instead.

That will never work unless alternatives are in place as I said earlier, Europe has better weather and a far, far better public transport system.

3 minutes ago, Planner1 said:

The government will be well aware that any road space reallocation is an emotive subject and might not be universally welcomed. They are giving the money for temporary / pop-up measures to be introduced, which by nature might well be removed if / when they are not needed or cause unexpected issues.

Are they being removed tomorrow then as they are already causing issues.