In November Newcastle City Council consulted on its proposed Movement Strategy, setting out the Council’s vision, guiding principles and actions for a sustainable, inclusive and efficient transport network for Newcastle. This blog is SPACE for Gosforth’s response to that consultation.

While the Movement Strategy consultation is now closed, you can still comment on the NE Local Transport Plan up to 26 January 2025. We will write more about that in the coming weeks.

You can access the Council’s consultation material for the Movement Strategy on the Lets Talk Newcastle website.

Dear Newcastle City Council,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Movement Strategy. This letter sets out our group’s response.

SPACE for Gosforth is a residents’ group with the aim of promoting healthy, liveable, accessible and safe neighbourhoods where walking and cycling are safe, practical and attractive travel options for residents of all ages and abilities. We are residents of Gosforth, most of us with families. We walk, cycle, use public transport and drive. SPACE stands for Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment.

Key Points

• Newcastle is being outcompeted and outperformed by other UK and European cities both in terms of vision for transport, and in pace of implementation. We hope this movement strategy will rectify this and place Newcastle as a leader in sustainable transport.
• Newcastle City Council need to demonstrate how the Movement Strategy will make a difference given the many consultations already completed and given adopted Council policy already contains many of the same objectives. For example, “Planning for the Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan” was adopted by Newcastle and Gateshead Council on 26 March 2015, and contains substantially similar objectives for transport including (i) make Gateshead and Newcastle accessible to all, (ii) achieve a shift to more sustainable modes of travel, and (iii) reduce carbon emissions from transport. What will the Movement Strategy allow the Council to do that it is not already able to?
• The strategy should be a strategy for streets rather than just movement. Roads aren’t only ed for movement. They are also used to shop, meet, play and socialise amongst other uses. The strategy also needs to set out how different uses will be prioritised on different types of street – not one size fits all.
• The strategy needs to set targets as well as direction to confirm the scale of ambition. This should include a target for zero deaths and serious injuries, and also set out how, for transport, the city will achieve its target of Net Zero by 2030.
• The Council needs an approach to consultation for individual schemes to ensure people understand the benefits and trade-offs, while countering misinformation.

Transport Priorities

We support the listed priorities with one proposed change and the following additional comments.

Improving public transport

We support improving public transport in the context of the hierarchy of sustainable modes of transport set out in the Future Core Strategy (paragraph 11.12), and The Greener Journeys ‘decision tree’ included in the NE Transport Plan (figure 1 page 8). To align with existing Council and regional policy we suggest both are included in the new Movement Strategy.

Improving walking and wheeling opportunities

This needs to include effective maintenance, including winter maintenance, and keeping pavements clear e.g. from pavement parking.

Expanding cycling infrastructure

Cycling is the mode of transport least catered for currently in Newcastle, and therefore has the greatest potential to enable more people to travel safely and sustainably with minimal cost outlay. To achieve this, routes need to be safe, direct and designed in accordance with LTN1/20 to be useable by all ages and abilities.

Expanding electric vehicle infrastructure

This should not reduce space for people walking or cycling, and should include electric bikes and electric public transport (e.g. Metro, buses, trams and scooters) as well as cars.

Replacing vehicle journeys with cycling or public transport will achieve a much fast rate of emissions reduction than replacing ICE vehicles with electric ones.

Improving air quality

UK Legal limits need to be achieved in the shortest possible timescales, with a further target date set to achieve WHO limits.

Improving safety for all road users

We support safe pedestrian and cycling environments. The Council should target zero deaths and serious injuries on the city’s roads.

Improving accessibility for disabled people

All modes of transport including walking, cycling and public transport, should be accessible and safe for all ages and abilities.

Reducing traffic congestion

We suggest ‘Reducing traffic congestion’ is replaced by ‘Reducing traffic’ to align with the proposed action to ‘reduce private vehicle use’. This will have the desired effect of reducing congestion, as well as reducing air pollution and carbon emissions.

Seeking to reduce congestion by adding capacity to roads or junctions will quickly lead to additional ‘induced traffic’ cancelling out any expected benefit.

Delays to people walking and cycling should also be minimised.

Our suggestions for additional priorities are “good quality places”, “enabling children to travel independently”, and ‘achieving the net zero target’.

The strategy should be a strategy for streets rather than just movement. Roads are not only used for movement. Gosforth High Street, for example, is a destination and should be designed as such and not as a traffic-thoroughfare. This aligns with the proposed action ‘enhancing Newcastle’s public spaces’.

Enabling children to travel independently and safely on foot or by cycling to school, especially High School children who are expected to travel independently over quite long distances, should also be a priority. The recent adjudication on Gosforth Academy admissions stated that “The youngest pupils at GA (Gosforth Academy) are in Year 9; they are 13 years old and therefore most, if not all should be able to travel to school unaccompanied”, also noting that the shortest walking route between Gosforth Academy and Great Park Academy is 2.6 miles.

Streets are also used by younger children for play, and it should be safe for them to do so ideally via permanent interventions to reduce traffic, or via “Play Streets”. If the Council will implement Play Streets again in future it will need to ensure that applying for Play Streets is as simple and as straightforward as possible. In the past, the Newcastle scheme compared poorly with the neighbouring North Tyneside scheme in this respect.

Achieving the net zero target is not in the Council’s list of priorities but should be. Achieving the Council’s 2030 net zero target will be a significant factor in deciding which schemes to prioritise.

Key Principles

We support the proposed principles with the following additional comments.

Net Zero Newcastle

This should explicitly refer to Newcastle City Council’s 2030 Net Zero target. This requires a reduction in fossil fuel powered vehicles as well as a range of sustainable options for how to travel.

Sustainable Growth

We suggest ‘sustainable access’ rather than ‘essential access’.

Healthier, Active and Safe

This should enable, rather than just encourage, active travel.

The Council should set a target to achieve zero deaths and serious injuries on the roads.

Inclusive, Connected and Efficient

Walking, cycling and public transport should be actively prioritised because they are the most efficient forms of transport for urban areas as they require the least space per road user. Council design standards should ensure that pavements and cycle routes are usable by all ages and abilities.

Our suggestion for an additional Principle is “Vision Zero”.

One of the proposed principles is ‘healthier, active and safe’ but we think safety is sufficiently important that it should be a separate principle to apply to all modes of transport, not just active travel.

Vision Zero is based on the principle that “it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system”, or in other words “Life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society”.

To be most effective, this should focus on addressing, and ideally removing, the sources of danger, e.g. using the hierarchy of hazard controls. It should emphasise that responsibility for safety is shared by transport planners and road users, rather than being solely the responsibility of road users.

It should also involve a commitment to the consistent use of best practice standards such as LTN1/20 on all road schemes, not just those with specific active travel funding.

Actions

We support the proposed actions with the following additional comments.

Net Zero Newcastle – Making our transport system climate-resilient

We suggest adding “Ensuring the winter maintenance plan enables people to continue to walk and cycle safely during bad weather.”

Net Zero Newcastle – Promoting low-emission vehicles

“Ensuring freight and delivery services use ultra-low emission vehicles” should also include enabling the use of cargo bikes for freight as an alternative to small vans.

Net Zero Newcastle – Encouraging alternatives to driving

This should refer to the hierarchy of sustainable transport and include planning for micro-mobility e.g. eScooters, to anticipate future trends that may emerge between now and 2030.

We support the use of bus lanes in the context of that hierarchy. I.e. to enable buses to bypass queues caused by high traffic volumes, but not where this would cause a conflict with or safety issue for people walking or cycling.

If the purpose is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then this also needs to include specific measures to reduce private vehicle use e.g. by reducing or removing vehicular traffic travelling through residential areas, as more use of public transport, walking or cycling is not sufficient by itself to reduce carbon emissions.

Sustainable Growth – Improving access to opportunities

“Creating a high-quality walking and cycling network connecting neighbourhoods and shopping areas” should include maintenance i.e. “Creating and maintaining a high-quality walking and cycling network connecting neighbourhoods and shopping areas”.

For shopping areas like Gosforth High Street that are made up of multiple destinations (the individual shops and services), this should include the best possible access to each individual shop/destination.

Walking and cycling networks should also connect to schools, parks and workplaces as committed to in the Reframing Transport report, including “hard-to-reach” workplaces.

The Council will need to maintain its Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) to ensure that space on main roads planned to be used for walking and cycling is reserved for that purposed and not used for alternative purposes.

The networks will also need to link with neighbouring authorities to achieve the NE-wide regional active travel network referred to in the draft NE Transport Plan.

Sustainable Growth – Enhancing Newcastle’s public spaces

It should be possible to travel to and access public spaces on foot, by bike and by public transport.

We note that the 2015 Future Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan already has a developed policy for walking and cycling in the city centre.

In line with the local plan, further pedestrianisation should be planned for the city centre specifically, but this should not be implemented in a way that causes severance for people who need to travel across the city by bike or eScooter.

Roads that function as public spaces should be specifically designated in the Local Plan. This should include all District Centres including Gosforth High Street.

Guidelines for accessibility should cover walking, cycling and public transport, and the Council should adopt national or regional guidance where available (as it has already done with LTN1/20) rather than expend limited resources creating new guidance specifically for Newcastle.

Sustainable Growth – Ensuring sustainable growth

“Promoting car-free lifestyles and reducing car ownership” should be rewritten as “Enabling car-free lifestyles and reducing car dependency”, as there is no point promoting something without it first being enabled.

Any review of roadside space should take account of future plans for Newcastle’s cycle network.

Rather than “reviewing vehicle access in high pedestrian or cycling areas” the Council should be proactively looking for opportunities to remove barriers to walking and cycling. This should include action to substantially reduce the number of vehicles using roads that are not part of the distributor network.

Healthier, Active and Safe – Making streets safer

The first bullet point should be rewritten as “Implementing schemes to make streets safer and reduce the number and severity of collisions”.

In the second bullet replace “access” with “accessibility” i.e. “Ensuring all street investments improve safety and accessibility”.

We support road safety training for school children, but training and education should, in line with the updated Highway Code, also focus on those most likely to cause danger to others.
Residential streets i.e. roads not defined as primary or secondary distributors, should be sufficiently safe for younger children to travel around their local area, meet friends and play outside.

Add “Working with the Police and Crime Commissioner to target the most dangerous behaviours.”

This should also include reference to proven safety approaches such as lowering speed limits, low-traffic neighbourhoods and school-streets.

Healthier, Active and Safe – Encouraging daily physical activity

“Connecting communities, schools, and shopping areas with a network of walking and cycling routes” should not be limited to “low-traffic areas.” The greatest protection is needed in areas with high levels of traffic. Routes should also be safe for all ages and abilities, direct, and for cycling meet the standards set out in LTN1/20.
Streets also have an important use to enable younger children to play and be active. This is currently not the case.

According to the Director of Public Health Report 2023 fewer than 4 in 10 (39%) children and young people in Newcastle aged 5 to 18 years meet the UK Chief Medical Officers’ physical activity guidelines while 8% of children in Reception and 42% of children in Year 6 are classed as overweight or obese.

Healthier, Active and Safe – Prioritising clean air

Electric vehicles do not have tailpipe emissions, but they do not eliminate pollution. Not least, they still cause air and water pollution from tyre and brake dust.

Air pollution limits should be achieved in the shortest possible timescales (as required by UK law), with a target date set to achieve more stringent WHO limits.

Inclusive, Connected and Efficient – Designing for all

This should include ensuring pavements and the cycle network are usable by all ages and abilities.

Also add “Well maintained pavements and cycle lanes clear of obstructions such as EV charge points and pavement parking”.

Narrowing junctions is a relatively cheap way to improve safety and reduce crossing distances for people walking. We would welcome the Council’s reconsideration of pedestrian priority on side street crossings on Gosforth High Street.

Crossings should minimise wait time for pedestrians, especially during poor weather.

Inclusive, Connected and Efficient – Improving local connections

Add “Reducing severance” e.g. by improving pedestrian and cycle crossings over the Urban Motorway, Metro, River Tyne and the A1 Western bypass.

“Implementing traffic reduction schemes in neighbourhoods” should include the use of low traffic neighbourhoods to prevent non-local traffic using neighbourhood streets as a short cut to avoid queues on the main road network.

Inclusive, Connected and Efficient – Reducing private vehicle use

This is likely to be a significant challenge given widespread EV adoption is likely to reduce the cost of driving substantially and therefore lead to a substantial increase in traffic.

This should include the most effective measures to reduce vehicle use: removing through traffic in residential areas; and reallocating road space on main roads to provide protected cycling facilities and no-car lanes.

Final Comments or Suggestions

• The strategy needs to prioritise urgent action now rather than blue-sky policy making with no real-world impact. Although substantial progress has been made with the implementation of the CAZ, the city is long-overdue to meet legal air quality targets and only has five years left before the Council’s 2030 Net Zero target.
• A strategy needs leadership willing to implement the strategy, not give up at the first sign of disagreement. There’s no political choice that has unanimous backing, and that is as true for transport as every other domain.
• The strategy should include a plan for engaging with residents in a way that allows for views to be sought but also ensures schemes can be implemented quickly so the benefits are achieved as soon as possible. This should include rapidly challenging false narratives and incorrect information e.g. false claims such as LTNs causing substantial extra traffic on main roads or increasing emergency vehicle response times (neither of which have happened).
• Likewise, the strategy needs to include a plan for how residents’ comments will be assessed and acted on to enable policy outcomes to be achieved. This should ensure comments with good evidence are weighted more highly than spurious claims, and it should minimise status quo and sampling biases.
• If the plan is to replace existing policy, e.g. in the DAP or Reframing transport, it should ensure the new strategy is even more ambitious and include any actions from the DAP and other policy documents that are still relevant. If applicable, it should also explicitly state which policies it replaces. A list of existing Council transport-related policy is provided in Appendix A.
• Road safety should be non-negotiable, and not tradeable for other benefits (Vision Zero). The Council should consider how both Councillors and Council officers can increase residents’ understanding of Vision Zero and why it is important.
• The strategy should commit meeting and exceeding the objectives set out in the Government’s Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) guidance, including the aim for cycling that adjacent routes within the network should not be any more than 400m apart.
• Actions that support all principles should be given the highest priority, for example a safe accessible, all age and ability cycle network would improve safety, improve health, cut emissions and pollution. Likewise, actions that have a negative impact on multiple objectives e.g. increasing road capacity for vehicles, should not be pursued.
• The strategy needs to include firm metrics for how progress will be measured and reported, with time-bound targets. The consultation should take account of polling and consultations already completed. Some examples are given in Appendix B.

Thank you again for this opportunity to provide input to the Movement Strategy and we look forward to the final report.

Yours faithfully,

SPACE for Gosforth

Appendix A Existing Council Policy on Transport

Approved City Council Motions
• Climate Emergency – City Council 3 April 2019
• Greater Focus on Cycling – City Council 2 October 2019
• School No Idling Zones – City Council 5 February 2020
• Use of E-Cargo Bikes – City Council 6 October 2021
• Investment in Roads and Pavements – City Council 12 January 2022
• Promoting Active Travel All Year Round – City Council 12 January 2022
• Gosforth High Street – City Council 2 November 2022
• Pavement Parking – City Council 1 November 2023

Local Plan
• Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan policies including CS13, UC5 to UC12 and Newcastle Sub-Areas and Site-Specific Policies
• Development and Allocations Plan policies DM10 – DM14
• Addendum to 2015 NCC adoptable design standards to include amended cycling infrastructure to comply with LTN 1/20

Council approved plans and targets
• Transport changes to help make neighbourhoods clean, green, and safe (June 2021) including the Transport Vision for a Healthy Newcastle, the Draft Newcastle LTN Plan and the Newcastle Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan
• Reframing Transport (October 2022) including adoption of LTN1/20
• The Net Zero Action Plan, 2030 target, transport policies and actions
• World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended air pollution limits for PM2.5 to be achieved by 2030 (adopted by Newcastle City Council March 2019).
• The Clean Air Zone and other transport-related actions set out in the annual Air Quality Annual Status Reports
• The Winter Maintenance Plan
• Blue Green Newcastle
• The Ouseburn initiative, including the Ouse Burn Way

Regional Policy approved / adopted by Newcastle City Council via NECA.
• NE Transport Plan (2021) including the target for no deaths or serious injuries by 2025
• NE Active Travel Strategy (2023)
• NE Bus Service Improvement Plan (2023)
• NE Rail and Metro Strategy (2022)
• Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy (2022)

 
Appendix B Examples of representative surveys and already completed consultations

• Active Travel England recently confirmed 85% of people in England support active travel and would like to do more.
• The Bikelife Tyneside survey that showed “72% think that more cycle tracks along roads physically separated from traffic and pedestrians would be useful to help them cycle more” and the same number also think “space should be increased for people socialising, cycling and walking on their local high street”.
• The Council’s Local Plan 2040 consultation where ‘developing a sustainable transport network’ was the ambition that mattered to the most people, and the top answer to what would make it easier to use more active travel options was ‘make active travel routes safer’.
• Newcastle City Council’s 2019 LCWIP consultation, and Streets for People consultations.

The post Movement Strategy response appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

Flooding in Newcastle October 2021

Newcastle City Council is consulting on a new Movement Strategy policy and is asking for comments by 29 November 2024. 

You can complete the online questionnaire here, and there is also an information brochure.

It asks residents and organisations to judge different objectives from ‘not important’ to ‘very important’. Objectives include improving different types of transport, EV charging, safe, accessibility, air quality and congestion. There are also free text fields where you can add your own thoughts.

According to the Council, the final strategy will be presented to Cabinet in “Spring 2025” after which it will develop an implementation plan. No timescales are given for the implementation plan, or for any schemes that may be proposed as a result of the plan.

