One year ago – we had this at lunch time…

“Enough is enough” is what we declared. Four vehicles involved in a speed related accident which only good fortune meant there were no human casualties. So where are we now? That’s a good question without a firm answer but full of potential for change later this year.

Those living on or walking and cycling along the well-used cut through between Lower Swainswick and Lansdown Road will have noticed the quieter environment caused by the Covid 19 measures. As we have come to expect, when the road has less traffic there is a strong temptation to speed which is how this type of accident continues to happen.

Here is an anecdote from two weeks ago…

A spontaneous gathering appeared, an hour ago, as a black range rover travelling from Lansdown Road lurched onto the pavement at 30mph to get past another vehicle and carried on with two wheels on the pavement past me at my gateway.  The driver was shouted at further down the road and revealed two fingers.  Other bystanders simply looked askance.  I gesticulated at probably the same female driver in the same car doing the same thing on Belgrave Crescent about three months ago and also got her two finger salute.  Twenty minutes later another car, in the same direction, engaged 4^th gear (you can tell, can’t you?) as she was passing 30 Prospect Place.  This behaviour is often characterised as ‘boy racer’ driving – it’s not restricted to men though.  62% of all drivers speed on this street – we have the facts to prove it.  As I write this, I can hear a motorbike passing at very high speed.  This road is treated as a race track despite the existing traffic calming measures, the recent signs and any other passive measures you can think of. 

As Cllr Clyde Loakes from Waltham Forest warned us at the Guildhall in January – he spent 14 years fiddling and getting nowhere.  LTNs require much more direct measures and resilience and boldness from supporters to lead them through. I hear cries of the CRA being too Camden Road centric.  We’re not in my view as we take care to consider all the roads on our map.  The problems nonetheless are most acute on Camden Road and many of the 145 residents have stated whilst signing up for our LTN campaign that they feel physically unsafe.  Anything we achieve for Camden Road will benefit the other streets too – we must ensure that this remains the case. 

• I hear cries for a Busgate at peak hours only.  It is at off peak that these particularly crazy things happen. 
• I hear others claiming that privileged residents will be allowed through the busgate – that’s not in our proposal. In fact we will be just as much subject to it as anyone else and probably more often as we will be living close to it.

In my view it is one simple message about the road – it’s a neighbourhood street serving a larger local community.  Just like most other neighbourhoods we can’t continue to see it used as a high speed cut through at any time of the day.  The same types of concern are now registered in great numbers on the Council’s new Liveable Streets web-site here.

There is a planning application resubmitted for the delayed work to Cleveland Bridge which will involve its total closure eventually for a several month period. The streets of NE Bath are likely to take a large bulk of this traffic and all four local councillors know this. The CRA has been invited to promote its LTN ideas as a countermeasure to this which we have done.

More immediately there is a strong wish from the Council to push forward with LTNs more broadly with an indicated start date of September. We now have a dedicated team on finalising the CRA ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhood’ proposal which will eliminate most through-traffic by installing a bus-gate somewhere along its length.

In the meantime, if you haven’t done so please join the rest of us on our campaign to take the LTN idea forward here.

Final thought – where is the best example of a low traffic neighbourhood in Bath with a modal filter at one end?

Jeremy, Chair