Sheff Council - Shalesmoor Road Layout

[Igor 12]

47 minutes ago, Weredoomed said:

And what, pray tell, are these sustainable travel modes in hilly Sheffield with an aging population?

 

Bike - non-starter for the majority of people.

Bus - unreliable. Let's conveniently ignore social distancing, which is with us for the foreseeable future.

Tram - limited to no access for the majority of the city's population, ditto on social distancing.

Walking - depends how far you need to go, for what purpose and how hilly it might be along the way, see also reference to aging population above. Shall we conveniently ignore vulnerable females travelling around in the dark?

 

What is this magical sustainable travel mode that will suit the majority of the population for the majority of the time? Like it or not, it's a car for all who can afford one. That's why there are so many of them, whether you like it or not. It will take users everywhere they want to go, (SCC road closures excepted), at whatever time of day they wish to travel and in virtually all weather conditions. Why should anyone switch to suit the politically correct aspirations of SCC's transport planners when the non-car options are not viable?

 

Also what excuse for cutting car usage will be trotted out when, in  few years time, cars are less or non-polluting?

 

It would also be highly unprofessional to the point of gross incompetence to "explore a possibility" which it is obvious will increase congestion and thus pollution, because that's what these "experts" you leap to defend are charged with reducing.

 

Whilst there may be a number of tools in the planners box, not all of them will be appropriate, so to suggest something inappropriate, as at Shalesmoor, displays either:

 

Condescending arrogance ("We know what's best peasants") or

Disinterested indifference ("We've been told to do something, we don't care if it works or not") or

Incompetence ("We've no idea whether it will work, despite past knowledge of how quickly a loss of capacity causes mayhem in the city centre but, durrrr, let's do it anyway").

 

So which is it?

 

If you expect anyone to believe that councillors are qualified to make the call as to which is the best solution, think again. Sadly the officers who advise them are not accountable - when was the last time one of them was disciplined for providing wrong advice? Where are the meeting minutes that show the officers who presented the options to councillors, (if any were presented in the first place, which I doubt), tried to steer councillors AWAY from an option that would cause increased congestion and pollution? Will any officer be censured over Shalesmoor - don't try to tell us someone will be having a standing interview without coffee and biscuits over this one.

 

What stakeholder engagement occurred at Shalesmoor? What comments were received about the TTRO by SCC after they had posted it, as they are legally required to do?

 

Having read the Shalesmoor TRO, I note that there seems to be no mention in it of the closure of a lane to motor vehicles. This is because lane closures do not require a TRO, even as part of a TTRO. So quite how any member of the public was supposed to be aware of this grossly negligent scheme prior to it being installed is a mystery to me. Little wonder then that it came as a surprise to the people of Sheffield. Well done SCC for doing things sneakily, in an attempt to achieve your agenda.

I'm pressing the missing 'like' button here!

[nikki-red 308]

You’ve already been warned about making personal comments etc. This is not to become a witch hunt in regards to certain posters.

Any further and you could find your accounts suspended.

[WasThatWise 10]

I haven’t read all of this as it’s too long, but having travelled said route the other day I just have 1 question, if a car breaks down in rush hour say a broken track rod which happened to me and left me with the front wheels pointing in opposite directions will other vehicles be able to get round it and if not how will a recovery vehicle get there to move it.

[Planner1 437]

11 hours ago, WasThatWise said:

I haven’t read all of this as it’s too long, but having travelled said route the other day I just have 1 question, if a car breaks down in rush hour say a broken track rod which happened to me and left me with the front wheels pointing in opposite directions will other vehicles be able to get round it and if not how will a recovery vehicle get there to move it.

The same as on any constrained section of carriageway at busy times, if the drivers can't sort it out themselves,  the police get involved to direct traffic, get recovery to the stranded vehicle and get it removed. The Police work closely with the Council and their control room can access the Council's traffic cameras, so they can see the wider picture and direct officers as necessary.

 

You can get the same issue at roadworks or other constrained points on the network.

 

If the Police or emergency services had a problem with the layout at Shalesmoor, they would have told the Council (they are statutory consultees). The Cabinet Member responsible for this scheme recently addressed this point in a statement , he said they had not received any complaints from the emergency services. 

[Planner1 437]

16 hours ago, Weredoomed said:

And what, pray tell, are these sustainable travel modes in hilly Sheffield with an aging population?

 

Bike - non-starter for the majority of people.

Bus - unreliable. Let's conveniently ignore social distancing, which is with us for the foreseeable future.

Tram - limited to no access for the majority of the city's population, ditto on social distancing.

Walking - depends how far you need to go, for what purpose and how hilly it might be along the way, see also reference to aging population above. Shall we conveniently ignore vulnerable females travelling around in the dark?

