Forum topic: Traffic count data reveals high incidence of speeding on a Lakes Estate street

Richard makes a powerful point about making it safe for kids to get to and from our local parks. But of course not every journey made by a kid is to / from a park; not everyone is a kid; and not everyone enjoys the level of nearby parks we benefit from in west PG. What the latest blizzard of road stats does however reveal is that essentially every local street does suffer from occasional-national-speed-limit breaking speeds and a significant minority of vehicles break the streets’ speed limit.
Focus on kids and parks by all means but we shouldn’t forget it’s a mere sliver of the overall problem-pie we are all forced to digest, every day, and pretty much all of the time.

It's a great we have some lovely parks close by, though many parents would hesitate before sending their children there on their own. One of the best things about living in Old Park Road is the wonderful atmosphere when the street is closed - the annual Street Party, the Car-free day and the other Sunday play days. The road is traffic free - and therefore engine noise, fume and danger free; adults and children alike can use the space between their houses for living - talking, playing, eating, drinking and socialising, rather than giving it over to the hundreds of rat-runners who speed down it every day. If only there were more days like that.

A head on crash in the centre section this Friday suggests all is not well with the outcome of planters in this street. Less engine noise and more i thought someone was coming through my front door. Quite unusual I must say for crashes tend to be at the two ends. Walking wounded only, fortunately. Bits of car still on the street if anyone is a collector.

I was walking up Fox Lane on Thursday, around 6pm, and had gone through the corrugated iron tunnel and was almost at Old Park Road. There was a car heading towards Green Lane at a normal speed when another car came down Fox Lane at high speed, passed the first car by going on the wrong side of the traffic island, heading straight for the bridge at 50 or 60mph on the wrong side of the road, he couldn't possibly have known whether anyone was coming up from Green Lanes. I'm generally opposed to capital punishment, but I think that going the wrong side of a traffic island should be a hanging offence.

The Lakes Estate roads are not too narrow for modal filtering, although that may be the perception. If anything they are wider than the roads I've seen in Waltham Forest where area-wide modal filtering has produced such a dramatic difference to residents' quality of life.

Kids should be the indicator species for healthy streets. If a child can safely and independently get to Broomfield or Grovelands Park - because of low traffic volume within the Fox Lane neighbourhood, and 20mph and decent crossings on Bourne Hill and Aldermans Hill - then an elderly or disabled person could get around safely and a 12-year-old could cycle to school. Result - healthy streets.

There’ll naturally be an intent to wait until all planters are in and the subsequent data is analysed but experience so far of Old Park Road and Fox Lane suggests the impact of changes so far on either the volume or velocity of traffic has been completely ineffective. That appears to be a widely held view, at least in this street. Perception does suggest that the very largest rat-running wagons are down in number - but certainly not small and mid-sized vans.

My cycling experiment (PG to Southgate) ended last year when I concluded the risks were simply too great. I see nothing to have changed that view since the installations. The bike remains back in the shed.

As part of the schemes assessment it’ll be interesting to hear exactly what the objective(s) of success was to be set against.

I wonder if the planters (and possibly the Fox Lane speed bumps) have contributed to an increase in speeds on OPR and other north/south residential roads as drivers work off the 'frustration' of the obstacles. Looking forward to the post- data.