Hmm, I'm very wary of that link. Ben Hamilton-Baillie is one of the people making the most money from 'selling' shared space to councils. Funny how the pictures are taken when the roads are deserted (7am on a sunday morning?). Take one at morning rush hour and see how inviting the road is for kids on bikes getting to school.
I don't think there is any argument that you can cause a slight reduction in speed by doing things like visually narrowing lanes and removing centre lines. It's quite another to claim that it's enough to change the character from a through road to somewhere kids can play.
that road he shows has 6-7000 vehicles a day. As supposedly dropped speed by a couple of mph (bu pt doesn't even say what to). If they've dropped from 40mph to 38 it's hardly made it a quiet village high street.
A few MPH drop is enough to make a big difference to noise pollution, especially with that much traffic.If they've dropped from 40mph to 38 it's hardly made it a quiet village high street.
Fair enough - not an example without bias there.
Now know-one's going to play there, but the increase in safety and perception of safety will increase in line with a reduction in speeds. I drive that road in the link and know it before and after. I also cycle on that road occasionally.
Before, I had a clear carriageway marked out and signage would tell me about the bend coming up. Now it feels narrower as the carriageway isn't marked and the bends feel tighter. The curtilage of the buildings feels closer.
Given that speed limits are rarely enforced, any physical change that slows speeds and forces more driver awareness is better that nowt.
Re speeds - I don't know but suspect its more like 30 down to 26/27mph.
We've pretty much reached saturation point with traffic these days, cars have become too successful for their own good and where you design for them you ruin it for everybody else. Designing for historic traffic growth is also a never ending battle, you make space for it, more people drive, you have to make more space for it, its use needs to be restrained like it or not, and the ideal way would be pricing road use as you drive to a level where traffic moves reasonably well. Little things like the OP posted are a microscopic contribution to that theory, but at least says we're taking a little back from the car drivers.
Mostly not, only a few bleeding heart liberal do-gooder hippys wanna curtail car driving. MOAR roads!cars have become too successful...//...its use needs to be restrained like it or not
hmm not sure. Unless you're using blackbox recorders* and start charging from the second you start the motor, it's not going to affect all the lazy chuffers heading to the shops/school if you dont have to move in/out of charge zones. Also if you only have charging cameras/sensors on main roads then rat run minor roads are going to be chocka.and the ideal way would be pricing road use as you drive
*another neat idea that would probably solve a lot of problems but the majority will rabidly shout down.
