Category Archives: traffic calming

The Latest News from 20’s Plenty for Darlington

Posted on by Posted in 20MPH, children, safety, schools, speed limits, traffic calming

Darlington Friends of the Earth’s Matthew Snedker continues to go from strength to strength with his work on the 20′ Plenty for Darlington campaign. Here is his latest update on how the campaign to introduce 20 mph speed limits on residential roads – with out speed humps – is getting on.

First some national news
The Department for Transport has announced that it is relaxing the requirements for 20 mph signage. In a move to remove red-tape and allow local authorities more power to implement 20 mph schemes without unnecessary cost and constraints, the DfT has announced new relaxations to allow far more flexible town-wide 20 mph schemes.

Liverpool city council is entering into consultation over plans that could result in 70% of the cities roads having 20 mph speed limits. It is estimated that this plan could provide savings of over £5.2 million per year in costs associated with traffic casualties.

What has been happening in Darlington
After our successful Green Fair stall we were invited to attend the launch of Green Park’s new play area. It is a lovely space and local residents have worked very hard to update and improve the play facilities.
We met local residents and talked about all the benefits that 20’s Plenty for Darlington will bring. Face painting and the ‘Breaking distance challenge’ proved popular, we sold car & bike stickers and we added another 30 signatures to our petition.

We are pleased to announce that we have received support from George Dent Nursery School. Carol Dawson, head teacher, said “When the policy was explained to me I thought ‘What’s not to like?’ If you care about children and other vulnerable groups how could you not support this campaign. It has been proved to be successful in other parts of the country and it’s time we had it in Darlington.”

More support comes from Acorn Dairy. Graham Tweddle  said “a 20 mph speed limit, would help reduce the noise generated by vehicles using the roads at night and also improve the fuel economy.” He also went on to say “What is of more concern, is the increasing number of sleeping policemen (of different styles) used by the council. These do have a significant impact on vehicle suspension.”

I have already had an approach from one councillor asking that roads in their ward be included in any trial of 20 mph speed limits.
Does your councillor know that you want slower speed on the roads where you live?

Community Carnival
We will be at the Community Carnival, with a stall in Stanhope Park. The Carnival takes place on Saturday 25th June between 11 am and 5 pm. Please come and meet the team and find out the latest news.

The next month…
I am arranging a meeting with Michael Straugheir, Traffic Management Officer, Durham Constabulary. We will be discussing the 20’s Plenty policy and looking at how to make Darlington’s streets saver for all road users.

I will be looking to meet chairs of the Borough Council’s scrutiny committees to discuss a formal request that they investigate the 20’s Plenty for Darlington policy.

You can get involved

As well as coming to see us at the Community Carnival there are plenty of ways to get involved:

  • Talk to you friends, neighbours and work colleagues about the benefits of 20’s Plenty.
  • Print out copies of our campaign leaflet and pass them around.
  • Print out copies of our petition and collect signatures, please ask for e-mail addresses so that we can keep people up to date with the campaign.
  • Contact you councillors. Let them know of your support for the campaign and ask for their opinions on road humps, child casualty rates and the latest news fro the Department of Transport. 
If you want to help with the campaign, you can contact Matthew at darlington@20splentyforus.org.uk

Contraflow Signage

Posted on by Posted in cars, Pedestrian Heart, pedestrians, speed limits, traffic calming 6 Comments

Earlier this year, Cambridge Cycling Campaign succeeded in winning local council support for the setting up of trial “cyclist contraflow” signs in parts of Cambridge. And as one of Darlington Cycling Campaign’s members pointed out to me today, Cycling England has been encouraging all cycling towns to make one-way streets two-way for cycling.


Here in Darlington we have already asked officers on a number of occasions to consider this. One area where this is perhaps more urgently required, however, is at the Duke Street exit of the Pedestrian Heart. Here, cyclists who leave the town centre are confronted with a particularly narrow road outside the Coop Bank, a road that is designed to be one-way for motorised traffic.


This picture shows the view from outside the town centre. This evening, on my way home from the station, I was cycling out of the town centre on this stretch when I noticed a car accelerating towards me and beeping his horn (at 8pm in the evening). He seemed in a great hurry. The reason soon became clear. He screeched to a halt before I was able to exit the narrow road into Duke Street to tell me off for cycling “the wrong way down a one way street”.


Having obligingly opened his car door to tell me so, I hung on to it in order to inform him that, in fact, he was entering the Pedestrian Heart, an area in which cycling is allowed both ways. But this was not enough for my car-centric friend, who clearly believed he had the right to speed into the pedestrianised Skinnergate because the bollard had been lowered.

Clearly, there is an education job to be done here. And what better way than to introduce, as is the case in many other countries, contraflow signs on one way streets. The usual safety “experts” will of course argue that “for safety reasons” this just cannot be introduced. But why is this deemed so unsafe, and ONLY in the dear old UK? Because we continue to pander to bad motorist behaviour, rather than developing an expectation of care when driving in built up areas. Contraflow cycling contributes to this.

Look again at the picture above, and you can see a so-called “flying motorcycle” sign. This is supposed to signal a road that is two-way for cyclists, but not motor vehicles. But how many motorists understand this? Especially when there are time restrictions which run out in the evening.

