Chalmers verge plans emerge

Good news on verges for residents of Chalmers Road and safer parking for everyone off Birdwood Road!

Following a recent verge 'walkabout' with councillors and council officers the city and county councils have worked together and approved in principle a long-awaited proposal to deal with the verges and parking in this area.

There is clearly a chronic shortage of parking spaces in this area yet well-kept verges can make an area much nicer. St Thomas's Square probably has the balance about right, with some bays and verges. Coleridge Conservatives have long argued that in places like Chalmers Road a combination of turning some verges into parking spaces and protecting others vigorously is the right answer.

The plan for Chalmers Road is to repair and reseed verges as approporiate but to turn two substantial sections of verge into hard standing: the low odds and mid evens.

The junctions of Birdwood Road with Gray Road, Ward Road and Chalmers road will have double yellow lines on the corners to discourage unsafe parking (it's a shame these are needed since the highway code is clear on this point as it is...), enforced by wooden bollards.

The Southern side of Birdwood Road as it joins Perne Road is to have its verge strengthened and reseeded.

We have asked the city council whether it is also possible to have trees planted to mitigate the effect of losing verges. Such planting would also help to enforce no parking on the verges.

Overall this seems like a great plan - I hope that it will be accepted by residents and councillors and that it will attract funding.

St Margarets Square Yellow Lines

The long awaited double yellow lines will be installed in St. Margaret's Square, weather permitting, on Monday 7th December 2009.

The traffic regulation order will be in force on the same date.

Action at last on Ruth Bagnall Court Parking

An issue that I have been moaning to the County Council about for ages looks like it might finally be heading for a solution.

Despite a perfectly adequate underground car park, there is always a row of cars parked on Coleridge Road outside Ruth Bagnall Court, causing problems for road users near the Mill Road junction, and resulting in numerous previous complaints. I've now received this from the County Council:

"For some considerable time the County Council has had limited funding for minor traffic management measures, which would include the introduction of short lengths of new parking or waiting restrictions such as double yellow lines in Coleridge Road adjacent to Ruth Bagnall Court. However, funding is now available to progress a small number of schemes including this one.

As you are probably aware, there is a statutory legal process we are required follow to introduce traffic regulation orders (TROs) prior to implementing any parking or waiting restrictions on street. To commence the statutory process any proposals must be advertised to allow people an opportunity to object.

This TRO will be advertised on 20th November 2009 in the Cambridge Evening News and notices erected on street indicating that objections must be received by 14th December 2009. Any objections will then be considered by the Cambridge Traffic Management Area Joint Committee (CAJC) at its meeting on 25th January 2010.

If no objections are received or if objections are not upheld and the scheme is approved by the CAJC we can then complete the legal processes to enable the order to come into operation and arrange for the installation of any necessary road marking /signing on-street."

Interesting Meeting later today

I'll be very interested to see the outcome of the County Council Conservative group AGM on Friday, in particular who the new Matt Bradney in charge of transport in the City will be. Whoever he or she is can expect a phone call - I have a little list...

UPDATE: Sounds like it will be a little while longer before we can see the white smoke...

Footpath lighting for Corrie/Brackyn Roads

Thank you to everyone who responded to our survey in March of Brackyn Road and Corrie Road with regard to signs for cyclists and pedestrians, street lighting and parking. I include a summary of the results at the end of this posting.

The latest news from the city and county councils on the project to install a new lighting column is that the county council would be able to pay the running costs and that, with the support of local residents, a safe city bid may be successful in paying for the capital costs.

The proposed new light would direct all light downwards. There are two possible locations: near the flats or by the verge. Please let us know if you have any preferences!

Signs directing pedestrians and cyclists through the roads
Every respondent supported this, although there is some concern that the scheme drawn up by the council is bigger than needed and may have the (unwanted to some) effect of directing people through the area who had not already intended to go through it.

Additional street lighting for connecting path
This also was fully supported, and some people were willing to put their names to a grant application. This will be useful for the next stage in the process.

Commuter parking problems
Opinion was divided on the existence and extent of the problem. Yellow lines, at least on corners, were the most popular remedy.

Footnote:

We sadly had to exclude one particular anonymous response from the results. Coleridge Conservatives have produced a number of surveys during the year and we use the information received to help guide our campaigning on local issues, so we were disappointed that an anonymous Labour supporter apparently using a computer where Labour's county council candidate works tried to sabotage the survey by entering a spurious on-line submission.

So just how expensive is yellow paint?

There are a number of sites around the ward that desperately need some yellow paint - increases in the yellow lines around junctions like Corrie Rd/Davy Road, or putting in new yellow lines at junctions like Chalmers Road/Birdwood Road, and outside Ruth Bagnall court - all areas where people probably know they shouldn't park, but there currently isn't anything indicating this is the case, so people park there anyway.

County Council is claiming it has no budget for this work, and this is extremely frustrating. The problem is that the cost of putting down a bit of yellow paint seems to be out of all proportion to what you might expect. 

At St Margarets square, which has required a bit of yellow paint for years, the cost is estimated at £1,500. I simply cannot understand why it is so expensive. Yes, you have to agree and advertise a TRO (Traffic restriction order), and the contractors for this type of work seem to be as rare as reliable plumbers in the era before we discovered Poland, but even taking all this into account the costs look ridiculous. And if nothing else, the amount of time the bureacrats at the Council spend considering and shifting from one set of agenda papers to the next these various requests, you would have thought they could just get on with it.

I have asked for further details of why this costs so much, to see if the system can be streamlined - are we paying too much for statutory advertising? What are the contractual arrangements with those who will actually do the work - are we being ripped off? And finally, the County Council is extremely good at making the wholly inadequate funding from government go a long way, but in this case it is time to bite the bullet, pay to get in a job lot of yellow paint and fix all these problems in one go...

Corrie/Davy Junction

Quick bit of info...

Lots of people were concerned about parking near the Corrie Rd/Davy Rd junction - I've followed this up with the relevant people, who have inspected the site and confirmed that the yellow lines weren't properly re-instated after road resurfacing, and this will be fixed (hopefully reasonably shortly) to put them back to where they should be. Extending them beyond this is apparantly a wholly more complex question...