Question
There have been numerous resident concerns raised regarding London Road in Wokingham since the new cycle lanes have been introduced. These have included the safety of the new cycle lanes, the safety of, and lack of compliance with, the ‘no right turn’ at Whitlock Avenue, concerns about three other junctions on this road (William Heelas Way, Froghall Lane and Priest Avenue) and the lack of pedestrian crossing along a long stretch of London Road where numerous families need to cross on the school run.
Residents have raised these issues out of a sense of community safety as well as the desire to support walking and cycling, and they are right to expect the Council to address their concerns. However they have not received a satisfactory answer for months and feel ignored. What is being done to address these concerns?
Minutes:
Question
There have been numerous resident concerns raised regarding London Road in Wokingham since the new cycle lanes have been introduced. These have included the safety of the new cycle lanes, the safety of, and lack of compliance with, the ‘no right turn’ at Whitlock Avenue, concerns about three other junctions on this road (William Heelas Way, Froghall Lane and Priest Avenue) and the lack of pedestrian crossing along a long stretch of London Road where numerous families need to cross on the school run.
Residents have raised these issues out of a sense of community safety as well as the desire to support walking and cycling, and they are right to expect the Council to address their concerns. However they have not received a satisfactory answer for months and feel ignored. What is being done to address these concerns?
Answer
The London Road Cycleway scheme, which I think is actually a very nice new cycleway and uses recycled kerbs amongst other things. Like all highway projects it goes through a rigorous process of Road Safety Audits (RSA) at various stages in its design and construction. A stage 1 Road Safety Audit was carried out at feasibility, a stage 2 Road Safety Audit was carried out at the detailed design stage and more recently a stage 3 Road Safety Audit was carried out now that the scheme is operational. The scheme we have delivered has been in line with all of the recommendations of the stage 1 and stage 2 RSA and the project designers are currently considering the relatively minor recommendations from the stage 3 RSA which we will implement.
It is because of the rigorous safety audit process which is carried out by independent qualified road safety experts that the Council is able to reassure residents that there are no immediate safety concerns with regard to the junctions of William Heelas Way, Whitlock Avenue, Froghall Lane, Priest Avenue and London Road. Whilst this has already been communicated to some residents, the Council remains willing to engage with anybody in the local community who has any lingering doubts, and I would be happy to answer any further questions.
With regard to the specific issue of non-compliance with the no right turn restrictions joining London Road from Whitlock Avenue Officers have met with representatives of the local community on site to discuss what additional measures might be possible to improve compliance. Unfortunately, when people drive dangerously it is quite difficult to do something about that sometimes, apart from putting a policeman there. The meeting concluded that it was not possible to have any additional physical barriers to a right turn without causing significant problems to people turning right into Whitlock Avenue. If you put a barrier across to stop a right turn you also then would not be able to turn into there and if you put some restriction in the middle of the road to stop people bearing right at the end it would mean that cyclists and pedestrians would not be able to cross safely, so we have got a bit of a problem there. We are considering whether additional signage would be appropriate to help drivers to recognise there is no right turn restriction and to obey the Highway Code. That is the fundamental thing people are driving dangerously and really they should be obeying the Highway Code and not doing that.
On the issue of sufficient pedestrian crossing facilities on London Road, it is worth noting that this project has only resulted in the removal of one pedestrian island. There are formal crossing facilities at regular intervals which serve the vast majority of families wishing to cross London Road. In fact I looked at it just before the meeting and on 1.5 miles of road there are actually five pedestrian crossings, which is probably an unusually high number. There are, however, a handful of properties that now have a longer walk to a crossing compared to the previous layout, and I do recognise that.
You may be aware that there is new cycle design guidance from the DfT in Local Transport Note, LTN 1/20. The new guidance was too late for us to incorporate in the design of this project and the Council will be making use of the guidance for new projects and we are looking forward to adopting it shortly.
Supplementary Question
With respect to the Safety Audits you are right that residents do know that they have been carried out but they do not feel that that is addressing their specific concerns. You know they are aware that has been done and the sort of process that has been followed but it is not addressing some of their specific concerns. I think we are all being encouraged to walk and cycle, quite rightly, but we should expect safe and convenient routes to do that. As you know this is a busy ‘A’ road and lots of people will be trying to cross it and I think if the residents are actually concluding that it is safer for them to drive rather than walk to school then something as gone wrong there.
I appreciate your answer and thank you for that and of what has been looked at. Would you agree to visit the site with me and to meet residents just to explain what has been looked at and sort of understand their concerns directly?
Supplementary Answer
Yes, that is exactly what I was about to suggest. Maybe between us we can help explain things to them a bit more clearly and help them understand what the facilities are, what we are planning, and what the audits have done. So yes I would be happy to meet.