This blog sets out some thoughts on how to respond, but first please forgive us for having a bit of a rant. Normally, we try to address issues calmly, but with this consultation we are feeling somewhat differently.  This is why:

What does SPACE for Gosforth think?

You would be forgiven for having a sense of deja vu.

Newcastle City Council has already consulted on transport policy via its Development and Allocations Plan and its 2040 Local Plan early engagement consultation, transport-related air quality via the Clean Air Zone consultation, walking and cycling via its LCWIP consultation, and Streets for People consultations in Jesmond, Fenham and Heaton. It has an air quality plan action plan, a Net Zero transport plan, and a strategy for safer, cleaner, greener neighbourhoods set out in the Reframing Transport report approved by Council Cabinet. 

Transport North East, which was made up of seven north east authorities including Newcastle consulted on its North East Transport Plan, the North East Active Travel Strategy, its Making the Right Travel Choice strategy, and has also asked for feedback via a Walking and Cycling Survey. The new Mayoral Authority has just launched a separate consultation on an update of the NE Transport Plan, which the tweet below refers to.

https://twitter.com/NorthEast_CA/status/1853430338824912909

Meanwhile, legal air quality limits that should have been met by 2005 have still not been achieved, minimal progress has been made to decarbonise transport since Newcastle City Council’s 2019 declaration of a Climate Emergency  (target net zero by 2030), nor has there been any progress to cut road deaths and serious injuries (target “no fatalities or serious injuries on the regions’ road network by 2025″). Experimental schemes to cut traffic in local areas have been removed, the school streets programme under-delivered and has now been stopped, and the Council abandoned its commitment to the LTN1/20 cycling safety standard at one of the locations it is needed most (Gosforth High Street).

Now, the Council asks us whether Newcastle’s transport networks should prioritise cutting air pollution, carbon emissions or road collisions up to 2045, when by 2045 they should (according to the Council’s current targets) have already been net zero, compliant with legal limits on air pollution, and without death or serious injury for at least 15 years.

What confidence should we have that any new plan will deliver on any of these new objectives when it fails to acknowledge existing policy or objectives, and when the (now former) Cabinet lead for transport dismissed residents supporting safer streets as ‘the cycle lobby‘?

City Centre Traffic – priority to vehicles

Rant Over

That all said, this consultation is part of the process to create the new Movement Strategy, and if you don’t respond your view won’t be taken into account – so please do complete the Council’s survey.

Most of the consultation asks you to select an option from “very important” / “strongly support” to “not important” / “strongly oppose”, and there’s little to disagree with. It’s a bit like asking do you want cake, biscuits and ice cream? And, unlike in the real world, you can have all of them without having to choose. 

There are four free text questions where you can fill in your own thoughts. Our suggestions for additional priorities, principles and actions are below.

1. Are there any other priorities you think should be included?

Our suggestions for additional priorities are “good quality places”, “enabling children to travel independently”, and ‘achieving the net zero target’.

The strategy should be a strategy for streets rather than just movement. Roads aren’t only used for movement. Gosforth High Street, for example, is a destination and should be designed as such and not as a traffic-thoroughfare. This aligns with the proposed action ‘enhancing Newcastle’s public spaces’.

Enabling children to travel independently and safely on foot or by cycling to school, especially High School children who are expected to travel independently over quite long distances, should also be a priority. The recent adjudication on Gosforth Academy admissions stated that “The youngest pupils at GA (Gosforth Academy) are in Year 9; they are 13 years old and therefore most, if not all should be able to travel to school unaccompanied”, also noting that the shortest walking route between Gosforth Academy and Great Park Academy is 2.6 miles.

Achieving the net zero target is not in the Council’s list of priorities but should be. Achieving the Council’s 2030 net zero target will be a significant factor in deciding which schemes to prioritise. 

We also suggest ‘Reducing traffic congestion’ is replaced by ‘Reducing traffic’ to align with the proposed action to ‘reduce private vehicle use’. This will reduce congestion, as well as reducing air pollution and carbon emissions. 

Football fans leaving St James Park after a match

2. If you have any suggestions for additional principles that should be included in the Movement Strategy, please include them here.

Our suggestion is “Vision Zero”.

One of the proposed principles is ‘healthier, active and safe’ but we think safety should be a separate principle to apply to all modes of transport, not just active travel.

Vision Zero is based on the principle that “it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system”, or in other words “Life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society”.

This should focus on addressing the sources of danger, e.g. using the hierarchy of hazard controls, and emphasises that responsibility for safety is shared by transport planners and road users, rather than being solely the responsibility of road users. 

It should also involve a commitment to the consistent use of best practice standards such as LTN1/20.

Traffic on the Tyne Bridge – how should the Tyne Bridge be used in future?

3. If there are any additional actions you think we should take to improve transport in Newcastle please tell us about them here:

Our suggestions are:

• In Net Zero Action 2 – making Our Transport System Climate Resilient, include “Ensuring the winter maintenance plan allows people to continue to walk and cycle safely during bad weather.”
• In Net Zero Action 2 – Promoting low-emission vehicles, ensuring freight and delivery services use ultra-low emission vehicles should also include enabling the use of cargo bikes for freight as an alternative to small vans.
• In Net Zero Action 3 – Encouraging Alternatives to Driving, add plan for micro-mobility e.g. eScooters, to anticipate future trends.
• In Sustainable Growth Action 1 – Improving Access to Opportunities. “Creating a high-quality walking and cycling network connecting neighbourhoods and shopping areas” should be “Creating and maintaining a high-quality walking and cycling network connecting neighbourhoods and shopping areas”. 
• In Inclusive, connected and efficient Action 1 – Designing For All, add “Well maintained pavements and cycle lanes clear of obstructions such as EV charge points and pavement parking”
• In Inclusive, connected and efficient Action 2 – Improving local connections add 
• Reducing severance e.g. by improving pedestrian and cycle crossings over the Urban Motorway and the A1 Western bypass.
• In Inclusive, connected and efficient Action 2 – Improving local connections “Implementing traffic reduction schemes in neighbourhoods” should include the use of low traffic neighbourhoods to prevent non-local traffic using neighbourhood streets as a short cut to avoid queues on the main road network.

Crossing the Great North Road, north Gosforth

4. If you have any final comments or suggestions about the proposed Movement Strategy, please tell us about them here:

• The strategy needs to prioritise urgent action now rather than blue-sky policy making with no real-world impact. The city is long-overdue to meet legal air quality targets and only has five years left before the 2030 Net Zero target.
• A strategy needs leadership willing to implement the strategy, not give up at the first sign of disagreement. There’s no political choice that has unanimous backing, and that is as true for transport as every other domain.
• The strategy should include a plan for engaging with residents. This should include rapidly challenging false narratives and incorrect information e.g. false claims such as LTNs causing additional traffic on main roads or reducing emergency vehicle response times.
• If the plan is to replace existing policy, e.g. in the DAP or Reframing transport, it should ensure it is more ambitious and include any actions from the DAP and other policy documents that are still relevant. 
• Road safety should be non-negotiable, and not tradeable for other benefits (Vision Zero).
• Actions that support all principles should be given the highest priority, for example a safe accessible, all age and ability cycle network would improve safety, improve health, cut emissions and pollution. Likewise, actions that have a negative impact on multiple objectives e.g. increasing road capacity for vehicles, should not be pursued.
• The strategy needs to include firm metrics for how progress will be measured with time-bound targets.

Please complete the Council’s online questionnaire online questionnaire by 29 November 2024.

If you think we have missed any important points please let us know via the comments below.

What do you think our transport networks should look like in 20 years? We need your views and ideas to help us develop a Movement Strategy that will shape transport development across the city. You can find out more and take part in our consultation now at https://t.co/daGzf9j92r pic.twitter.com/OZOfMejZa6

— Newcastle City Council (@NewcastleCC) October 14, 2024

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The Council haven’t published a report on the Gosforth High Street ETRO consultation that finished in September 2023, so we thought we would have a look at what people said.

• Overwhelmingly (66%) responses were negative or mostly negative and wanted the trial to be removed. This increased to 74% if ‘likes’ were also taken into account (similar to Jesmond).
• The biggest reasons people gave for not wanting to make the trial permanent were the need for better cycling facilities, traffic congestion and the design prioritising through traffic over the High Street’s role as a destination.
• The one main positive reason given was that it was good for buses.

We shouldn’t read too much into any percentages however, as the purpose of consultation is to identify rather than quantify issues. Residents already have a say over policy via local elections. If Councils want a view on what proportion of residents support or oppose a trial then they would have to poll residents, and they haven’t done that.

Unlike Jesmond however, which was shared across national media, we believe the vast majority of comments on the Gosforth High Street trial were from residents or other users of Gosforth High Street.

Overall sentiment

Overall 66% of 452 responses on the CommonPlace survey website were negative or mostly negative about the trial layout, while fewer than a quarter thought the trial layout should be made permanent.

This is based on individual responses and does not include ‘likes’ or other feedback the Council may have received e.g. via email. Including ‘likes’ takes the negative / mostly negative figure to 74%.

Opposition to the Gosforth High Street Trial Layout

Six main reasons were given for disliking the trial layout. These included a mix of concerns including the poor environment for pedestrians, lack of safe cycling facilities and congestion for motor traffic. Other concerns shared were that the layout made the road more dangerous and polluted and that it is not appropriate for a destination like Gosforth High Street.

20% in the above graph equates to roughly 90 responses in the consultation. When counting responses we have included all mentions of the concern regardless of whether the response was negative or positive overall, though the vast majority were negative or mostly negative.

The fact that people have raised these points as concerns doesn’t mean they are actually issues, but they should be assessed objectively by Council officers. Our assessment of each of these is included below, based on information already in the public domain.

Support of the Gosforth High Street Trial

Only one reason for liking the trial layout was mentioned in over 10% of responses – that the trial layout was better for buses.

As with comments opposing the trial, we have counted all positive mentions of buses regardless of whether the response overall was positive or negative.

What better cycling facilities did people ask for?

The need for better cycling facilities were asked for in 21% of responses. Many of these comments expressed a view that Gosforth High Street was dangerous for cycling. Some included specific requests, which ranged from general support, more cycle parking, protected lanes on Gosforth High Street and improvements in the surrounding areas.

• “The measures are not safe for cyclists and there are way too many buses. Give cyclists a properly segregated cycle lane in both direction.”
• “It’s so dangerous to ride down there with buses giving no space and crowding up behind you.”
• “I don’t cycle to the high street and I wouldn’t want my kids doing so currently, sharing bus lanes with the largest vehicles on the road.”
• “I often have to cycle along and across the high street with my children, as implemented these changes have made this feel much more dangerous than the temporary bollards that were there before. The changes fall well short of the LTN 1/20 guidance.”
• “At the very least it needs to be safe for all users including families to walk or cycle to the shops…  If you want shops at either end of the High Street to be viable you need to make it possible to cycle between them.”
• “I am VI but also a cyclist. I feel this is no better to provide a safe and accessible cycle lane. It’s imperative that cycling is kept segregated from the road and pavement. I have had too many near incidents on the road.”
• “These proposals make it clear that pedestrians and cyclists are an after thought and will only help cars and buses get through gosforth as quickly as possible. It will put off the local people like me who spend money at the high street.”
• “What the High Street really needs are protected cycle lanes like Heaton Road has got (and look at what’s happened to that street – can barely move these days for tapas, sourdough and people having a nice time).”
• “Segregated cycle lanes on the High Street would encourage those who would like to cycle but are too frightened, including parents and children on the school run, and help reduce private car use.”

A much smaller number (~4%) thought the trial had improved cycling “At least, the sharing of space with buses is better than having to share a single lane with all traffic.” Some of these comments mentioned positively the cycle lane defenders north of Salters Road, though these are not in the trial area.

SPACE for Gosforth’s Assessment:  Based on the Government’s LTN1/20 Cycling Design Guidance, which Newcastle City Council has adopted, the new layout on Gosforth High Street doesn’t comply with standards and is only “suitable for few people and will exclude most potential users and/or have safety concerns“. The drawings for the plan confirm that Council leaders were aware the proposal didn’t comply with LTN1/20 when they approved it.

This is what’s missing from Gosforth High Street. https://t.co/g2NjLJQFWu

— space for gosforth (@space4gosforth) December 16, 2023

Traffic Congestion and Pollution

Increased traffic congestion was mentioned in 19% of responses, increased air pollution in 12%. 8% of responses mentioned both.

This comment sums up the sentiment “Traffic throughput has fallen significantly. There are now queues during the day, not just at rush hour, and air quality is worse. Changing from two northbound lanes to one at the Salters Road traffic lights (with the added bottleneck caused by buses merging in there)has caused congestion.”

People commenting made some suggestions for how to reduce congestion including reducing traffic levels (7% of all comments), rerouting buses (6%) and diverting people cycling along Moor Road South and Moor Road North (6%). A few people called for a toll e.g. “Introduce a toll system for non-local traffic and combine it with a park and ride system around Gosforth Park.“

Some suggested buses should stop at Regent Centre “The high Street needs to have less traffic, especially buses. Redevelop regent centre to provide the hub it was meant to be. More buses should stop there rather than going down the High Street.” This would be possible within the powers of the new NE Mayor.

A much smaller number (3%) said “traffic flow” either would or had improved.

SPACE for Gosforth’s Assessment: People often associate increased congestion with increased air pollution. Our tracking of air pollution on Gosforth High Street suggests air pollution is correlated with traffic volumes rather than traffic queues.  Congestion discourages more people from driving so while emissions per vehicle are increased, overall pollution levels are lower because there are fewer vehicles.

As traffic counts in 2023 are similar to 2022, we expect air pollution will remain within legal limits either at a similar level to 2022 or lower if the city centre Clean Air Zone has had an effect. The last time air pollution exceeded legal limits on Gosforth High Street was 2019, when it had two vehicle lanes in each direction outside Gosforth Shopping Centre. This, along with the need to improve safety and design for a destination, is why SPACE for Gosforth opposes a return to the pre-Covid layout.

In 2022, air pollution measurements taken in Gosforth were within the legal limit for the third year running.

We also know from the Council’s news article that journey times did not increase when Gosforth High Street was reduced to one general traffic lane in each direction, so we don’t expect the new layout will have negatively impacted vehicle journey times.

Design prioritising through traffic over the High Street’s role as a destination.

17% of responses said the road layout should support Gosforth High Street as a destination rather than prioritising through-traffic.

• “The scheme is focused on moving traffic especially buses through the High Street. The scheme should instead focus on improving the High Street to reinforce its primary function as a District Centre for the wider Gosforth hinterland.”
• “This scheme isn’t suited to the way Gosforth High Street is used. It is a local shopping hub, which benefits from a lot of custom from pedestrians including a lot of people and students on their way to and from school.”
• “The Council have been talking for years about how Gosforth High Street should be more of a destination but this seems solely focused on getting people through as quickly as possible.”
• “The street is so busy with motor traffic it is an open sewer of dangerous vehicles and the pollution they create. Please create a new design that puts local people who walk and cycle to the high street first and that supports local businesses by creating a pleasant place where people want to spend time.”
• “More emphasis needs to be on making GHS a destination for visitors by discouraging through traffic and improving the experience for shoppers on foot. At the moment walking along the shops is unpleasant because of motor vehicles, narrow pavements and frequent obstacles.”
• “Gosforth High Street should be a destination not a through route. You should be encouraging pedestrians (either make it mostly pedestrianised with only bus routes going through) or at a minimum give more priority to pedestrians crossing – currently you can wait ages for the lights to change.”

A few comments suggested driving to Gosforth High Street had been made harder.

• “The restructured traffic system is having a negative effect on Gosforth High Street shops as shoppers avoid the area due to the congestion on the High Street and the fact that it is now much more dangerous to drive there.”
• “Most motorists would rather visit the metro centre or cramlington to avoid going to the high street. By bringing in these measures the high street will die.”
• “You may as well block it completely to traffic. I wish all the businesses success in 2023, however NCC clearly don’t have any consideration for local businesses.”

The ‘no loading’ restrictions were also mentioned, mostly negatively. However, one business owner said the restriction was good in that it “removes unwanted delivery drivers from blocking sight of my expensive window displays”.

SPACE for Gosforth’s Assessment: In November 2022 Councillors unanimously supported a motion that the road layout should support the development of Gosforth High Street as a thriving local destination. It has not achieved that objective. SPACE for Gosforth has looked at this in its blog Gosforth High Street has been designed like a bypass rather than a shopping destination. In that blog we described how priorities for a shopping street / community hub would differ from what is currently being trialled.

Gosforth High Street has been designed like a bypass rather than a shopping destination.

If you want a better plan for Gosforth High Street, you need to respond to the Council’s consultation ASAP.https://t.co/OVODoUDBkV pic.twitter.com/vyy4oRzzYZ

— space for gosforth (@space4gosforth) September 10, 2023

More Dangerous 

16% of responses cited safety concerns with some saying they believed Gosforth High Street was more dangerous as a result of the new trial layout.

• “The road itself now feels dangerous – it’s a slalom course with lanes converging on more than one occasion which will lead to more accidents.”
• “The number of incidents and ‘near misses’ the bus lane has caused when turning left into the street are countless
• “The bus lane is not needed at all. It has already caused a collision near the old Barclays Bank.”
• “The bus lanes are a danger to cyclists and cars and I feel it just doesn’t work.”
• “Currently very scary to cycle in a shared lane with bus drivers trying to make the most of their new ‘fast lane’. Many of the drivers are deliberately intimidating.”
• “I also believe the measures are over complicated and make the high street more dangerous for vulnerable users of the space cyclist and pedestrians.”
• “I rode my motorbike along the High Street yesterday, heading North, and it was the scariest section of rode that I’ve ridden in 45 years of motorcycling.”
• “You have made a perfectly good road into a dangerous, overly complex traffic flow. The road is stop, start with a ridiculous new chicane and intermittent bus lanes.”
• “This has made the high street more dangerous, particular for children crossing.”

