Weekday Traffic Volume Profiles
The previously mentioned vehicle activated signs have yielded further information on the traffic flows along Camden Road. We’ve looked at the data we have for weekdays in part of May this year and created an amalgam of Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu profiles. This is for traffic moving NE away from Camden Crescent along Camden Road.
In the morning, traffic is leaving the central areas of Bath along Camden Road and is relatively light compared to the traffic coming into central Bath. This causes a relatively small peak in the morning and a long, heavy peak in the evening which does not quieten down until after 11pm. This evening peak involves 250 vehicles per hour – one every 15 seconds, or actually nose-to-tail surges every minute or so. There is also a complementary flow in the other direction so the total is probably 450, or one every 10 seconds.
During the day, when the “massive bang” happened, there was still quite a high flow rate.
The bottom line is that there is a lot of traffic each day – probably about 3,800 vehicles per day, including very little between midnight and 7am.
How do we put this in some sort of context? Let’s take the DoT published figures for the A36, Beckford Road, a major arterial route, last year which were 15,700 vehicles per day. So Camden Road has a flow of about 25% of that. Now let’s put some other factors in: it’s a two carriageway road with a speed limit of 30mph. Camden Road is basically one carriageway along most of its length and can, at its speed limit of 20mph only support 67% as much traffic. Multiplying the Beckford Road figure by both these factors: 15,700 x 67% x 50% = 5,260. So, pro rata, Beckford Road is 38% busier than Camden Road. One is an arterial road, the other is a residential street.
As a fellow committee member said to me today, Camden Road needs to become a street, Camden Street, which supports street life and neighbourliness. This excessive traffic creates a safety issue, a social schism between the upper and lower sides and probably a public health hazard. We need our community to be united, breathing clean air and proud of our street by becoming a low traffic neighbourhood. The campaign starts here…
Spot on! Camden Street would be a brilliant name.
Hi John,
This is such a strong idea – thank you.
I wholeheartedly agree. How do we move this on? Exclude rush hour(s) traffic except busses, taxis and residents?
Hi, Christopher,
So glad for your expression of support. Our ideas for a ‘Low traffic Neighbourhood‘ might be the answer.
We hope to get round a map and outline the design of a LTN. It will no doubt need to be bigger than just Camden Road. We then need to start pressing the council with a large mandate from the local population.