Perhaps more pertinent in this case is the question – why do motorists, other than commercial vehicles loading and unloading, require access into Skinnergate at all? Their only possible destination is a couple of hundred yards from this exit anyway. Would it not make sense “for safety reasons”, and indeed to save the NHS some money by encouraging a bit more walking, to simply keep motorised traffic out of the town centre altogether?

Simple Logic for Cycle Infrastructure

Posted on by Posted in beauty and the bike, Car-free Darlington, cycling in Europe, infrastructure, traffic calming 1 Comment

Netherlands-based Mark Wagenbuur has recently uploaded several new videos, one of which shows those situations in the Netherlands where you have cycle paths vs. those where you do not:

The logic is simple and obvious – the greater the amount and speed of motorised traffic, the greater the need for safe and high-quality cycling infrastructure. David Hembrow explores this logic further with a recent post on his blog.

But behind this policy lies a wider approach to urban planning. Residential streets are designed for residential use, and road planning ensures that rat-running, the scourge of many of Darlington’s streets, is simply not possible.

A few examples of this have appeared in Darlington, notably on the Haughton cycle route on Brunswick Street. But this is the exception rather than the rule for residential streets. Developing a cycling culture in Britain requires town planners and politicians to consider urban development more holistically. Cycling cannot simply be bolted on to an existing plan. Rather it needs to be an integral, and contributory factor, in a wider vision for residential streets, urban mobility, and the place of motorised traffic in our living spaces.

The opportunity is now there for Darlington, and other UK towns, to adopt just this approach, with Local Transport Plan 3, which will frame future transport thinking until 2025, now under consideration. But rather than being scared off by the excellent standards of infrastructure apparent in David and Mark’s videos, local authorities in the UK would do well to look again at the example of Bremen in our own film, Beauty and the Bike. In Bremen, levels of cycling are high (25%) despite very patchy standards of infrastructure. Here, cycle paths were first installed in the 1970’s, at a time when traffic levels – and infrastructure build standards – were generally much lower than today.

But behind the development of cycling infrastructure even then was a policy of urban planning that recognised where and how motorised traffic should be organised. The infrastructure pictured here also includes a ramp across every side street that slows down turning traffic, and gives priority to cyclists on the cycle path. Moreover, these side streets all have 20mph speed limits, are typically one way for motorised traffic but two way for cyclists, and lead to nowhere for through traffic.

The double concerns of everyday cyclists in the UK – poor infrastructure and motorist behaviour – mirror perfectly the wider perspective that has lain behind core urban transport policy in this country. Thankfully, a debate is now opening up that questions this. As this post is being written, Lynn Sloman is speaking in Darlington on the findings of a report commissioned by the Department for Transport to independently quantify the results obtained by the three Sustainable Travel Demonstration Towns; Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester. Her excellent book Car Sick offers a way forward for de-motorising our urban centres. Cycling Campaign members are there to meet her.

LTP3s around the country really have to decide – is cycling going to continue as a bolt on to car-centric urban transport policy? Or is it time for the UK to begin the long process of de-motorising our towns?

Create more bike-friendly streets by empowering councils

Posted on by Posted in infrastructure, politics, routes, speed limits, traffic calming 2 Comments

Councils should be given greater powers to create designated streets that favour cyclists over cars, a national inquiry has concluded.

‘Active communities: cycling to a better quality of life’ is the report of an inquiry held by the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) and Cycling England.

This report has found that transport regulations should be reviewed to give councils greater control over cycling routes to get more people out of their cars and onto their bikes.

Councils would be able to design the street to favour cyclists while also making it accessible for cars and pedestrians.

For every car driver converted to a bike, the UK economy saves around £400 a year through reduced medical bills, congestion and pollution, according to research conducted by Cycling England.

The inquiry report – downloadable as a PDF here – also calls for every public building to be an exemplar to encourage cycling, for example by implementing storage facilities and bike loan schemes.

LGiU Centre for Local Sustainability policy analyst Gemma Roberts said: “Councils should be given greater control over cycling routes to ensure more roads are made cycle friendly. We need to make it easier and safer for people to cycle.

“Local authorities need to take the lead and make cycling a priority in their communities,” she said.

“But the efforts to promote cycling do not stop with the council. We also need the professional and political backing to invest more heavily in cycling so we can really tackle some of the wider issues communities face, such as obesity, climate change and congestion.”

Shared Space in Drachten Revisited

Posted on by Posted in cycling in Europe, infrastructure, inspiration, pedestrians, traffic calming

Last year two members of the Cycling Campaign visited an example of Shared Space in Drachten, Netherlands. You can see our original post and video here.

Since that visit, the Space’s designers have posted an assessment of its impact on YouTube. Here it is. Some highlights stand out, when considering its implications for Darlington:

*It is a roundabout where 22,000 vehicles daily pass by. I wonder how these numbers compare with, say, the Victoia Road/Grange Road roundabout, where a solution for a cycle crossing is yet to be implemented?

*We have no queues anymore.

*The interaction around the roundabout – meeting each other, greeting each other. This refers to how car drivers and cyclists relate on the roundabout. Imagine!!!