SPACE for Gosforth’s Assessment:  Between April 2023, when the trial layout was installed, and the end of February 2024 there were nine traffic collisions on Gosforth High Street between Elmfield Road and Salters Road. The equivalent for the previous ten years was 3.4.

SPACE for Gosforth recently wrote to Council leadership about this Gosforth High Street rethink needed after dramatic jump in injuries. We also sent the Council a list of safety concerns prior to the trial being implemented, which we documented in our blog Gosforth High Street – Safety Concerns.

These concerns were also covered by Chronicle Live.

Campaigners want to see the route redesigned again after a spike in traffic collisionshttps://t.co/WFzQ7Htmpe

— The Chronicle (@ChronicleLive) April 26, 2024

Improvements for Pedestrians

11% of responses complained that the new layout either made Gosforth High Street worse for pedestrians, or at least did nothing to improve it.

• “The current carriageway crossings are too wide to enable adequate crossing time for disabled people.”
• “At the moment walking along the shops is unpleasant because of motor vehicles, narrow pavements and frequent obstacles. I would like to see wider pavements, pedestrian areas and fewer private cars.”
• “You should be encouraging pedestrians (either make it mostly pedestrianised with only bus routes going through) or at a minimum give more priority to pedestrians crossing – currently you can wait ages for the lights to change.”
• “Declutter the pavement and trial removing the black bollards which take up over half a metre of pavement space on each side. 5) Reduce pedestrian crossing wait times, and ensure that there is time for people to cross.”
• “Pedestrianise side street-ends so people walking along the High Street have priority over turning vehicles in line with the new Highway Code.”
• “It should be semi-pedestrianised, in the same way the bus lane next to monument used to be. This would provide a quiet, clean high street, more space for businesses to expand seating areas onto the footpaths, an opportunity for weekend markets, food markets, etc”
• “The high street would be far more enjoyable if there was greater space for pedestrians. Gosforth has lots of great businesses, cafes, schools, yet pedestrian access is hindered in favour of using the route as a thoroughfare”

SPACE for Gosforth’s Assessment: On 20 March 2023, Newcastle City Council said they “will be developing ideas to share in the coming months to make it safer, easier, and better for people to get around on foot and on bike”. Over a year has passed and we still haven’t seen any proposals.

SPACE for Gosforth has shared a number of suggestions with the Council that could have been introduced as part of the trial, but none have been acted on. These suggestions are set out in our blog Gosforth High Street – Small Changes.

In August we had a team walk along Gosforth High Street to see if we could come up with some ideas for what could be tried out fairly cheaply as part of the current trial arrangements. This is what we came up with. Let us know if you have any other ideas!https://t.co/e4MMvbve8W

— space for gosforth (@space4gosforth) October 4, 2023

Other Comments

Other concerns that fewer than 10% of responses mentioned were

• Concerns about high levels of traffic using side streets (6%).
• The removal of residents’ parking at the south end of Gosforth High Street (3%).
• The layout being confusing, especially the stop-start nature of the bus lanes (3%).

SPACE for Gosforth’s Assessment: We have been concerned with high levels of traffic in side streets for a very long time. Whether this trial has increased volumes or not, and regardless of the changes on Gosforth High Street, this is an issue that needs dealing with. See for example this blog from 2016 1000 Speeding Drivers – A typical day on Gosforth’s back streets.

Residents parking was removed when the bus lane was installed. If parking is ever to be re-installed at the south end of Gosforth High Street then it should be done in a way that keeps the pavement clear and enables people to cycle safely.

Previous consultations

Residents have been consulted multiple times on the future of Gosforth High Street.

When residents were consulted in 2013, over 70% said it was important to make cycling improvements in and around Gosforth High Street.

Following that consultation, in April 2014, a petition signed by more than 3,000 people was handed into Newcastle City Council calling for a reduction in traffic to one lane each way, protected 24 hour cycle lanes, as well as opposing the reduction in spaces at Salters Road car park.

In 2018, SPACE for Gosforth sent its Your Streets – Your Views survey to residents of East and West Gosforth and Parklands wards, including a question on Gosforth High Street. The greatest concerns then were too much traffic and poor air quality.

While air quality has improved compared to 2019 due to a reduction in traffic levels, much more could be done to make Gosforth High Street a safer, more welcoming environment.

Conclusion

The Council has a clear mandate from the unanimously supported November 2022 City Council motion on the future of Gosforth High Street. It is clear the current plan does not achieve the objectives set out in that motion.

Looking at the responses, we also see significant opposition from residents to the trial layout on Gosforth High Street.  These objections include well-founded concerns about the danger the new layout poses to those who use the High Street, and its failure to support the High Street as an important local destination.  Newcastle City Council must act now and remove the bus lane, reverting to the previous layout of one traffic lane in each direction while consulting on a future permanent layout that achieves the objectives Councillors voted for.

We are still waiting for a response from Cllr Kemp and Williams to our open letter. We hope they will act promptly rather than waiting for more people to be hurt.

The post Gosforth High Street Consultation Report appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

Infographic from Newcastle City Council’s consultation website

Newcastle City Council recently consulted on the replacement to the current “Local Plan”. This is SPACE for Gosforth’s response. You can find out more about the consultation and questions asked in our previous blog Local Plan 2040.

Re: Newcastle Local Plan Early Engagement

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed Newcastle upon Tyne Local Plan.

We are a community group based in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne. SPACE stands for Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment. Our group was established in 2015 due to residents’ concerns about road danger and air pollution in our local neighbourhood. You can find our group objectives on our website www.spaceforgosforth.com/about.

While transport is only part of what is needed to achieve the city’s ambitions, it is fundamental to how the city uses its public spaces, and critical to whether the city will achieve its ambitions or not.

We support the Council’s intention that “At the core of the Newcastle Plan there needs to be a strong emphasis on placemaking, health and wellbeing, and sustainable living which will help us reach Net Zero” and agree that “these are critical to Newcastle’s strength as a place, to the city’s ability to adapt to the climate crisis and to improve the lives of residents.”

Walking, wheeling and cycling improve health and wellbeing, improve sustainability and support good quality placemaking.

This was recognised in the Development and Allocations Plan which said, “Improving accessibility for walking and cycling has multiple benefits, including the creation of safer, more attractive places, improved physical and mental health and reduced carbon emissions and climate change impacts from transport.” This new Local Plan should build on this with an even stronger focus on walking and cycling and sustainable travel.

By 2030, the city should already be well on the way to achieving Net Zero, including for transport. The future Local Plan should therefore ensure further development will be consistent with this, minimising additional emissions from development, ensuring new homes are carbon neutral and ensuring new developments prioritise walking and cycling.

Walking and cycling support all the Local Plan’s nine ambitions as follows.

1. Healthier City

• The benefits of exercise to physical and mental health are well-known. Good quality walking and cycling infrastructure allows people to build exercise into their normal daily activities, saving money and benefiting the environment at the same time.
• Access to low-cost transport like walking and cycling makes it easier to access local services and facilities.
• Reducing traffic makes places more sociable by reducing severance; and reduces air and noise pollution that adversely affect health.

2. Greener City

• Reducing traffic is essential as part of achieving Net Zero. Even with an ambitious transition to EVs, a cut of approximately 20% of total miles driven will be required to meet carbon budgets targeting Net Zero by 2050. A greater reduction will be required in Newcastle because of its 2030 target and because urban areas are better suited for alternatives to car travel than rural areas.
• Walking and cycling, as well as being carbon neutral, take up less space. That freed-up space can be used for green infrastructure like sustainable urban drainage or street trees.

3. Attractive Neighbourhoods

• Street layouts should make walking and cycling the natural choice for local journeys in line with Government ambition. That means safe, direct, connected routes between homes and local services.
• Reducing traffic will address severance issues that prevent people from accessing local shops and services.
• Research has shown people walking or cycling spend more money locally, protecting local services and making neighbourhoods more attractive.
• Road layouts at district centres like Gosforth High Street need to fully prioritise walking and cycling to maximise access to shops and services for the local community in the catchment of the centre.

4. Employment Opportunities

• Good quality walking and cycling infrastructure enables better access to local employment opportunities, especially for those on a low income who cannot afford a car or taxis.
• Quality and accessibility of the street environment is a potential competitive advantage that will attract more employers to the city. Currently Newcastle is getting left behind as other cities invest in removing traffic from city centres and residential areas.
• Good quality walking and cycling infrastructure is also helpful for students who typically will not have access to a car, and makes Newcastle an attractive place to live for people who are able to work from home.
• Premium land currently used for roads or parking could be utilised in more economically beneficial ways.

5. Moving Around

• The Local Plan must ensure “new development promotes sustainable transport choices, patterns of travel, minimises the need for private car use and plan for new transport infrastructure to meet needs.” It needs to be a comprehensive plan though, not just a set of unconnected islands of development without the ability to travel sustainably between them.
• The Local Plan aim is to optimise the use of available space in the city to meet the overall aims. Walking and cycling support all the plan objectives, are low-cost, low-carbon, healthy, and use the least space per user compared to most other modes of transport.
• A network of safe, accessible, all age and ability walking and routes will be fundamental to achieving the Local Plan’s objectives. Ideally this should be in place even before the Local Plan comes into effect.
• The Local Plan needs to anticipate and prepare for an increase in electric-powered micro-mobility like eScooters and cargo-bike logistics.

6. Leisure, Culture, and Tourism

• Walking and cycling can be leisure activities as well as transport, with a significant amount of tourist spend relating to these activities.
• The nationally recognised C2C cycle route passes through Newcastle.
• Newcastle is ideally placed to attract visitors wanting outdoor activities given its proximity to the coast and open spaces in Northumberland, as well as more local attractions like the Town Moor and Jesmond Dene.
• Good placemaking, underpinned with high quality walking and cycling links, will also make the city more attractive for visitors.

7. Homes and Communities

• Low-car neighbourhoods can be denser, making it easier to provide better local services and an improved environment. See for example the ‘Merwedekanaal’ proposal from Utrecht.
• Good quality safe walking and cycling routes that children can use to travel independently will also make the city more attractive to families and would help reverse the trend for families to move out of Newcastle.
• Walking and cycling allow residents to benefit from “incidental sociability” improving the social fabric of communities.

8. Attractive and Safe Places

• Walking and cycling contribute to many of the ten characteristics of a well-designed place referenced in the consultation, including: efficient, healthy and sustainable, safe, social and inclusive, accessible and easy to move around.
• Road safety is a key factor in whether a place feels safe or not. Engineering measures can cut traffic levels and dangerous driving behaviours.
• Research has shown that Low Traffic Neighbourhoods also reduce non-traffic related crimes.

9. Protected Natural Environment

• Transport is a major cause of environmental degradation from air and noise pollution, carbon emissions, roadkill, and microplastics from tyres that are washed via the drains into local rivers.
• Enabling more people to walk and cycle more often through the creation of a network of safe all age and ability routes would substantially reduce the impact of transport on the local environment.

All this needs to be backed with a plan with SMART objectives, funding identified and an approach to build community support to achieve rapid change. It should not be passive shelf-ware only ever referred to as the starting point in a negotiation with developers.

These objectives should include:

• Pavements and crossings designed to a high standard to ensure they are accessible.
• Creation of a high-quality cycling network suitable for all ages and abilities that connects homes to local destinations and meets national standards.
• Traffic to be routed via the main road network, with local streets used solely for access.
• Targets for street trees and planting.
• Limits on sources of pollution and nuisance from traffic to ensure any new development doesn’t just minimise its impact but improves the situation compared to if that development didn’t happen.
• Targets for what services are available in a local area, ensuring that children will be offered a place at a school within walking distance and that services will be available when people move in.
• High quality standards for all the above that a development must achieve if it is to be approved. This should include a developer contribution to cover the cost of high-quality walking and cycling routes between the development and local services if not provided on site.

The Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan for Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne adopted in 2015, included many similar ambitions for sustainable travel, yet ten years on Newcastle is still dominated by vehicle traffic. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been invested in transport in the city, but most of this has been focused on the Western bypass with the effect of increasing traffic, counter to all sustainability objectives, and Newcastle Airport (the least sustainable mode of transport) continues to boast of increased passenger numbers.

Meanwhile, plans to enable more walking and cycling proceed at a glacial pace, if at all. Our local High Street in Gosforth still doesn’t achieve basic safety guidelines despite a full Council vote to this effect and Policy DM10 stating development should “Provide safe, convenient, attractive and continuous pedestrian and cycle links to key local facilities and services.” If the Council won’t stick to its own policy, why should it expect developers to do so?

So, while we support the ambitions, we remain sceptical that the new Local Plan will make much difference. As we said in our response to the Development and Allocations Plan “The Local Plan should not be limited to addressing issues though. It needs to show a city willing to compete internationally, to draw best practice from across the world, from Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris, Seville, London and New York, and our twin city Groningen, all of which are investing in the public realm, prioritising sustainable and active travel and investing in (and competing with each other on) liveability and accessibility. If Newcastle is to compete in this arena it needs a strong vision backed by robust policy to deliver that vision.”

We would also like to draw your attention to the following City Council Motions and ask that the draft version of the Local Plan be prepared to be consistent with these.

• Climate Emergency – City Council 3 April 2019
• Greater Focus on Cycling – City Council 2 October 2019
• School No Idling Zones – City Council 5 February 2020
• Use of E-Cargo Bikes – City Council 6 October 2021
• Investment in Roads and Pavements – City Council 12 January 2022
• Promoting Active Travel All Year Round – City Council 12 January 2022
• Gosforth High Street – City Council 2 November 2022
• Pavement Parking – City Council 1 November 2023

Further evidence, e.g. links to research, can be provided on request.

Yours faithfully,

SPACE for Gosforth.

The post Local Plan 2040 – Our response appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

Newcastle in 2040?

Newcastle City Council has launched a consultation on the replacement to the current “Local Plan”. You can comment on CommonPlace up to 6 March 2024.

Update November 2024: Newcastle City Council have published the ‘2024 Newcastle Plan Consultation Feedback Report’ for discussion at November 2024 City Council (item 8).

According to the Planning Inspectorate “Local plans are used to decide how much land should be set aside to build new homes, offices, factories, warehouses, shops and other things, usually over the next 10 to 15 years. They also show areas where development should be limited for some reason. The plan includes a map showing these areas and it will include policies that say what types of development are acceptable and what development should be like. The local plan is then used to make decisions on planning applications for individual development proposals.”

You can see Newcastle’s current local plan and timetable for the new plan on the Council’s website.The Council also has a planning policy map showing housing and employment sites, and classification of transport links.

It is often said that the best transport plan is a land use plan. That is because the location of shops, schools and other services compared to where we live dictates how far we need to travel. If the shops and service we use daily are within a fifteen minute walk then there would be less need for people to drive.

When it comes to making walking, biking & public transit not just practical, but ENJOYABLE in your city, remember that although smart infrastructure investment & design is critically important, the best transportation plan is a great land use plan. pic.twitter.com/4ncdOHss0t

— Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) March 9, 2019

This consultation stage is called “Early Engagement” and the Council are asking for opinions on the following questions. In each case you can choose from a list of potential interventions to help the Council prioritise what needs to go in the plan. A further consultation will be held in 2025 on the draft plan once completed,

Consultation Questions

1. What steps can the Council take to support everyone in Newcastle to have healthier lifestyles and to improve their wellbeing?
2. How can the Council help address climate change and reduce carbon emissions in Newcastle?
3. What do you think is needed to improve the city centre and neighbourhood centres, and what would make you visit them more?
4. Does the city have the right employment sites (areas only used for businesses, factories, and other employers) in Newcastle and what opportunities should be provided for the future?
5. How can the Council support more people to actively move around Newcastle (by walking and cycling) and improve transport networks, helping to connect everyone better?
6. Where should the city’s leisure, cultural and tourism facilities be located, and how can the Council improve everyone’s access to the city’s open spaces?
7. What type of housing do you think Newcastle needs and where should new houses be built?
8. What is most important and makes Newcastle special for you?
9. How can the Council improve the natural environment including parks, woodlands, lakes and ponds and what would you like more of?

Please do respond to this consultation

You can comment on CommonPlace up to 6 March 2024.

Enabling more people to walk and cycle more often supports objectives to improve health, cut carbon emissions, and makes it easier for people to access jobs, leisure and the natural environment.

That is particularly important for the 37% of households in Newcastle upon Tyne who do not own a car. If there aren’t good alternatives to using a car and households who don’t currently own a car are forced to buy one then, as well as the personal cost, it will have an enormous impact on parking and traffic volumes. The fewer people who need to drive, the less congested the streets will be for those that do.

Having essential services within a fifteen minute walk or cycle ride is popular with the general public. A YouGov poll from March 2023 shows which services people want most in their local area.

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1632696242869268481?s=20

The Council will be looking to create an evidence-base for the plan, so if you are aware of evidence for how walking and cycling can answer any of the consultation questions, please let us know via the comments below so we can include it in our group response.

Meanwhile, here’s one idea for the plan…

Here's an idea for @NewcastleCC's local plan consultation. https://t.co/F6GktGfF6l

— space for gosforth (@space4gosforth) February 10, 2024

https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1215307347083644929?s=20

You can comment on CommonPlace up to 6 March 2024.

The post Local Plan 2040 appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

Transport North East is currently consulting on its draft Active Travel Strategy to encourage more Active Travel – walking, wheeling and cycling – across the North East. This blog sets out SPACE for Gosforth’s response to that consultation.

Following on from their Making the Right Travel Choice strategy published in Nov 2022, the Active Travel Strategy aims to support this strategy by enabling more active travel journeys.

The Active Travel Strategy has outlined a single specific target to increase short active travel journeys by 45% by 2035. 

Who Are Transport North East?