 

What is this magical sustainable travel mode that will suit the majority of the population for the majority of the time? Like it or not, it's a car for all who can afford one. That's why there are so many of them, whether you like it or not. It will take users everywhere they want to go, (SCC road closures excepted), at whatever time of day they wish to travel and in virtually all weather conditions. Why should anyone switch to suit the politically correct aspirations of SCC's transport planners when the non-car options are not viable?

The point which you consistently, deliberately overlook is that no-one expects everyone to travel by a sustainable mode all the time, for every journey. Although some people can and do. 

 

Walking is good for shorter journeys and cycling is good for journeys up to 3 miles or so for most people, others are happy to go further.

 

The ageing population is a red herring. Active travel is good for you and helps you stay fit and active, so is definitely something older folk should consider.  

 

Being less car dependant will allow us to shape our towns, cities and communities to be on a more human scale and allow them to be more pleasant places to be.

16 hours ago, Weredoomed said:

Also what excuse for cutting car usage will be trotted out when, in  few years time, cars are less or non-polluting?

 

Having non-polluting cars is extremely unlikely in the foreseeable future.

 

Even zero emissions vehicles produce particulate matter from tyres, clutches, brake pads, which is increasingly being recognised as being very dangerous.

[Planner1 437]

16 hours ago, Weredoomed said:

It would also be highly unprofessional to the point of gross incompetence to "explore a possibility" which it is obvious will increase congestion and thus pollution, because that's what these "experts" you leap to defend are charged with reducing.

 

Where does it say that congestion must be reduced to the exclusion of all other policy aims? And where does it say that this must be the overriding factor in any scheme, as you appear to suggest?

 

As I've mentioned on numerous occasions, it is pretty universally recognised that some measure of roadspace reallocation will be needed to achieve significant mode shift to active / sustainable travel modes. 

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong or unprofessional in exploring all available possibilities, so long as you have an understanding of what he likely impacts are going to be and the decision makers are properly briefed. 

 

The Council and its decision makers certainly understood the likely impacts of the Shalesmoor scheme on general traffic, which is basically, manageable queuing on a section of the IRR.

[Planner1 437]

16 hours ago, Weredoomed said:

 

Whilst there may be a number of tools in the planners box, not all of them will be appropriate, so to suggest something inappropriate, as at Shalesmoor, displays either:

 

Condescending arrogance ("We know what's best peasants") or

Disinterested indifference ("We've been told to do something, we don't care if it works or not") or

Incompetence ("We've no idea whether it will work, despite past knowledge of how quickly a loss of capacity causes mayhem in the city centre but, durrrr, let's do it anyway").

 

So which is it?

You don't think it's appropriate, that's your view and you're entitled to it, others disagree.

 

The transport planners and the decision makers understand that in order to achieve the policy aims, decisions will be needed which might prove unpopular with some people and will inconvenience some people too.

 

All the decisions taken are political ones, which are taken with the best available understanding of the likely implications.

 

The people who take the decisions are your elected representatives, that's how it works. You can't have a ballot on every single measure and scheme. Someone has to decide.

[Planner1 437]

16 hours ago, Weredoomed said:

If you expect anyone to believe that councillors are qualified to make the call as to which is the best solution, think again. Sadly the officers who advise them are not accountable - when was the last time one of them was disciplined for providing wrong advice? Where are the meeting minutes that show the officers who presented the options to councillors, (if any were presented in the first place, which I doubt), tried to steer councillors AWAY from an option that would cause increased congestion and pollution? Will any officer be censured over Shalesmoor - don't try to tell us someone will be having a standing interview without coffee and biscuits over this one.

The councillors are elected to take decisions on how things are done. The political party in power appoints Cabinet Members who take the decisions.

 

The Cabinet Members aren't normally experts in their field, but they are normally decent, normal people who can consider the evidence and listen to opinions and make a decision.

 

The officers duty is to make sure the Cabinet Member is  briefed to the level the Cabinet Member is happy with.

 

In 40 years of working in Local Government I can't say I recall any situation where the  Cabinet Member / decision makers received plain  "wrong" advice. The reports given to decision makers generally go through several levels of "filters". For example if an officer in the transport planning team writes the briefing or decision report, it is normally reviewed by their team manager and the head of service, both of whom will be very experienced and knowledgeable, before it is presented to the Cabinet Member. On very important matters, Directors might even get involved.