Transport for the North East provides “strategy, planning and delivery services on behalf of the North East Joint Transport Committee (NEJTC)“.  This committee is made up of the region’s two Combined Authorities (North of Tyne Combined Authority covering Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland, and the North East Combined Authority covering Durham, Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside). It came into being in as part of legislation enacting the North of Tyne Combined Authority and Mayor.

In March 2021 the North East Transport Plan was published, outlining a Vision and set of objectives for the North East and identifying the transport priorities needed to meet those objectives.  The lead policy of the Transport Plan is ‘helping people to make the right travel choice’.  This then led to the Make the Right Travel Choice Strategy.  The North East Active Travel Strategy will help to achieve this aim by ‘enabling more active travel journeys’.

What Does This Target Actually Mean?

To place this target in context, the data detailing the current number, type and length of journeys in the North East comes from the Department for Transport’s annual National Travel Survey.  This target specifically aims to increase the number of journeys under five miles which are walked, wheeled or cycled.  Our understanding is that the dataset that has been used as a baseline for this target is the 2018/2019 given the impact that the coronavirus pandemic had on the sample size of subsequent surveys.

Using this data, active travel choices in the North East currently make up 37% of trips under 5 miles.  An increase of 45% will bring this to 54%, broadly in line with the Active Travel England objective of “50% of trips in England’s towns and cities to be walked, wheeled or cycled by 2030.” and the government’s Second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS2, Jul 2022) which has long-term objectives to “increase the percentage of short journeys in towns and cities that are walked or cycled to 50% in 2030 and to 55% in 2035.”

You can read or listen to the strategy here and comment on the strategy here or by emailing [email protected] until midnight on the 5^th March 2023.

Dear Transport North East

Re: Active Travel Strategy March 2022

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Transport North East draft Active Travel Strategy.

We are a community group based in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne. SPACE stands for Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment. Our group was established in 2015 due to residents’ concerns about road danger and air pollution in our local neighbourhood. You can find our group objectives on our website https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/about.

We previously responded to Transport North East’s Make the Right Travel Choice consultation in 2022, the North East Transport Plan consultation in 2021 as well as the North East Combined Authority’sWalking and Cycling Survey in 2017.

SPACE for Gosforth supports well-evidenced interventions to enable more people to walk, wheel or cycle more often. Being enabled to travel actively also enables people to access local services and job opportunities, save money and improve their health, which has a wide range of positive impacts both for the individual and the wider economy.

As can be seen by the dates on the consultations to which we have already responded, time is of the essence.  Six years have already passed since the North East combined Authority’s Walking and Cycling Survey.  Given that children who started school six years ago, will have now moved to middle school and will be leaving school in 2031, some urgency to realise the benefits of active travel for this generation is essential.

Summary of Key Points from our response

Objectives The strategy needs to be clear if it is solely to increase active travel journeys or if it is targeting a modal switch from driving to active travel. Targets and actions to be taken should reflect this, and should be based on the best available evidence for what is effective to achieve the desired outcomes.

Other regional planning will need to align to these objectives, e.g. to avoid major road expansion schemes that will create severance, lead to additional journeys by car and consequently more emissions.

Targets We support the target to increase active travel to be 54% of all journeys under 5 miles in the NE, which assumes a corresponding decrease in short vehicle journeys. 

Monitoring “direction of travel” however, is not sufficient and doesn’t support achievement of the 2035 target. Interim targets e.g. 45% by 2026, 50% by 2030, should be added for tracking purposes, along with LA-specific targets for specific initiatives like school streets, low-traffic neighbourhoods and LTN1/20 compliant protected cycle lanes.

The Vision Zero target in the NE Transport Plan should also be included in this strategy.

Governance The context should set out clearly the different roles and responsibilities of Transport North East and Local Authorities in delivering this strategy, and what will happen if interim targets are not met. 

Barriers The strategy needs to recognise that while there are a number of barriers, the main barrier for achieving the desired modal switch relates to safety and that interventions to address this need to be given the highest priority. Other initiatives e.g. cycle hire and behaviour change should be focused where there are safe routes people can use.

Funding The strategy needs to demonstrate clearly that the schemes proposed, and level of funding requested, will ensure delivery of the strategy objectives. Currently there is little in the strategy to provide confidence this is the case.

Detail Comments by section of the draft strategy

Executive Summary

The executive summary needs to include an inspiring and relatable vision for what this strategy will mean for where people live and how they may travel in future. 

We suggest it also covers the points raised in our “summary of key points” above. 

We suggest the statement “This would mean that over half of journeys in the North East would be made by active travel.” is amended to “This would mean that, if there is a corresponding decrease in vehicle journeys, over half of all journeys under five miles in the North East would be made by active travel.”

Section 1. Introduction and Context

We support the inclusion of ‘micromobility’ in the strategy. We consider this inevitable and that Transport North East should be preparing for this now to plan for a comprehensive combined cycling / low-speed micro-mobility network.

Strategy Scope should set out how the corresponding decrease in vehicle travel will be achieved, whether it is part of the active travel strategy or something separate.

The context should also set out the different roles and responsibilities of Transport North East and Local Authorities in delivering this strategy, and confirm the process and steps to be taken by each Local Authority to commit to the strategy once the NE Joint Transport Committee has recommended approval.

Section 2. Benefits of Active Travel

Walking and cycling are highly efficient ways to travel that benefit personal health, allow access to local services and job opportunities, and achieve that without any pollution, carbon emissions.

Additional benefits you may wish to consider include:

• Walking and cycling routes have much greater capacity to move people, goods and services per meter width than private vehicles. 
• Benefits for accessibility and inclusion.
• Benefits for children’s independence.
• Potential to reduce commuting time for parents if children are able to travel independently to school once they begin middle school (Year 5)
• Reduced cost and better value for money compared to large road schemes. 
• Enabling low cost travel for individuals and families
• Increased productivity & fewer sick days at work due to health benefits.
• Increased usage of public transport through enabling cycling to local transport hubs
• Energy security – less reliance on oil imports
• Addressing physical inactivity. A British Heart Foundation Physical Activity Report in 2017 identified that 42% of adults in the North East are classed as being inactive. 
• Increased community cohesion.

Further information and links can be found in our 2017 blog “The Case for Healthy Streets” https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/cwis2017/

Some of the benefits outlined in the strategy are related to, and would require a reduction in traffic, rather than an increase in walking, cycling and wheeling.  These include

• Reducing carbon emissions, potentially saving around 80,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
• Improving air quality by reducing pollution from traffic emissions.
• Reducing noise levels as congestion is eased on our road network.
• Saving petrol and diesel car drivers on average approximately £70 per year (based on September 2022 fuel prices).

As is mentioned in a later section, whether or not traffic reduction will be achieved without other interventions restricting traffic is questionable.  Particularly the benefit of reduced carbon emissions is somewhat overshadowed given the traffic schemes identified in the North East Transport Plan.  

For example, National Highways estimate that the proposed A1 dualling from Morpeth to Ellingham alone will result in an additional 1.4 million tonnes of CO2e to be emitted. That is 17.5 years of active travel benefits wiped out on one short section of road alone.

To convince both our leaders and the public that this strategy is valuable, the benefits must be meaningful and directly related to the objectives of the Active Travel strategy.  

Section 3. How do people travel now?

No comments

Section 4. What are the Challenges?

The strategy needs to recognise that while there are a number of barriers, the main barrier for achieving the desired modal switch relates to safety and that interventions to address this need to be given the highest priority.

Other initiatives e.g. cycle hire and behaviour change should only be implemented where there are safe routes people can use.

Another potential challenge is simply political will to implement the changes. Transport North East could this assist by ensuring transport leads and other Councillors are well briefed on best practice for community engagement and case studies of where previous implementations have been effective.

Section 5. Where Do We Want to be?

We believe a more inspiring and relatable picture of the outcomes would be useful in selling this strategy both to the general public, their elected officials and for gaining real political commitment from the members of the Joint Transport Committee and the future North East metro mayor.

Change is not always welcomed, and the implementation of changes to neighbourhoods at a local level as well as the introduction of a number of schemes during the pandemic has been at times controversial.  However, it is also true that on the whole, councils who were bold with the changes that they have implemented have been re-elected, showing a quiet support beneath the headlines and outrage.

An inspirational vision in this section of the strategy is important to ensure it does not simply remain a tick box exercise.  While statements such as “Negative perceptions of active travel will have been addressed through various initiatives such as promotional campaigns” may allow specific commitments that enable you to reach this point to be identified, it is not the most vibrant imagining of the future!

What will streets look and feel like for everyone: young and old, urban and rural?  What opportunities will there be?  What will our towns, cities and villages look like if your commitment statements are met?

Similar to the “Changes You Will Start To See” section in the North East Transport plan, this section would be enhanced by a more vivid description of what positive day to day differences we will notice should the strategy be successful.

Section 6. Measures of Success

“We propose to monitor success against our vision by… (the) available National Travel Survey (NTS) data to monitor our progress and understand relevant travel patterns in our region.”

While the Executive Summary highlights that “Walking is a good way to increase levels of activity and has the greatest potential to improve public health” the supporting data shows that almost 80% of trips of 1 mile or less are already walked.  While there may be some scope to increase these, the data implies that a great deal of willingness to walk short distances already exists.

For journeys of 1-2 miles or longer, this figure decreases as could be expected simply due to increased time pressures for trips where the purpose is not simply exercise.  The implication, therefore, is that the greater opportunity to convert journeys to active travel is to enable more cycling and micro-mobility.  That is not to say that there is not a great deal to be done to improve the environment for walking, only that those improvements may not be a major contributor to achieving the overarching target.

From the data on which the target is based, if half of a 45% increase in active travel trips were from increased cycling this would result in a cycling mode share of ~7%.  From research by Rahul Goel et al it is noted that “In almost all geographies with cycling mode share greater than 7% women made as many cycle trips as men, and sometimes even greater.”

We suggest that when seeking “methods… to give us a greater understanding of active travel in our region and more accurately assess our position against our goals.” that targeting research on the gender distribution in cycling in the region would assist in assessing progress against the target.

We are also concerned that in having a single target based on a quantitative analysis that the majority of effort will be aimed at schemes perceived to support the greatest gains in terms of modal switch.  Without targets or even monitoring for other demographics such as disability, age, ethnic background and income, it will be difficult to ensure the inclusivity of the implementation of the strategy.  While the strategy mentions that “When monitoring the Key Performance

Indicators, we will also, where possible, seek to analyse and monitor inequalities in transport and health”, none of the Transport Plan’s Key Performance Indicators mention inequality, even though one of the five objectives of the Transport Plan is “Overcome inequality and grow our economy.”  “Where possible” is not a sufficient commitment to ensuring the strategy is inclusive.

There needs to be a clear commitment to ensuring that the Active Travel Strategy is inclusive by monitoring inequalities and targeting schemes accordingly.

We believe it is also important to develop a clear picture of the contributions of each Local Authority towards the final target and how that increases over time.  As the strategy explains “According to the 2021 Census, our region has a population of 1.97 million with 79% of people living in urban locations and 21% living in rural locations.”  With the very different geography and challenges of each Local Authority, individual targets would ensure that overall the final target remains achievable.

While the regional overview provided by this strategy is important, it is essential that political leaders across the region commit to specific time-bound targets defined to ensure the strategy is successful. 

Section 7. How Do We Get There?

“The plan sets out a live programme of interventions… All schemes will be subject to more rigorous testing and appraisal and will only be delivered where they have demonstrated, through detailed business case development, that they can appropriately contribute towards the delivery of the objectives.”

While the interventions themselves are positive, there is little in the strategy that gives us confidence that 

1. the combined total of these interventions will achieve the target to increase active travel by 45% 
2. sufficient consideration has been given on how to achieve the necessary pace and urgency to provide safe walking and cycling networks, taking account of the fact that any modal shift will occur over a period of years after delivery of those networks.
3. the level of funding requested is anywhere near sufficient (Greater Manchester estimated £1.5bn would be required for a smaller area).
4. large parts of the funding won’t be diverted to pay for unrelated road changes or to mitigate safety issues created by road building e.g. demolishing the Gateshead flyover, or paying for underpasses or bridges which should be included in road or rail budgets. 

The strategy then states “this programme will be delivered by the constituent authorities and Nexus within the North East”.  This underlines the key role of the commitment of the Local Authorities within the region.  However, many of the interventions identified are large scale and long-term.  Within the Commitment Statements identified, there are a number of relatively quick, repeatable and cheap interventions that can make significant differences to the quality of the walking, wheeling and cycling environment.  These should be supported by specific targets that individual Local Authorities commit to.

For example:

• “We will adopt LTN 1/20 design standards across the region.”
  • Eg: All LAs formally adopt LTN1/20 as standard by the end of 2023 for all road schemes, not just those designated as relating to walking or cycling.
• We will support and work with local partners to increase the number of ‘school streets’ and low traffic neighbourhoods to protect children and improve air quality.
  • 50% primary and first schools have school streets by 2025
• We will support improvements to public spaces to encourage and enable more walking, wheeling and cycling.
  • Removal of non-compliant barriers on walking and cycling infrastructure by 2025 with a clear method of reporting to local authorities.
• A clear approach to how pavement parking will be addressed and how the public can report where pavements are partially or completely blocked by end 2023.
• A plan for cutting wait-times at pedestrian crossings with trial sites implemented by the end of 2024.

Further targets might include:

• Improving rural safety by reducing speed limits on rural roads not part of the strategic transport network to 40mph
• LA objectives in place and initial LCWIPs complete by end 2023 including identified quick wins for walking and cycling e.g. contraflow cycling, some simple modal filters, speed limits, pavement clutter audits, cycle parking etc
• Key local walking/cycling destinations identified in LCWIP including local shopping districts and transport hubs.
• Confirmation that local shopping areas should be designed to the highest standards of safety and accessibility for walking and cycling in line with the motion adopted by Newcastle City Council for Gosforth High Street in November 2022.

The strategy should also better define what the ‘Regional Cycle Network’ is e.g. does it refer to the National Cycle Network, which is great for longer daytime leisure rides but less use for day to day travel, or will it enable local and intra-regional trips serving major housing areas and key destinations? We also suggest an outline plan for this network be completed by March 2024. There is no reason why this should wait to 2029-2035 as set out in the strategy. 

These measures would need to take account of who is responsible and confirm the process for each LA to develop targets in line with the key commitments in the strategy.

These targets can then be tracked against delivery as well as outcomes, for example number of school streets delivered or miles of continuous, protected cycle lane.

We propose that alongside the current long-term programme of interventions that there is developed a series of short-term “quick wins” for implementation by local authorities, with a clear process and timeline for review.  This will both ensure that the foundations of the strategy are secure as well as providing visible short-term changes to maintain public support.

The North East Transport Plan details as part of its Active Travel Strategy “a significant programme of road space reallocation” by 2030 yet this has not been mentioned of explicitly referred to within the Active Travel Strategy other than brief mention within the Commitment Statements of “We will support and work with local partners to increase the number of… low traffic neighbourhoods.”

The recent Making the Right Travel Choice strategy outlined a target to encourage car users to “switch one journey a week to public transport, walking or cycling and for people who don’t have access to a car to continue to travel sustainably.”

Assuming that by “one journey” what is meant is one return journey or two trips*, we would first like to note the current data shows that this strategy will only work firstly if all of those journeys have active travel as their main mode (as defined by the National Travel Survey main mode of a trip is that used for the longest stage of the trip by distance) of and there is a corresponding decrease in car journeys as a proportion of all journeys under 5 miles in the next 12 years.

Nowhere does the strategy explicitly state how traffic will be reduced other than an assumption that people will only switch mode from car to active travel.  While this may occur, it is unlikely to result in fewer overall car journeys as research has shown that people adapt their behaviour according to prevailing road conditions.  One result of quieter, less congested roads means that people may choose to make additional journeys by car that they would not have previously considered.

Given that it is specifically mentioned within the NE Transport Plan, the omission of the “significant programme of road space reallocation” needs to be addressed within the Active Travel strategy.

The other major omission in the Active Travel Strategy is the commitment set out in the NE Transport Plan published March 2021 to “no fatalities or serious injuries on the regions’ road network by 2025.” Given there were 39 deaths and 620 serious injuries recorded on the region’s roads in 2023, this is looking increasingly out of reach. 

Transport North East should take urgent action to address the large number of people killed and seriously injured (KSI) on the region’s roads and, in addition, seek to understand why KSIs haven’t reduced in line with its target to incorporate any lessons learned into future strategies including the active travel strategy.

END of Response

*Making the Right Travel Choice referred to 200 million journeys which is approximately equal to 2 trips per week x 52 weeks of the year x 1.97 million population in the North East.

Manchester 2018: £1.5bn over 10 years – 1000 miles of active travel routes.
NE 2022: £500m over 13 years – bike hire & demolish a flyover.https://t.co/jXyAnLlFJj

— space for gosforth (@space4gosforth) December 16, 2022

The post North East Active Travel Strategy March 2023 appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

Transport for the North East are working on a new strategy Making the Right Travel Choice which aims to make it easier for local people make more sustainable journeys such as journeys on foot, by bike or using public transport.

The objective of the strategy is for people “to switch one journey a week to public transport, walking or cycling and for people who don’t have access to a car to continue to travel sustainably” potentially removing 200 million unnecessary car trips from our region’s roads.

You only have until Wednesday 14 September 2022 if you wish to respond. 

The public survey is here: https://t.co/x2YCZOOb1A

You can read the draft strategy here: https://www.transportnortheast.gov.uk/making-the-right-travel-choice/

This is the SPACE for Gosforth response.

Dear Transport for the North East,

RE: Making the Right Travel Choice Consultation 2022

Target: The strategy sets a target to encourage car users to switch one journey a week to public transport, walking or cycling and for people who don’t have access to a car to continue to travel sustainably.

SPACE for Gosforth supports well-evidenced interventions to enable more people to walk or cycle more often. More walking / cycling enables people to access local services and job opportunities, save money and improve their health. As well as benefits to the individual, these have wider economic benefits and reduce the burden on the NHS.

We also support effective measures to reduce overall traffic levels, to reduce air and noise pollution, road danger and cut carbon emissions.

Our concern with the interventions listed in the “How do we get there?” section of the strategy is that substantially they do not address the main barriers to walking and cycling and/or have limited (or no) evidence to suggest they will be effective.

A number of the interventions, for example Go Smarter, appear to be a continuation of previous initiatives.

What are the barriers to walking and cycling?

There is plenty of good evidence on what prevents people walking and cycling.

The Government’s National Travel Attitudes Study: Wave 5 concluded that “Off-road and segregated cycle paths (55%), safer roads (53%) and well-maintained road surfaces for cycling (49%) were chosen most often when Wave 5 respondents (who didn’t state that cycling is impossible for them due to their disability) were asked about things that would encourage them to cycle more”.

In addition, nearly two-thirds (64%) of the sample supported the “creation of dedicated cycle lanes in their local area, even if this means less road space for cars.”

For walking, the top things that would encourage people to walk more were: well-maintained pavements, safer roads and more safe crossing points.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-attitudes-study-wave-5/national-travel-attitudes-study-wave-5

A recent study published in Transport Reviews came to similar conclusions for cycling, that motorist aggression, lack of high-quality bike lanes and perceived risk of injury were the main barriers.

NEW systematic review and meta-analysis out today in @TransptReviews – led by @Laurenk_pearson

Most highly reported barriers of riding a #bike for #transport relate to having to ride a bike on the road and associated #safety concerns#openaccess link: https://t.co/rlXrlrcqLV pic.twitter.com/4sg8l4kHI7

— Ben Beck (@DrBenBeck) August 23, 2022

Review: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/P2ZSPE7BH2KZ9AEGUEV9/full

The related Twitter thread is also worth a read.
https://twitter.com/DrBenBeck/status/1561867888599764993

A recent Guardian article gave some further case studies of why people who cycled during the Covid pandemic have not continued to cycle.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/03/cycling-dangerous-children-pandemic-closed-lanes-tacks-road

Notably none of these studies, nor Transport for the North East’s (TNE’s) own examples, mentions the need for messaging or incentives, which are the main actions proposed in TNE’s strategy document.

Effective Interventions

To address the main barriers, TNE should prioritise interventions to make roads safer including:

• Low traffic neighbourhoods by default
• Protected cycle lanes on main roads
• Lower speed limits
• Safer crossings

These will also support TNE’s ambition to achieve no deaths or serious injuries by 2025, which we believe is currently at risk due to lack of a plan or strategy to achieve it. We wrote about this in our blog No more road deaths, no more serious injuries.

Secure cycle parking at events and local destinations would also help.

To gain benefits associated with reduced traffic levels, TNE should focus on well-evidenced interventions that reduce total traffic levels, for example:

• Traffic restrictions
• Clear air zones
• Re-allocating road space to walking, cycling or public transport
• Increased parking charges / workplace parking levies

The tweet below illustrates the impact of good quality infrastructure. There may have been messaging and / or incentives for the children in the Netherlands to cycle to school but the main things that enabled this were safe routes and somewhere to securely store cycles at school.

https://twitter.com/grescoe/status/1564249783325364224

Some further examples are given in this paper, though it should be noted that in some cases the evidence given only confirms mode shift and not confirmation that total traffic levels reduced.

https://theconversation.com/12-best-ways-to-get-cars-out-of-cities-ranked-by-new-research-180642

Where people do switch from driving to public transport, walking or cycling that may reduce traffic temporarily, but traffic levels will quickly rebound due to induced demand. This is why mode-shift by itself is not sufficient to reduce total miles driven.

Messaging and Incentives

Clearly there is a place for messaging and incentives. Having these as the main strategic priorities though is unjustified and dangerous, as it diverts money from and reduces the likelihood of effective actions being taken.

Alignment with infrastructure changes feels likely to gain the greatest benefit, for example as in Newcastle’s school streets programme which all NE authorities should be replicating.

Other simple improvements in messaging can also be achieved at low cost including:

• Ensuring council transport comms explain the impact for people walking and cycling when a road is closed, not just for driving. For example, recent communications about the Pilgrim Street road closure did not mention walking or cycling. https://newcastle.gov.uk/citylife-news/transport/city-centre-traffic-changes-around-pilgrim-quarter-development
• Ensuring events and local destinations include how to arrive on foot, by bike, or by public transport, as well as by car, and include where to park a bicycle or cargo-bike. For example, The Chronicle wrote an article about car parking at the Great North Run but nothing on cycle parking. Newcastle City Council also produced an article about parking but nothing about cycle parking https://newcastle.gov.uk/our-city/visit/great-north-run
• Focusing on specific events, especially events where people attend regularly. For example, what safe routes could fans use to cycle to St James Park to see a match, and where can they lock up their bicycles securely close to the ground. 

Conclusion

Thank you again for the opportunity to comment on the Transport for the North East draft Making the Right Travel Choice Strategy.

Urgent action is required to meet local and national net zero targets, to meet air pollution limits and to achieve Transport for the North East’s own objective of no one killed or seriously injured on the region’s roads by 2025. 

We hope Transport for the North East will therefore take the opportunity to reconsider and to refocus its resources on actions that have the best possible chance of achieving these objectives as quickly as possible.

Yours faithfully,

SPACE for Gosforth.
www.spaceforgosforth.com

The post Making the Right Travel Choice appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

Six months ago, Newcastle City Council changed the road layout on five bridges so that they could only be used by people walking, in wheelchairs, or on bikes/scooters. The Council’s aim in doing so was to achieve safer residential streets by reducing motor vehicles speeding and to remove ‘through traffic’ from residential areas.

To close these bridges to motor vehicles the Council used an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO), with the first six months of the order being a public consultation period. This allowed the Council to implement the changes quickly as required by Government to ensure (in the Government’s words) “transport networks support recovery from the COVID-19 emergency and provide a lasting legacy of greener, safer transport”.

According to Commonplace, there have been approximately 10,000 comments made on the Council’s consultation website, which is a sizeable response and shows much greater public engagement than previous more traditional ‘in advance’ consultations.

This blog sets out SPACE for Gosforth’s response to the bridges’ consultation focused mainly on policy, evidence and best practice. In summary, there is strong evidential support for the changes and, in our view, no local evidence to suggest that benefits won’t be achieved.

Those benefits include:

• Generally creating more pleasant local places for people to live e.g. from less traffic noise
• Improving road safety, including for children on the school run
• Making it easier to walk and cycle, increasing people’s choices for how to travel
• Improving health from more walking and cycling
• Helping people on lower incomes because walking/cycling are cheaper than driving or the bus, including people travelling through the area & across Jesmond Dene to local employment sites.
• Reducing emissions to address the Climate Emergency with minimal cost or impact on lifestyles compared to e.g. road pricing, carbon taxes or forcing people to buy expensive new electric vehicles.
• Incredible value for money given how effective they are, how cheap they are to implement and the range of policy areas supported.

These support the Council’s longer term vision of a “safer, cleaner, greener Newcastle”.

Clearly many people still have concerns about the plans. We have looked at some of these in our previous blogs Enabling Safe Walking and Cycling via Local Bridges and Stoneyhurst Bridge – Review of Concerns.

There is good news that predictions of traffic chaos haven’t happened and traffic levels on surrounding roads remain lower than usual for the time of year, and there’s no reason to believe that traffic levels will increase substantially because they didn’t when Killingworth Road and Salters Bridge were both closed for road works.

Further information on the changes can be found on the Council’s Frequently Asked Questions web page.

SPACE for Gosforth response – Prohibition of driving of motor vehicles on local bridges

Dear sir/madam,

Re: Prohibition of driving of motor vehicles on local bridges

We are writing to SUPPORT the continued prohibition of driving of motor vehicles and associated changes made in the following orders, and to support these orders being made permanent.

We also wish to thank the Council for implementing the changes using an experimental order, to allow residents to experience the changes prior to them being implemented permanently. This has clearly led to much greater engagement and discussion of the pros and cons than would have been possible had the Council used a standard three-week online consultation. The consultation for the Broadway to Brunton Cycle lane, by comparison, only received 78 comments in total.

Our reasons for supporting the permanent prohibition of motor traffic on local bridges

1. Improved Safety

The Council has a legal obligation under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of pedestrian and cycling traffic.

These bridges and roads connecting to them frequently felt unsafe due to high volumes of traffic. Speeding counts, where we have them, also show that a majority of drivers using these routes do not drive within the 20mph speed limits set for these roads and nearby streets. As a result people choose either not to walk or cycle, or have to take long inconvenient detours to find an alternative way of reaching their destination. This is particularly true of Salters Bridge and Castle Farm Road, neither of which have adequate pavements.

The first of five principles in the world-leading Sustainable Safety approach is that roads should have a defined functionality e.g. for carrying traffic or alternatively for access to homes or destinations, and that street layouts should be designed accordingly. For minor residential streets this means restricting traffic only to vehicles being used to access those streets. It is also a pro-active approach, so changes should be made before crashes occur, rather than only reacting to past collisions and injuries.

https://sustainablesafety.nl

Council policy DM13 – Road Hierarchy confirms that all five bridges are on minor roads, and are for access only and not for the movement of vehicle traffic.

Council vehicle count and speed data confirms that there have been speeding issues on local streets connecting to these bridges as well as inappropriately high volumes of traffic.

For example, only 15% of drivers adhered to the speed limit on Ilford Road when measured in 2014.

It has also been established that injury rates per vehicle mile travelled are generally higher on minor roads. “For killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties the rate per billion motor vehicle miles is 17% higher on minor roads (47 against 40 KSIs per billion vehicle miles), while for slight injuries it is 66% higher (188 against 123 slight injuries per billion vehicle miles).”

https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/10.1680/jmuen.16.00068

Evidence from the London Borough of Waltham Forest where low traffic neighbourhoods were implemented in 2015-2016 likewise found that “walking, cycling, and driving all became approximately 3-4 times safer per trip. There was no evidence that injury numbers changed on boundary roads.”

https://findingspress.org/article/18330-the-impact-of-introducing-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-on-road-traffic-injuries

In winter, ensuring vehicle traffic uses main roads that are on the Council’s gritting network, rather than cutting through untreated minor roads, also supports improved road safety. We understand residents’ concerns about Dene Crescent near Stoneyhurst Road bridge even though it is part of the Council’s gritting network. Hopefully the experience of the recent cold snap has reassured people that the Council’s gritting approach is effective. Certainly reports we have seen, and from our own regular walks in the area, suggest that Dene Crescent has been usable safely by motor vehicles.

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges is therefore both consistent with best practice for road safety and with Council Policy that implements that best practice.

2. Better Health and Physical Activity

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance on Physical activity and the environment NG90 paragraph 1.2.5 states “Ensure pedestrians, cyclists and users of other modes of transport that involve physical activity are given the highest priority when developing or maintaining streets and roads. (This includes people with limited mobility.)” One way it recommends for achieving this is to “Restrict motor vehicle access (for example, by closing or narrowing roads to reduce capacity).”

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/NG90

The Council has confirmed there have been no issues with Emergency Services response times. This is consistent with what has been found elsewhere in the UK. A survey of Ambulance Trusts in areas where low-traffic neighbourhoods, popup cycle lanes, widened pavements and other walking and cycling schemes were introduced in response to the Covid-19 also found these have “have not hindered ambulance response times”.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/13/covid-bike-and-walking-schemes-do-not-delay-ambulances-trusts-say

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges is therefore consistent with NICE Guidance NG90 to increase physical activity and improve health.

3. Improved local air quality

A review of air quality measures by Public Health England showed that “driving restrictions produced the largest scale and most consistent reductions in air pollution levels, with the most robust studies.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/improving-outdoor-air-quality-and-health-review-of-interventions

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges is therefore consistent with best practice guidance for improving air quality.

We also wish to note that opening additional routes, for example by ending the prohibition of vehicle traffic on these local bridges, is not recommended in any best practice guidance or evidence for what is effective to improve air quality. Based on measurements we have seen we don’t believe there is increased pollution on any local main roads as a result of these orders but even if there was, re-allowing vehicle traffic on these local bridges would not be an appropriate or effective response to that pollution.

4. Increasing Walking

Research on London “mini-Holland” schemes, which make extensive use of vehicle prohibitions, estimated an average increase in walking of 32 minutes per week compared to people living in comparable areas with no mini-Holland.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2018/jun/26/mini-holland-schemes-have-proved-their-worth-in-outer-london-boroughs

While it is not certain that the limited vehicle prohibitions at local bridges will have such a strong effect, they are certainly consistent with measures that have been shown to increase walking levels and are unlikely to have any negative effects.

5. Enabling more people to cycle

Pre-lockdown traffic levels and speeds on both Hollywood Avenue and Castle Farm Road were high enough, according to Government Local Traffic Note 1/20, to exclude most people who might otherwise be willing to cycle. Even if they were technically open for cycling, in practice they were not.

Pre-lockdown traffic levels and speeds on Ilford Road, and possibly also Stoneyhurst Road itself, were by the same measure sufficient to exclude some or most people who might otherwise be willing to cycle.

In practice, although these roads were technically ‘open’ for all traffic including people to cycle many would choose not to, or would be forced into long inconvenient diversions to find an alternative safer way of reaching their destination.

The National Travel Attitude Study Wave 3, 2020, reported that nationally “66% either agree strongly or agree somewhat with the notion that cycling on roads is too dangerous“, with the figure being 72% for 65-74 year olds and 75% for over 74 year olds. Reducing traffic levels on roads near the bridges is a cheap and easy way to make roads safer so more people, especially older people, feel comfortable to cycle.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-attitudes-study-wave-3

The Tyneside Bike Life survey found that “25% of all Tyneside residents do not cycle but would like to start. Yet only 33% of residents feel that cycling safety is good.“ while 86% said that it was important to improve routes and facilities for safe cycling.

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/bike-life/bike-life-tyneside

In Local Traffic Note (LTN) 1/20 section 7.3.1 it says “Encouraging through traffic to use main roads can provide benefits for pedestrians and residents, particularly children and vulnerable adults, as well as enabling cycling. This can be achieved through implementing measures such as turning bans and one way streets, and by mode filtering”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycle-infrastructure-design-ltn-120

The Newcastle City Council motion on cycling from September 2019, supported by Councillors in Dene and South Gosforth and Parklands wards, stated:

• Cycle and walking routes should be abundantly available especially within a 3-mile radius of the city centre or major transport interchanges.
• Cycle routes should wherever possible not share space with any road that experiences more than light traffic so that people feel safe on their bikes.

https://democracy.newcastle.gov.uk/documents/s150085/Minutes%2004092019%20City%20Council.pdf

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges is therefore consistent both with Government guidance on how to remove barriers to cycling and with Council policy to enable cycling for local journeys and with the specific City Council motion on cycling.

To achieve high levels of cycling for local journeys the Council will need to continue to invest to create a good quality network of safe routes that can be used by all ages and abilities, not just by current cyclists who are willing to cycle on roads with heavy traffic. These orders are a step towards that aim.

6. Safer, healthier school travel

On 2 October 2020 the Council released a news story urging families to use alternatives to the car on the school run, saying that “Nationally, around half of all journeys to school for primary children are made by car, creating pollution and high traffic levels around schools. The council would like to see more people walking or cycling to school as part of their plans to reduce traffic in local neighbourhoods, making it clear that neighbourhood streets should prioritise people, not vehicles.”

https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/citylife-news/people-urged-ditch-car-walk-school-week-5-9-october

Asking people nicely hasn’t worked though. If the Council wants parents to walk or cycle with their children to school, the Council needs to provide safe routes to allow them to do so.

Research from Newcastle City Council over 10 years ago in 2009 showed just how many school pupils, especially those of Primary School age, wanted to cycle to school compared to those that actually did.

See Big Pedal 2016 – Final results for Gosforth

According to the Department for Transport, school traffic makes up one in four vehicles on the road at peak times, adding significantly to pollution and congestion.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/clean-air-campaigners-call-for-school-run-ban-cut-pollution

We also know that walking or cycling to school helps children concentrate better while at school.

http://sciencenordic.com/children-who-walk-school-concentrate-better

Salters Bridge, Stoneyhurst Road Bridge and Castle Farm Road are all useful active travel routes connecting to South Gosforth First School, Gosforth East Middle School, Gosforth Academy and St Mary’s High School.

Commonplace comments for Stoneyhurst Road Bridge note that parents have started to “park and stride” rather than drive all the way to the school gate.

We have previously summarised research showing parents would not be happy cycling with children on busy residential streets, which would include the roads connecting to these bridges, but would be willing to cycle on streets with no through traffic.

See: Lots of children want to cycle to school, but hardly any do. How do we make space for child cycling in Gosforth?

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges is therefore consistent with Council policy and with research demonstrating that filtered streets are suitable for children to cycle and that children will benefit from an active travel journey to school.

By giving children greater choice in how to travel and enabling more independent travel his will also support Newcastle in its aim to become a UNICEF ‘Child Friendly City’.