 

It doesn't always work like that, for whatever reasons sometimes Cabinet Members go direct to individual officers for advice, which isn't really how they should do it, but it depends on how the individual Member operates. I've occasionally seen examples where that resulted in the Cabinet Member not getting the best advice and that resulting in a less than optimal outcome. That wasn't so much the individual officers "fault" as such, as they weren't that experienced, but gave their best advice. If the question and response had come through management "filters" a wider experience set could have been applied and better advice given.  After resulting management intervention (by me), the situation that resulted was remedied to everyone's satisfaction, the officer involved learned something and so did the Cabinet Member. The members of the public who were involved were happy the Council had listened to their concerns and acted on them. They'd have liked it to be right first time and so would we, but we're all human, we don't know everything and we don't always get it right, people do mostly understand this.

 

That was just one fairly minor example, on very significant matters, you would certainly expect the Cabinet Member to be briefed by senior managers.

17 hours ago, Weredoomed said:

What stakeholder engagement occurred at Shalesmoor? What comments were received about the TTRO by SCC after they had posted it, as they are legally required to do?

 

The Cabinet Member confirmed in a statement that they didn't do any stakeholder engagement due to the "emergency" nature of the project and the extremely limited time they had to implement it, due to the goverenment funding requirements.

 

If you want to know the comments they received, you'll have to ask them. 

[Planner1 437]

17 hours ago, Weredoomed said:

So quite how any member of the public was supposed to be aware of this grossly negligent scheme prior to it being installed is a mystery to me. Little wonder then that it came as a surprise to the people of Sheffield. Well done SCC for doing things sneakily, in an attempt to achieve your agenda.

 

In my experience, no matter how hard you try to inform people, some will always say they didn't know about it.

 

This all had to be done at very short timescale, so they would not have had the time or capacity to do some of the nice to do things like putting up advance notices on the roads to inform drivers.  Nothing to do with being sneaky, just a case of necessity.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Planner1

[RJRB 688]

Planner1

Your excuses and attempts to justify this  particular experiment do you or your profession no credit.

You cannot bring yourself to say that it is a ridiculous failure and it’s time to get back to your drawing board.

I can only agree that the councillors must bear some of the blame for not ridiculing the scheme when first presented.

 

 

 

[Weredoomed 10]

20 minutes ago, RJRB said:

Planner1

Your excuses and attempts to justify this  particular experiment do you or your profession no credit.

You cannot bring yourself to say that it is a ridiculous failure and it’s time to get back to your drawing board.

I can only agree that the councillors must bear some of the blame for not ridiculing the scheme when first presented.

 

 

 

But don't you realise RJRB, our never wrong Planner1 has just totally demolished my criticism of the council because, well, just because. You cannot seriously expect him to acknowledge his mates at SCC have dropped a major one at Shalesmoor, can you?

 

Hush now and leave everything in the capable (or is it culpable?) hands of SCC. They know what is best for the city. Not the people who live and work in it.

 

Any one fancy a side bet as to how long it will take for SCC to quietly remove the farce that is the Shalesmoor scheme? Will they remove it all in one go, or in phases? A phased removal could be a pathetic attempt to claim they were studying how it "improved" traffic flows on discrete sections of road. We ignorant peasants should tug our collective forelocks to our masters who obviously know better than us.

 

As for "The Cabinet Member confirmed in a statement that they didn't do any stakeholder engagement due to the "emergency" nature of the project and the extremely limited time they had to implement it, due to the goverenment funding requirements.", that is the most pathetic excuse I've seen in a very long time.

 

Emergency?

 

Surely an emergency is something you would deal with in the first few days (at most) of a crisis. NOT several weeks into aforesaid crisis. Unless of course, SCC's response time to a genuine emergency (which this scheme most certainly was not) is actually measured in weeks. If their response time to a genuine emergency truly is several weeks, then god help us all if the city is ever hit by one.

 

I would be pleased to know what "emergency" this scheme was actually meant to fix. How many lives did it save, given the extremely low numbers of cyclists visible on there at any one time. We are most certainly not talking about anything in double figures and I challenge planner1 to prove it saved a single life. As Jim Royle would say, "Emergency? Emergency my a..."

Edited July 20, 2020 by Weredoomed

[Planner1 437]

18 minutes ago, RJRB said:

Planner1

Your excuses and attempts to justify this  particular experiment do you or your profession no credit.

You cannot bring yourself to say that it is a ridiculous failure and it’s time to get back to your drawing board.

I can only agree that the councillors must bear some of the blame for not ridiculing the scheme when first presented.

I rather think I'm explaining why and how something like this comes about.

 

I'm not able to judge whether it's a success or a failure because I don't know what the success criteria are, and neither do you. It's certainly been a success on some fronts, like in promoting a public debate about active travel measures and showing that SCC are at the forefront of the push to promote active travel modes and are prepared to utilise radical measures.

 

You don't appear to have considered that the scheme might actually have been the Cabinet Member's idea.