7. Improving access to employment and the local economy

The Department of Transport report “The Value of Cycling” states that “Cycling facilities can overcome difficulties in accessing employment opportunities” as well as reducing staff turnover and absenteeism, and boosting productivity.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/509587/value-of-cycling.pdf

Salters Bridge, Stoneyhurst Road Bridge and Castle Farm Road are all useful active travel routes to major employment centres including The Freeman Hospital, the Ministry, the Regent Centre and Gosforth High Street. The Council’s Medium-Term Plan for 2021-22 and 2022-23 includes investing in transport as a way of supporting increases in employment including:

• developing local cycling and walking plans.
• developing Newcastle Streets for People and 15-minute neighbourhoods.

https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Build%20Forward%20Better%20-%20our%20medium-term%20plan%20for%202021-22%20and%202022-23.pdf

It has also been estimated that cycling more often rather than driving is the equivalent of an 8% pay increase, money that could be spent in the local economy.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/cycling-cost-saving-is-equivalent-of-an-8-per-cent-pay-rise-1-4430374

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges is therefore consistent with Council Policy to support employment and the local economy.

8. Improving accessibility

Research by Sustrans found that ” An estimated 84% of disabled people living in the UK’s biggest cities never cycle for local journeys, yet one third (33%) say they would like to start cycling” and includes the recommendation “Reduce the volume and speed of vehicles on local streets, and create streets where people walking and cycling have priority, and cars are guests. ”

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/news/2019/june/one-third-of-disabled-people-in-uk-cities-would-like-to-start-cycling/

In the Tyneside Bike Life survey 2019, 68% of disabled people thought cycle safety needed to be improved and that only 8% of people who are disabled cycled once a week compared to 17% of people who are not disabled.

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/bike-life/bike-life-tyneside

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges can therefore support accessible and inclusive streets, along with further initiatives for example dropped kerbs, removing obstacles, widening pavements for wheelchair access, raising sections of roadway to make crossing easier, and ensuring on-street cycling facilities cater for the range of cycles used by disabled people.

Prior to these orders being put in place, the narrow pavement at Salters Bridge and complete lack of pavement on Castle Farm Road meant these routes were almost completely inaccessible for anyone with mobility issues unless using a vehicle, putting disabled people wanting to use these routes at a substantial disadvantage compared to people who are not disabled.

9. Reducing carbon emissions

Along with other local authorities in the NE of England, the Council has committed to make Newcastle upon Tyne carbon neutral by 2030. This was proposed in April 2019 by one of our local Dene and South Gosforth Councillors, the Council ward covering Stoneyhurst Road Bridge and Castle Farm Road, and was supported by Councillors in Dene and South Gosforth and Parklands wards.

https://democracy.newcastle.gov.uk/documents/s143777/April%20Council%20minutes.pdf

The Net Zero Newcastle – 2030 Action Plan says (p63) “Low Traffic Neighbourhoods implement the principle of ensuring vehicular traffic does not take precedence in residential areas. While people should be able to drive to residential neighbourhoods (if needed), they should not have the right to drive through. In line with the Carbon Management Hierarchy approach, through traffic should use the established road hierarchy”

https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/our-city/climate-change-newcastle/net-zero-newcastle-2030-action-plan

We know that when both Killingworth Road and Salters Bridge were closed to traffic due to recent road works there was an area-wide reduction in traffic levels and little or no increase on surrounding roads, strongly suggesting a reduction in the total number of vehicle miles driven.

The phenomenon of ‘Disappearing Traffic’ has been observed over and over around the world, including here in Newcastle when Killingworth Road was closed. It is well understood that reducing available capacity for vehicle travel reduces the number of vehicle journeys as people find other ways of doing what they need, which might include car sharing, using public transport, walking or cycling.

See: Roadworks, Air Quality and Disappearing Traffic

It has also been shown that vehicle miles driven are correlated to carbon emissions, but congestion levels are not. To reduce carbon emissions it therefore makes more sense to focus on reducing miles driven that aiming to reduce congestion.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/07/06/urban-myth-busting-congestion-idling-and-carbon-emissions/

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges is therefore consistent with Council Policy both to become carbon neutral and to use Low Traffic Neighbourhood principles to achieve that, as well as being supported by strong scientific evidence. The use of Experimental Orders has also allowed action to be taken quickly, which is particularly important in light of the Council’s net zero targets and the Climate Emergency.

10. Enabling east-west walking and cycling across the Ouseburn and Metro

We have previously highlighted the lack of routes to cross the Ouseburn / Jesmond Dene if walking or cycling. We produced the map below prior to these orders being published.

These orders go a long way to addressing these concerns by providing traffic free routes across the Ouseburn at Salters Bridge and Castle Farm Road and reducing traffic on connecting streets. While gradient and lighting could potentially still be issues, a reduction in traffic reduces makes these routes far more usable and reduces the risks due to both.

Haddricks Mill – Alternative Routes before orders were implemented

Much the same is true of crossing the Metro line, where the main alternatives to Stoneyhurst Road are Station Road and Jesmond Dene Road, both main roads with heavy traffic that would put off most people from cycling. Consideration could also be given to prohibiting vehicle traffic on Moorfield Road bridge as part of a wider low traffic neighbourhood covering High West Jesmond and Ilford Road Metro.

11. Reducing Crime

Research looking at the London Borough of Waltham Forest showed that “The introduction of a low traffic neighbourhood was associated with a 10% decrease in total street crime (95% confidence interval 7% to 13%), and this effect increased with a longer duration since implementation (18% decrease after 3 years).”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348468915_The_Impact_of_Introducing_a_Low_Traffic_Neighbourhood_on_Street_Crime_in_Waltham_Forest_London

Northumbria Police has said “We have often called for environmental changes to address speeding and the closure of Salters Bridge will have a significant impact on speeding. It’s a far more effective way of addressing speed than relying on a camera van to be deployed.”

We have often called for environmental changes to address speeding and the closure of Salters Bridge will have a significant impact on speeding. It's a far more effective way of addressing speed than relying on a camera van to be deployed.

— Northumbria Police (@northumbriapol) August 13, 2020

This is likely to be true for other local bridges as well, including Ilford Road as a result of the order relating to Stoneyhurst Road bridge.

The approach to prohibit vehicle traffic at these local bridges is therefore consistent with objectives to reduce crime levels.

12. Impact on surrounding main roads

When the orders were first put in place some predicted ‘traffic chaos’ and ‘increased pollution’ as a result of these changes, but this has not happened and traffic is certainly no worse than it has been in previous years.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/stoneyhurst-bridge-closure-traffic-gosforth-18681528

Traffic and Accident Data Unit (TADU) monitoring of vehicle traffic on Station Road, Gosforth High Street and Sandy Lane all show vehicle volumes did not exceed those in previous years even when lockdown was mostly lifted in September and October 2020. Haddricks Mill Road was slightly higher but that was more likely as a result of previous years being low due to Killingworth Road works rather than any additional traffic.

Traffic counts on Station Road shown in the graph below, show that by the time the orders were implemented on 13 August traffic levels had already returned to close to normal, and that implementing the orders made no substantial difference to the trend, which levelled off a few weeks later and stayed broadly flat after that.

Average daily traffic count 2017 – 2020, measured on Station Road, Gosforth

When Salters Road and Killingworth Road were both closed together pre-pandemic, traffic levels on Church Road were not significantly different, and Great North Road traffic levels were unchanged.

In September, when traffic was at its highest, air pollution at nearby sensors on Gosforth High Street were lower than normal.

Even if surrounding main roads were more congested and/or polluted than normal (which they weren’t) diverting traffic onto parallel minor roads would not be an appropriate response, and it is also very unlikely that it would be effective.

13. Value for Money

Interventions to support and enable more active travel are generally less costly than changes to roads to support or improve vehicle travel. Witness for example the hundreds of millions of pounds of public money being spent on the Western Bypass to add additional vehicle capacity, even though both local and national policy suggests that we should all drive fewer journeys in future.

The type of change proposed in these orders is almost certainly one of the cheapest, quickest and most effective way of enabling more people to walk and cycle more often and meet other policy objectives including addressing public health targets and the Climate Emergency.

They are also effective at improving road safety over a wide area, not just by the bridges.

• Castle Farm Road Bridge has reduced traffic and improved road safety right along the full length of Castle Farm Road.
• Salters Bridge has reduced traffic and improved road safety along the full length of Hollywood Avenue.
• Stoneyhurst Road Bridge has reduced traffic and improved road safety on Stoneyhurst Road and on Ilford Road / Rectory Drive.

Using experimental orders also means benefits can be achieved even more quickly at very low cost using temporary materials. This is especially important for issues such as the Climate Emergency that require urgent action to meet Council, national and global targets.

14. Public acceptance

Changes to street layouts almost always prove to be controversial initially, and longer-term tend to become more supported as people start to feel the benefits and realise that predictions of traffic chaos are unfounded, or at the very least have been substantially overstated.

This substantially explains the results from the local Councillor baseline survey, which was started a full month prior to the closures on 15 July 2020.

https://www.facebook.com/dsgward/posts/4094735390567874

We also note that the Commonplace website allows comments from any geographical location, so some of the comments are likely to be from people outside of the local area who use these bridges as short cuts as part of a longer journey to avoid busy main road routes.

When we surveyed Gosforth residents in 2018 we found 88% of residents supported safe walking and cycling routes to school and 85% supported reducing through traffic on residential streets.

This is consistent with more recent YouGov polling, which found that where people had opinions on LTNs, positive views were more than three times more prevalent than negative ones.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2020/oct/22/despite-a-loud-opposing-minority-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-are-increasingly-popular

There are many existing examples of local roads where motor vehicles are prohibited to prevent those roads being used for through traffic. All of these would have caused some vehicle journeys to be longer, and will have prevented main road traffic from using these streets as a short cut rather than sticking to main roads. None of these are controversial and no one is suggesting these should be opened for vehicle traffic to reduce congestion or pollution on adjacent main roads.

15. Enabling future changes to benefit active travel and health

Salters Bridge and Castle Farm Road Bridge orders are sufficient by themselves to improve safety adjacent minor roads including all of Hollywood Avenue.

In the area bounded by Gosforth High Street, Haddricks Mill Road and Church Road / Station Road, the prohibition of vehicle traffic on Stoneyhurst Road bridge improves safety but there are still nearby minor roads with high levels of vehicle traffic including Moor Road North and South (a signed cycle route) and The Grove.

In our blog “East Gosforth – Streets for People” we looked at one possible configuration of an area wide low traffic neighbourhood, which included a prohibition of vehicle traffic at Stoneyhurst Road bridge. This suggests that the Stoneyhurst Road Bridge order is consistent with and would enable a wider area low traffic neighbourhood in future and support the 15-minute neighbourhood concept.

East Gosforth – Streets for People

16. The Status Quo is not working

The status quo isn’t working. According to the Neighbourhoods and Public Health Report to Newcastle City Council on 3 February, 2020 Newcastle leads the “UK Healthy Cities Network”, but Newcastle is not currently a healthy city.

According to the 2019 report “for a typical Newcastle annual school reception intake of 3,500 children, 500 would be overweight, 460 obese and 120 severely obese.“ By Year 6 this increases to 540 overweight, 860 obese and 220 severely obese, together close to half of all children in Year 6.

https://democracy.newcastle.gov.uk/documents/s154182/Neighbourhoods%20Public%20Health%20Portfolio%20Report.pdf

According to Public Health England, less than half (45.7%) of children in Newcastle are considered to be physically active.

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/physical-activity/data#page/1/gid/1938132899/pat/6/par/E12000001/ati/201/are/E08000021/iid/93014/age/298/sex/4/cid/4/page-options/ovw-do-1_cin-ci-4_map-ao-4_car-do-0

The British Heart Foundation Physical Activity Report 2017 found that 42% of adults in the North East were classed as being inactive, putting them at greater risk of heart and circulatory disease.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/publications/statistics/physical-inactivity-report-2017

In 2015, the BBC reported “A lack of exercise could be killing twice as many people as obesity in Europe, a 12-year study of more than 300,000 people suggests.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30812439

Currently relatively few people cycle (including children), and those that do are often forced into long inconvenient detours to avoid busy local streets.

The Tyneside Bike Life survey found that women, older and disabled people were then less likely to cycle in Tyneside but in all cases a majority wanted improvements in cycle safety. The report, to illustrate what could be possible, says “55% of all cycling trips in the Netherlands are made by women” where safe cycling facilities are widely available and “over 65 make 24% of their trips by cycle.”

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/bike-life/bike-life-tyneside

It is pretty clear that current cycling facilities in Newcastle, where most journeys involve having to use busy roads, mean women, older and disabled people are at a substantial disadvantage. These orders will help to address and remove that disadvantage.

As a result of high traffic levels people in Newcastle also suffer from congestion, pollution and every year people are killed and seriously injured on Newcastle’s roads through no fault of their own.

See: Traffic Crash Injury 2020 and Traffic Crash Injury 2019

Nationally, “motoring on minor roads doubled between 2009 and 2019.” This is not something we were ever consulted about, and if nothing is done will only get worse due to increasing availability of in-car Sat Nav systems.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/25/rat-running-residential-uk-streets-satnav-apps

Unless something is done now, these trends of increasing obesity, inactivity and ill health look set to continue while pollution and carbon emissions will not reduce. The Council has recognised that a “whole-systems approach to tackle rising obesity levels in the city” is needed.

https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/citylife-news/lifestyle/new-whole-systems-approach-tackling-obesity-newcastle

These orders support that whole-systems approach supporting a wide range of policy objectives covering health, economy, accessibility and the environment in a way that can be implemented quickly at a very low cost.

Summary and Next steps

In summary, we support the continued prohibition of driving of motor vehicles and associated changes made in the listed orders, and support these orders being made permanent.

Only a decision to make these orders permanent would align with Council policy. A decision to revoke these orders would make it harder for the Council to achieve its policy aims in future. This is also the perfect time to implement these changes while the roads are relatively quiet and people are willing to try out other ways of travelling around their local neighbourhoods.

“Doing nothing” or delaying action won’t encourage more people to walk or cycle, won’t improve health, won’t make it safer for children to travel to school and won’t reduce pollution or green house gas emissions.

We don’t believe there are any other alternative options currently available to the Council that would achieve the same level of benefits, for the same low cost across so many policy areas. Our assessment is that all of the substantive issues that have been raised, that we are aware of, can be adequately mitigated without re-opening these bridges to vehicle traffic.

The consultation has given residents the opportunity to share concerns. We hope the Council will assess these with due regard to the facts of the situation including any relevant evidence. For example, a comment by a member of the public opposing one of the bridge closures on our website asserts that, as a result of Stoneyhurst Road bridge being closed, people would be prevented from using their cars, which is clearly not true. The Council will also need to assess the impact of those false statements and other ‘trolling’ comments on Commonplace to determine whether these have skewed the overall consultation response.

For those concerns that are assessed to be factual and supported by relevant evidence, we hope the Council will give serious thought as to how those concerns could be addressed in a way that is consistent with Council policy and enables the prohibition of motor traffic at local bridges to be retained. For example:

• Using parking controls at the junction of Dene Crescent and Haddricks Mill Road to implement with Highway Code Rule 243, which says do not park opposite or within 10 metres (32 feet) of a junction.
• Options for enabling vehicles travelling in opposite directions on Balmoral Terrace, Windsor Terrace, Sandringham Road and Audley Road to pass, no doubt made harder because more people are working at home so there are fewer gaps as residents’ cars remain parked all day.
• Implementing further “point closures” to link up walking and cycling routes and prevent traffic being displaced onto other local residential streets that aren’t part of the Council’s primary and secondary distributor road network.
• Creating a safe cycling link between Dene Crescent and Castle Farm Road along Haddricks Mill Road.
• Continued monitoring of pollution and traffic levels on distributor roads, including Church Road / Station Road, and consideration of (i) further road-space reallocation and better crossings in line with statutory guidance and (ii) extending the proposed Clean Air Zone so it bounded by he Tyne, the A1, the Metro line and the A19 as we set out in our response to the Council’s Air Quality consultation and (iii) other traffic demand management measures to improve quality of life for residents living on local distributor roads.

We also hope the Council will also use the feedback to identify suitable topics for future communications such as:

• Communication of objectives such as reducing air pollution and carbon emissions or making roads safer so more people will walk and cycle, and what road layout changes are likely to be needed to achieve those objectives.
• Communication to address popular misconceptions e.g. that “point closures” will increase emissions (they don’t) or that a large proportion of traffic will displace to adjacent streets (it doesn’t).
• Communication to explain the need to make road layout changes to direct through traffic onto distributor roads, which are safer and better-designed for higher volumes of vehicle traffic than local residential streets – and that it is neither appropriate nor acceptable to use local residential streets as alternative main road routes.
• Case studies showing where the Council has made these changes and the benefits achieved.

A number of organisations have provided a useful summary of evidence relating to low traffic neighbourhoods, which we have referenced in Appendix A. Linked SPACE for Gosforth blogs are listed in Appendix B.

Yours Sincerely,

SPACE for Gosforth

www.spaceforgosforth.com

Appendix A Summaries of evidence relating to low traffic neighbourhoods

Sustrans
https://www.sustrans.org.uk/for-professionals/infrastructure/an-introductory-guide-to-low-traffic-neighbourhood-design/an-introductory-guide-to-low-traffic-neighbourhood-design-contents/design-guide/all/5-a-guide-to-the-evidence-around-low-traffic-neighbourhoods

London Cycling Campaign
https://www.lcc.org.uk/articles/ltns-work-new-research-shows-evidence-of-success-on-multiple-criteria

We are Possible.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d30896202a18c0001b49180/t/60003fabf3791928a02b707f/1610629036655/LTN+Briefing_FINAL.pdf

Transport Findings
https://findingspress.org/article/18330-the-impact-of-introducing-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-on-road-traffic-injuries

Journal of Transport and Health
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140520301626

Rachel Aldred
http://rachelaldred.org/research/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-evidence/

Appendix B SPACE for Gosforth blogs

SPACE for Gosforth has produced three blogs relating to these orders.

1. We assessed a number of other concerns relating specifically to Stoneyhurst Road bridge in our blog “Stoneyhurst Bridge – Review of Concerns” published here: https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/stoneyhurst-bridge-review-of-concerns/
2. Our blog Enabling Safe Walking and Cycling via Local Bridges is published here: https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/enabling-safe-walking-and-cycling-via-local-bridges/
3. East Gosforth Streets for People – in which we propose a possible layout for a low traffic neighbourhood including the area around Stoneyhurst Road and show that closing Stoneyhurst Road Bridge to vehicle traffic would have minimal impact to most vehicle journey times. https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/east-gosforth-lcwip/

The post Safe Newcastle Bridges appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

From November 2020 to January 2021 Transport North East held a consultation on their draft transport plan for the North East up to 2035. This is the SPACE for Gosforth response.

We looked at the plan’s vision and objectives, and we looked at the schemes proposed. The vision talks about carbon reduction, health, reducing inequalities, safer streets and sustainable travel. The schemes include link roads, corridor improvements, capacity upgrades, addressing vehicle pinch points, dual carriageways and junction upgrades. These clearly don’t align.

We fully support the plan objectives, but the schemes need to be re-evaluated to select and expand those that support the objectives and reject those that do not.

Transport North East say they are working to “deliver game-changing transport schemes and initiatives.” and “to greatly improve the lives of everyone living or working in our region.” The current plan won’t do this, but we hope our and other’s feedback will be taken into account to produce a revised plan that will achieve the stated objectives.

Transport for the North East itself provides “strategy, planning and delivery services on behalf of the North East Joint Transport Committee (NEJTC)“, where the committee is made up of the region’s two Combined Authorities (North of Tyne Combined Authority covering Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland, and the North East Combined Authority covering Durham, Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside).

Update 13 March 2021: Transport North East have produced their final plan for approval by local authorities. You can see the final plan and a “You said – we did” document explaining what changes have been made here.

The letter below is our group’s response to the original consultation in January 2021.

Dear Transport North East,

Re: North East Transport Plan Consultation – January 2021

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the North East Transport Plan. It is extremely positive to see The North East Combined Authority and The North of Tyne Combined Authority working together on a single coherent plan for the region.

We welcome and acknowledge the need, as you say, to “deliver profound and lasting improvements that will shape the North East and its people for decades to come.” We are in the midst of a Climate Emergency, a health crisis made worse because of existing high levels of poor health in part caused by inactivity, and scandalously we have still have not met legally-binding targets for air quality that came into force in 2005.

Between 2010 and 2019, 511 people were killed and 6,450 people were seriously injured on the North East’s roads. These are not just statistics, they were mums, dads, children, friends and neighbours. Almost half of those killed or seriously injured on the region’s roads were under 35 years old. Change is needed, and it is needed quickly, by 2025 not by 2035.

“The truth about a region’s aspirations isn’t found in its vision. It’s found in its budget.”

We’ve looked at the plan’s vision and objectives, and we’ve looked at the schemes proposed. The vision talks about carbon reduction, health, reducing inequalities, safer streets and sustainable travel. The schemes include link roads, corridor improvements, capacity upgrades, addressing vehicle pinch points, dual carriageways and junction upgrades. These clearly don’t align.

Carbon reduction, improved health and more sustainable travel all point to less vehicle traffic in future, not more. Building for more traffic while at the same time forecasting less traffic is just throwing money away, and will lead to more emissions and poor health outcomes.

While we acknowledge many of the schemes included do support active travel and public transport, for a region of two million people they could be substantially more ambitious than proposed, and achieve benefits far more quickly if funds weren’t being diverted to expensive schemes to create unneeded additional vehicle capacity.

The vision should define the destination

The plan vision needs to establish and make tangible what the end goal is and start to build towards that, so people understand the destination rather than only seeing individual steps on the journey. This will support both community buy-in to the plan and provide better focus for the initiatives that make up the plan.

It is not hard to envisage what this would look like. As a minimum it would need to include:

• Accessible and inclusive local streets with pavements that are not cluttered or used for parking.
• A defined road network for essential vehicle journeys, with reduced capacity compared to now, as fewer journeys will need a vehicle in future when other better options become available.
• Local roads that are not part of that main-road network that can be used for walking, cycling, socializing and street play, but not for through traffic (low traffic neighbourhoods).
• Junctions designed to prevent high-speed collisions and speed limits set to ensure collisions do not lead to serious injury or death.
• A region-wide network of safe walking and cycling routes to connect homes to shops, schools, parks and other local destinations and which support inclusive cycling and allow children to travel independently.
• An efficient high-frequency bus network with good quality interchanges and integration with walking and cycling routes for longer multi-modal journeys.

These alone would substantially achieve all the plan objectives with money to spare. The question for Transport North East is how quickly it can move to achieve this vision, so that everyone who lives in the North East can start to see and feel the benefits.

Transport North East has work to do to demonstrate this is not a ‘business as usual’ transport plan.

Substantially the objectives in the plan do speak to the serious economic, climate, air quality, health and wellbeing issues that are today caused by road transport, and need to be addressed through changes to the transport system. Good intentions though are not enough to achieve good outcomes.

As we have said, many of the actual schemes proposed are very much business as usual.

We therefore want to challenge Transport North East to come up with a revised set of schemes, including those on the list above, that will demonstrably prove this is not a ‘business as usual’ plan.

To be genuinely transformational, and not just business as usual, the plan should very clearly:

• Enable the five of seven local authorities that have set a target to be carbon neutral by 2030 to achieve that by substantially decarbonizing the transport system by 2030.
• Achieve zero killed and seriously injured on the region’s roads by 2025. (This should be part of the safe, secure network objective, not hidden away on page 33.)
• Create safe networks of routes leading to a step-change increase in walking and cycling for local (< 5 mile) journeys throughout the region.
• Demonstrate that Transport North East and the constituent authorities can act with the necessary pace and urgency to make these happen, with substantial progress by 2025 or sooner.

There’s no such thing as a ‘two minutes late for work emergency’

There is a Climate Emergency. Poor air quality is the largest environmental risk to public health in the UK. Physical inactivity is responsible for one in six UK deaths.

Choosing how the budget is allocated is a moral and political choice. Transport North East can either deliver profound and lasting improvements by prioritising the budget to address transport poverty, health, climate, economy and environment, or it can build more link roads to make driving marginally more attractive for a few years for people who can afford it. Almost certainly it won’t be possible to do both.

Please choose wisely.

We enclose our response to the consultation questions below.

Yours faithfully,

SPACE for Gosforth

www.spaceforgosforth.com

SPACE for Gosforth North East Transport Plan Questionnaire Response

2. Are you responding as an individual or on behalf of an organisation?

We are responding on behalf of the SPACE for Gosforth group, based in Gosforth in Newcastle upon Tyne. SPACE for Gosforth is a residents’ group with the aim of promoting healthy, liveable, accessible and safe neighbourhoods where walking and cycling are safe, practical and attractive travel options for residents of all ages and abilities. We are residents of Gosforth, most of us with families and we walk, cycle, use public transport and drive. SPACE stands for Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment.

6. Do we support the Vision Statement: “Moving to a green, healthy, dynamic and thriving North East”

Yes, we support the Vision Statement.

This needs to be brought to life and explained properly so people understand where the plan is, or should be according to the objectives, leading us. For example:

• Accessible and inclusive local streets with pavements that are not cluttered or used for parking.
• A defined road network for essential vehicle journeys, with reduced capacity compared to now, as fewer journeys will need a vehicle in future when other better options become available.
• Local roads that are not part of that main-road network that can be used for walking, cycling, socializing and street play, but not for through traffic (low traffic neighbourhoods).
• Speed limits set to ensure collisions do not lead to serious injury or death, and junctions designed to prevent high-speed collisions.
• A region-wide network of safe walking and cycling routes to connect homes to shops, schools, parks and other local destinations and which support inclusive cycling and allow children to travel independently.
• An efficient high-frequency bus network with good quality interchanges and integration with walking and cycling routes for longer multi-modal journeys

How much do you agree with each of the following objectives?

What do you think are the barriers to achieving each of these objectives?

The following are common barriers and / or risks that are likely to apply to all the objectives. We suggest these are included in a NE Transport Risk log to be tracked along with appropriate mitigations.

Governance and Leadership Risks

• Lack of political leadership and/or lack of alignment between political leaders.
• Lack of urgency to achieve committed timescales e.g. carbon neutral by 2030.
• Focusing on, and getting bogged down in, small incremental changes at the expense of the more widespread changes needed to achieve the objectives.
• Delays due to schemes not being initiated until the overall plan is agreed.
• Lack of clear prioritisation between objectives e.g. air quality limits need by law to be met ‘in the shortest possible timescale’ and the target for five of seven authorities is to be carbon neutral is 2030.
• Poor quality governance that means schemes, especially those that increase vehicle capacity, are implemented even if they don’t meet the NETP objectives.
• Failure to account for the longer-term impact of Covid in reducing demand for transport.
• Weak planning policies that lead to the creation of new car-dependant suburbs with no local facilities.
• Not exploring alternative revenue raising options for traffic demand management such as a workplace parking levy.

Risks relating to the selection of schemes

• Insufficient portion of the overall budget allocated to meet specific objectives.
• Too much focus on ‘encouragement’ rather than making changes to make streets safer to enable people to walk or cycle.
• Inappropriate allocation of the budget to the wrong schemes that either will not support the objectives or prevent budget being allocated to more effective, more strategically aligned, cheaper or quicker to deliver schemes.
• Over-reliance on traffic management changes, which are unlikely to achieve the objectives and risk inducing increasing traffic volumes and adding to pollution and emissions.
• A lack of measures to manage and reduce the demand for private vehicle travel.
• Promotion of headline-grabbing ‘mega-schemes’ that sound impressive but are less effective than using the same budget for a package of smaller measures.
• Continued over-reliance on traditional ‘predict and provide’ planning for new roads that assume increasing traffic levels even though the NETP objectives implicitly require that in future fewer vehicle miles will be driven than now.

Risks relating to Public Engagement

• Failing to make the case for urgent change through lack of, or poor quality public communications.
• Poor quality or overly-long consultations that delay implementation.
• Too much weight given to relatively minor objections, or issues that can be mitigated, compared to the benefits from achieving the plan objectives.
• Mixed messages vs other council policies e.g. free parking offers.

Risks relating to Implementation

• Over-reliance on modelling vs trialling changes.
• Lack of training and expertise within councils and suppliers to make the necessary change to move quickly from traditional vehicle-led design to people-led design of road schemes.

Further barriers and / or risks that apply to specific objectives are set out in the table below.

12. Are there any objectives you would have liked to see which are missing? If so, what are they?

Yes:

Better places – streets as places where we all live, play, socialize, exercise, shop & where people want to live.

13. Do you agree that individual projects will be required to submit Monitoring and Evaluation Plans?

Yes, we agree. The monitoring and evaluation plans need to assess whether schemes support achievement of the NETP objectives.

How much do you agree with the following policy statements?

31. Are there any comments you would like to make on the policy statements?

See table above.

32. Are there any policy statements which you think are missing?

Please see alternative proposals in the table above. In addition we would like to propose:

Active Travel – Streets are easier and safer to navigate for residents or visitors with limited mobility and for residents or visitors with disabilities or conditions for whom travel is a challenge.

Active Travel – There is good walking and cycling access to local community destinations including schools, shops, medical centres, work-places and transport hubs.

Active Travel – Streets are valued as places where people live, meet and socialise, and not just for travelling through.

33. What do you think of the timeline for the delivery of schemes up to 2035?

The pace of change in the plan is massively too slow and risks not achieving set targets especially:

• Achieving air quality legal limits ‘in the shortest possible timescales’.
• Achieving no fatalities or serious injuries on the regions’ road network by 2025.
• Achieving carbon neutral transport by 2030.

34. Are there any schemes which you feel are missing from this timeline? 


Schemes that support these urgent time-bound objectives should be prioritised and delivered early in the plan timescale. These can include:

• Widespread (region-wide) implementation of low traffic neighbourhoods and school streets.
• New main road crossings, in support of new safe walking and cycling networks.
• Narrowing lanes on urban main roads to 3m maximum width for improved safety for all users.
• Trial schemes to reallocate space on main roads to create wider pop-up protected cycle lanes.
• Review of speed limits to meet Vision Zero principles: 20 mph speed limits in cities, 40mph limits on rural minor roads.
• Clear Air Zones where air quality limits are currently not met.
• Using parking charges to manage and limit traffic demand in busy city centres, including workplace parking levies.
• New bus lanes, where space is not needed for walking and cycling facilities.
• Tightening entrances and exits from junctions to prevent vehicles from travelling through those junctions at high speeds, putting other users at risk.
• Better enforcement of traffic offences, including via the use of ANPR cameras.
• Improved winter maintenance of pavements and cycle lanes.
• On-street secure cycle storage (e.g. cycle hoops)
• Definition and implementation of a minimum viable cycle network that connects homes to major destinations and can then be expanded and improved on.
• Creation of a plan for a regional cycle network including traffic-free cycle links between adjacent urban areas e.g. Newcastle to Ponteland, Killingworth or Cramlington.

SPACE for Gosforth has previously submitted evidence-based suggestions for how to reduce carbon emissions to the Newcastle City Council climate change consultation, which can be found here: https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/evidence-about-climate-change/

SPACE for Gosforth has also completed a literature review to find what type of measures have evidence to show they are effective to reduce air pollution, which can be found here: https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/air-quality-what-works/

SPACE for Gosforth’s response to the Newcastle City Council Breathe Clean Air consultation, which proposes schemes to address air pollution in Newcastle can be found here: https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/tag/breathe-clean-air/

We would also like to propose the inclusion of this walking and cycling scheme by Regent Centre in Gosforth: https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/regent-centre/

35. Are there any schemes in our programme which you feel should not be included? 


Yes. Building for more traffic while at the same time forecasting less traffic is just throwing money away, and will lead to more emissions and poor health outcomes.

Link roads, corridor improvements, capacity upgrades, addressing vehicle pinch points, dual carriageways and junction upgrades are how we ended up with a climate crisis and illegal levels of air pollution. More of the same won’t address the climate crisis, won’t solve air pollution, won’t make it safer or more attractive to walk or cycle, won’t address transport poverty, and will further decimate local High Streets as people who can drive are incentivised to travel long-distances to out of town shopping centres rather than supporting local shops.

All the schemes that increase vehicle capacity and encourage more driving need to be re-examined to assess whether they will actually support the objectives or if there are better options including the use of traffic demand management to keep roads clear for those that need to drive most.

Schemes that should be re-evaluated and removed if not consistent with the objectives or if better options exist include:

• Schemes for new car parks, access roads and link roads,
• Additional lanes, dual carriageways, bypasses and any scheme that claims to improve ‘flow’,
• Junction changes designed to increase vehicle throughput, and ‘pinch point’ schemes,
• Changes to vehicle capacity made as part of ‘all user improvements’ or ‘strategic corridor improvements’, and
• Relief roads and new vehicle bridges.

36. Are there any other comments you would like to make? 


In our response to the NECA Walking and Cycling survey in 2017 we said the following, which is equally relevant to the NE Transport Plan.

The strategy [Plan] needs to recognise that every journey driven that could have been undertaken by foot or by cycle:

• Increases travelling cost for the person travelling, money that might otherwise have been spent in the local area.
• Adds to the overall cost of road maintenance.
• Worsens air quality and creates risks for other road users.
• Increases carbon emissions.
• Is a lost opportunity for fresh air and exercise.
• Creates additional demand for parking which means less land available for housing and other more productive uses.

Likewise for every neighbourhood designed to prioritise traffic over place we find:

• Children unable to play outside
• Teenagers not able to travel independently
• Older people stuck alone in their home
• And a community weakened through lack of on-street social interaction.
• Local shops and services diminished because of competition from out of town shopping centres.

Whether or not these are part of the thinking for the transport strategy, or part of its aims, these are the real life outcomes. Nor are these just words. Tens of thousands of people die early each year due to poor air quality near roads. Many more die due to other conditions and illnesses related to how we travel. For example “regular cycling cut the risk of death from any cause by 41%, the incidence of cancer by 45% and heart disease by 46%” (https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/cwis2017/)

By prioritising walking and cycling, the NECA Strategic Transport Plan can deal with air pollution, it can reduce social isolation, it can improve choice for how we travel and make neighbourhoods more accessible for those with reduced mobility. It can reduce road injuries and deaths and reduce the fear that people feel when travelling on foot or by cycle. It can enable children’s independence so they can travel to go to school or play outside with their friends. It can enable people to travel to work and make them feel better when they get there. And it can align individual and community-wide incentives to ensure the transport system as a whole is as efficient as possible.

We hope that Transport North East will seize this opportunity and put in place a robust and well-funded plan to address all these issues as a matter of urgency.

For reference, we have previously responded to two NECA consultations and a consultation by Transport for the North.

The 20 year transport manifesto for the North East, in April 2016 – https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/neca-2016/

The July 2017 NECA Walking and Cycling survey – https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/neca-survey-2017/

Transport for the North Strategic Transport Plan April 2018 – https://www.spaceforgosforth.com/tfn_consultation_questions/

The post North East Transport Plan Consultation – January 2021 appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

The Government is reviewing The Highway Code, in particular “to improve safety for pedestrians, particularly children, older adults and disabled people, cyclists and horse riders.”

As part of this review, between July and October 2020, the Department for Transport asked for views on proposed changes “on overtaking, passing distances, cyclist and pedestrian priority at junctions, opening vehicle doors and responsibility of road users.” This blog sets out SPACE for Gosforth’s response to the consultation.

What is the Highway Code for?

The Highway Code sets out the rules we should all follow when using the road to keep each other safe. In the standard Hierarchy of Hazard Controls it would be categorised as an administrative or process control. Process controls aim to change how people behave. They do not remove hazards, rather they aim to limit or prevent people’s exposure to those hazards.

The diagram below shows how the different types of controls in the hierarchy could be applied to avoid road traffic collisions.

I decided to completely re-draw and augment that great @NIOSH Hierarchy of Controls diagram.

Those guys in Copenhagen did a version awhile back but I wanted one with plainer language, consistent with the way we talk about street safety. pic.twitter.com/TFL1wqsybD

— Qagggy! (@Qagggy) April 23, 2019

From the hierarchy diagram we can see that process controls are not so effective at mitigating risk from hazards. This is why it is important that the Government also aims to reduce danger by reducing traffic levels and by providing good quality facilities for walking and cycling that don’t require vulnerable road users to share with motor traffic.

A good explanation of engineering concepts for road safety can be found in this video titled ‘Systematic Safety: The Principles Behind Vision Zero.’.

As well as aiming to keep people safe, The Highway Code is also used by Courts of Law and by motor insurance companies to attribute responsibility and assess damages when there has been a collision.

The way The Highway Code is written now suggests that we all have equal responsibility for following the code, no matter, for example, whether you happen to be driving a HGV or a 10 year old child walking to school. This makes little sense, as someone driving an HGV could cause substantially more damage than a child on foot. It has also led to a situation where damages awarded to a victim knocked off their bike has those damages reduced if not wearing a helmet, regardless of whether wearing a helmet made a difference to injuries received.

The proposed changes attempt to remedy this by introducing a hierarchy of road users to clarify that “those in charge of vehicles that can cause the greatest harm in the event of a collision bear the greatest responsibility to take care and reduce the danger they pose to others”.

The remainder of this blog gives the Department for Transport’s proposals and SPACE for Gosforth’s response to those proposals. The descriptions of the proposals e.g. in the sections “Hierarchy of road users”, “Rule H1” and “Rule H2: Rule for drivers, motorcyclists, horse riders and cyclists”, are taken from the DfT’s consultation questionnaire.

Hierarchy of road users

The aim of The Highway Code is to promote safety on the road, whilst also supporting a healthy, sustainable and efficient transport system.

Hierarchy of Road Users: The ‘Hierarchy of Road Users’ is a concept which places those road users most at risk in the event of a collision at the top of the hierarchy. The road users most likely to be injured in the event of a collision are pedestrians, in particular children, older adults and disabled people, followed by cyclists, horse riders and motorcyclists. The hierarchy does not remove the need for everyone to behave responsibly. The following H rules clarify this concept

Rule H1

It is important that ALL road users are aware of The Highway Code, are considerate to other road users and understand their responsibility for the safety of others.

Everyone suffers when road collisions occur, whether they are physically injured or not. But those in charge of vehicles that can cause the greatest harm in the event of a collision bear the greatest responsibility to take care and reduce the danger they pose to others. This principle applies most strongly to drivers of large goods and passenger vehicles, followed by vans/minibuses, cars/taxis and motorcycles.

Cyclists, horse riders and horse drawn vehicles likewise have a responsibility to reduce danger to pedestrians.

Always remember that the people you encounter may have impaired sight, hearing or mobility, and may not be able to see or hear you.

None of this detracts from the responsibility of all road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders, to have regard for their own and other road users’ safety.

SPACE for Gosforth response:

Overall we support the hierarchy of users but wish to suggest some clarifications.

1. It is not reasonable that the most vulnerable, including young children, are required to be fully aware of the Highway Code. Their safety should be prioritised regardless of their capacity to understand or knowledge of the code. Insisting the most vulnerable road users know the Highway Code will make little or no contribution to the safety of others as they are least able to do harm. This, we understand, is the point of having the hierarchy.
2. Those in charge of vehicles that can cause the greatest harm in the event of a collision should be required to mitigate and minimise the danger they pose to others, not just to reduce it. The word ‘reduce’ is not clear E.g. a driver might ‘reduce’ the danger they pose to others by reducing their speed from 60 to 50mph, but if this was in a 30mph zone this would still present considerable danger to other road users. This also applies to Rule 204.
3. It would be useful in the introduction to clarify that a road user’s responsibility for the safety of others applies at all times and is not conditional on whether the others act in accordance with the Highway Code or not.
4. The final sentence detracts from the concept of hierarchy and makes the rule less clear. This could be replaced with “None of this detracts from the responsibility of all road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders not to obstruct unnecessarily or endanger other road users.”

Rule H2: Rule for drivers, motorcyclists, horse riders and cyclists

At a junction you should give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross a road into which or from which you are turning.

You MUST give way to pedestrians on a zebra crossing, and pedestrians and cyclists on a parallel crossing.

You should give way to pedestrians waiting to cross a zebra crossing, and pedestrians and cyclists waiting to cross a parallel crossing.

Horse riders and horse drawn vehicles should also give way to pedestrians on a zebra crossing, and pedestrians and cyclists on a parallel crossing.

Pedestrians have priority when on a zebra crossing, on a parallel crossing or at light controlled crossings when they have a green signal.

Cyclists should give way to pedestrians on shared use cycle tracks.Only pedestrians may use the pavement. This includes people using wheelchairs and mobility scooters. Pedestrians may use any part of the road and use cycle tracks as well as the pavement, unless there are signs prohibiting pedestrians.

SPACE for Gosforth response:

Re: “Only pedestrians may use the pavement. This includes people using wheelchairs and mobility scooters.”

We agree with the principle that pavements are for pedestrians but suggest the following sentence is clarified in line with ministerial and police guidance for pavement cycling, and to ensure younger children may use the pavement with their parents, as many do now.

That guidance says “The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of the traffic, and who show consideration to other pavement users.” Link to NPCC Guidance

Rule 64 should also be updated to reflect NPCC advice.

We suggest a further clarification to make explicit how this rule applies to pavement parking.

Rule H3: Rule for drivers and motorcyclists

You should not cut across cyclists going ahead when turning into or out of a junction or changing direction or lane, just as you would not turn across the path of another motor vehicle. This applies whether cyclists are using a cycle lane, a cycle track, or riding ahead on the road and you should give way to them.

Do not turn at a junction if to do so would cause the cyclist going straight ahead to stop or swerve, just as you would do with a motor vehicle.

You should stop and wait for a safe gap in the flow of cyclists if necessary. This includes when cyclists are:

• approaching, passing or moving off from a junction
• moving past or waiting alongside stationary or slow-moving traffic
• travelling around a roundabout

SPACE for Gosforth response:

Given the potential for a collision and serious injury as a result it would be better to use “must” rather than “should” as in:
 “You must not cut across cyclists going ahead when turning into or out of a junction or changing direction or lane, just as you would not turn across the path of another motor vehicle.”

Rules for pedestrians

The Highway Code already advises drivers and riders to give priority to pedestrians who have started to cross the road. The proposed change is to introduce a responsibility for drivers and riders to give way to pedestrians waiting to cross:

• a junction or side road
• at a zebra crossing

For Rule 8 on junctions the proposed new text is:

 “When you are crossing or waiting to cross the road other traffic should give way.”

For Rule 19 on zebra crossings the proposed new text is:

 “Drivers and riders should give way to pedestrians waiting to cross and MUST give way to pedestrians on a zebra crossing.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We agree these changes.

SPACE for Gosforth further comments about other changes to the rules for pedestrians

Rule 13 includes the words “Cyclists should respect your safety (see Rule 62) but you should also take care not to obstruct or endanger them unnecessarily.”

These words suggest that it might be necessary to endanger a cyclist.

We don’t believe it should ever be necessary to endanger any other road user.

Rules for cyclists

Rule 63 for cyclists wording: shared spaces

Rule 63 will be amended to provide guidance for cyclists on sharing space. The additional proposed text is:

“Sharing space with pedestrians, horse riders and horse drawn vehicles. When riding in places where sharing with pedestrians, horse riders or horse drawn vehicles is permitted take care when passing pedestrians, especially children, older adults or disabled people. Let them know you are there when necessary e.g. by ringing your bell (it is recommended that a bell is fitted to your bike), or by calling out politely.

Remember that pedestrians may be deaf, blind or partially sighted and that this may not be obvious.

Do not pass pedestrians, horse riders or horse drawn vehicles closely or at high speed, particularly from behind. Remember that horses can be startled if passed without warning. Always be prepared to slow down and stop when necessary.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We agree these changes.

Equivalent words should apply in Rule 163 as many rural roads especially do not have pavements and have to be shared by pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders and other road users.

Rule 72 for cyclists: road positioning

Rule 72 will be amended to provide guidance on road positioning for cyclists to ensure that they adopt safe cycling behaviours. The additional proposed text is:

”Road positioning. When riding on the roads, there are two basic road positions you should adopt, depending on the situation.

1. Ride in the centre of your lane, to make yourself as clearly visible as possible, in the following situations:

• on quiet roads or streets – if a faster vehicle comes up behind you, move to the left to enable them to overtake, if you can do so safely
• in slower-moving traffic move over to the left, if you can do so safely, so that faster vehicles behind you can overtake when the traffic around you starts to flow more freely
• at the approach to junctions or road narrowings where it would be unsafe for drivers to overtake you

2. When riding on busy roads, with vehicles moving faster than you, allow them to overtake where it is safe to do so whilst keeping at least 0.5m (metres) away from the kerb edge. Remember that traffic on most dual carriageways moves quickly. Take extra care crossing slip roads.

SPACE for Gosforth response:

The wording should make clear that cyclists may use any part of the lane they are using. This should not substantially impact other road users ability to overtake as Rule 163 says that other road users should “give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car “

As the Rule 72 is about safety, then the advice in sub-bullet 1 should focus on that aspect specifically. Sub-bullet 2 covers moving left to allow faster vehicles to overtake E.g.

1. Ride in the centre of your lane, to make yourself as clearly visible as possible, in the following situations:

• on quiet roads or streets
• in slower-moving traffic
• at the approach to junctions or road narrowings where it would be unsafe for drivers to overtake you

Rule 73 at junctions

Rule 73 will be amended to provide guidance for cyclists on how to proceed safely at junctions, both with and without separate cyclist facilities. The additional proposed text is:

“Junctions. Some junctions, particularly those with traffic lights, have special cycle facilities, including small cycle traffic lights at eye-level height, which may allow you to move or cross separately from or ahead of other traffic. Use these facilities where they make your journey safer and easier.

At junctions with no separate cyclist facilities, it is recommended that you proceed as if you were driving a motor vehicle (see Rules 170 to 190). Position yourself in the centre of your chosen lane, where you feel able to do this safely, to make yourself as visible as possible and to avoid being overtaken where this would be dangerous. If you do not feel safe to proceed in this way, you may prefer to dismount and wheel your bike across the junction.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We agree these changes.

Rule 76 for cyclists: going straight ahead

Rule 76 will be amended to clarify priorities when going straight ahead. The additional proposed text is:

“Going straight ahead. If you are going straight ahead at a junction, you have priority over traffic waiting to turn into or out of the side road, unless road signs or markings indicate otherwise (see Rule H3). Check that you can proceed safely, particularly when approaching junctions on the left alongside stationary or slow-moving traffic.

Watch out for drivers intending to turn across your path. Remember the driver ahead may not be able to see you, so bear in mind your speed and position in the road.

Be particularly careful alongside lorries and other long vehicles, as their drivers may find it difficult to see you. Remember that they may have to move over to the right before turning left, and that their rear wheels may then come very close to the kerb while turning.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We suggest replacing this:

“Watch out for drivers intending to turn across your path. Remember the driver ahead may not be able to see you, so bear in mind your speed and position in the road.”

with:

“Watch out for drivers intending to turn across your path. The driver ahead is required by the Highway Code to check before turning but not all drivers will do so.”

and replacing:

“Be particularly careful alongside lorries and other long vehicles, as their drivers may find it difficult to see you. Remember that they may have to move over to the right before turning left, and that their rear wheels may then come very close to the kerb while turning.”

with:

“Be particularly careful alongside lorries and other long vehicles. Their drivers are required by the Highway Code to check before turning, but not all drivers will do so. Remember that they may have to move over to the right before turning left, and that their rear wheels may then come very close to the kerb while turning.”

SPACE for Gosforth further comments about other changes to the rules for cyclists

The consultation proposes to “update Rule 59 to state that evidence suggests that wearing a cycle helmet will reduce your risk of sustaining a head injury in certain circumstances”

Any advice included should be consistent with government advice given when travelling by other modes and in other circumstances where a helmet might reduce the risk of sustaining a head injury e.g. playing sports like rugby or golf, using ladders or gardening.

It also needs to reflect and take account of the fact that cycling overall is beneficial for health regardless of helmet use, and that promoting helmet use risks worse health outcomes overall if it leads to fewer people cycling.

Further advice needs to be provided to courts to confirm that an individual’s choice to use a helmet or not does not excuse or diminish the responsibility of other road users not to collide with or injure a cyclist.

Rule 64 needs to be updated to reflect NPCC advice about pavement cycling.

We support British Cycling’s proposal for Rule 66 regarding riding two abreast.
“You should be considerate of the needs of other road users when riding in small or large groups. You can ride two abreast and it is often safer to do so, particularly in larger groups or when accompanying children or less experienced riders. Be aware of drivers behind you, allowing them to overtake (e.g. by moving into single file) when you feel it is safe to let them do so.”

We also support British Cycling’s proposals for Rules 154 and 213. See: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/campaigning/article/20201022-Dame-Sarah-Storey-calls-for-clarity-on- riding-two-abreast-0

Rule 67 needs to make clear that the primary responsibility for preventing a cyclist being hit by an opening door lies with the person opening the door.

Rules suggesting that cyclists should dismount should be reviewed to ensure they do not put people with disabilities, who may not be able to dismount, at a substantial disadvantage.

Rule 140: We suggest changing to “You should not park in a cycle lane marked by a broken white line unless it is unavoidable, and even then for only as long as necessary.”

Rules for drivers and motorcyclists

General rules, techniques and advice for all drivers and riders

Rule 140 will be amended to provide advice on cycle lanes and cycle tracks, ensuring that drivers and riders know that cyclists have priority and should give way when turning across their path. The additional proposed text is:

“You should give way to any cyclists in a cycle lane, including when they are approaching from behind you – do not cut across them when turning or when changing lane (see Rule H3). Be prepared to stop and wait for a safe gap in the flow of cyclists before crossing the cycle lane.

Cycle tracks are routes for cyclists that are physically protected or located away from motor traffic, other than where they cross side roads. Cycle tracks may be shared with pedestrians.

You should give way to cyclists approaching or using the cycle track when turning into or out of a junction (see Rule H3). Be prepared to stop and wait for a safe gap in the flow of cyclists before crossing the cycle track, which may be used by cyclists travelling in both directions.

Bear in mind that cyclists are not obliged to use cycle lanes or cycle tracks.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

Cyclists may also be filtering in slow traffic and the same protections should apply to them whether a lane is present or not.

Given the potential for a collision and serious injury as a result, we suggest “should” is replaced with “must” e.g. “You must give way to cyclists approaching or using the cycle track when turning into or out of a junction”

Using the Road

The ‘Using the road’ chapter in The Highway Code provides guidance and advice on overtaking, manoeuvring at road junctions and roundabouts, and procedures at different types of crossings.

Rule 163 on overtaking will be amended to advise drivers that cyclists may pass on their right or left. It will also provide a guide of safe passing distances and speeds for passing motorcyclists, cyclists, horse riders and horse drawn vehicles. The additional proposed text is:

“Cyclists may pass slower moving or stationary traffic on their right or left, including at the approach to junctions, but are advised to exercise caution when doing so

[Give motorcyclists, cyclists, horse riders] and horse drawn vehicles [at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car(see Rules 211 to 215)]. As a guide:

• leave a minimum distance of 1.5 metres at speeds under 30 mph
• leave a minimum distance of 2.0 metres at speeds over 30 mph
• for a large vehicle, leave a minimum distance of 2.0 metres in all conditions
• pass horse riders and horse-drawn vehicles at speeds under 15 mph and allow at least 2.0 metres space
• allow at least 2.0 metres space where a pedestrian is walking in the road (e.g. where there is no pavement) and you should pass them at low speed
• you should wait behind the motorcyclist, cyclist, horse rider, horse drawn vehicle or pedestrian and not overtake if it is unsafe or not possible to meet these clearances
• take extra care and give more space when overtaking motorcyclists, cyclists, horse riders, horse drawn vehicles and pedestrians in bad weather (including high winds) and at night.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

Roads should be safe for use by all ages and abilities. At 30mph, while the chance of death or serious injury is 40% for all adults, for 70 year olds it is closer to 70%.

On that basis, we suggest changing 30 to 20mph in Rule 163.

Source: https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-severe-injury-death/

Further guidance should be provided for maximum speeds for passing pedestrians and cyclists, to align with the proposed rule 61 and provide consistent guidance as to what speed is appropriate that would apply to both rules.

Rule 163 should also include similar wording to that proposed in Rule 63 e.g.

“Remember that pedestrians may be deaf, blind or partially sighted and that this may not be obvious.

“Do not pass pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders or horse drawn vehicles closely or at high speed, particularly from behind. Remember that horses can be startled if passed without warning. Always be prepared to slow down and stop when necessary.”

Using the road

Rule 186 on signals and position will be amended to advise drivers to give priority to cyclists on roundabouts, and to take care not to cut across a cyclist, horse rider or horse drawn vehicle that may be continuing around the roundabout in the left-hand lane. The additional proposed text is:

“You should give priority to cyclists on the roundabout. They will be travelling more slowly than motorised traffic. Give them plenty of room and do not attempt to overtake them within their lane. Allow them to move across your path as they travel around the roundabout.

Cyclists, horse riders and horse drawn vehicles may stay in the left-hand lane when they intend to continue across or around the roundabout. Drivers should take extra care when entering a roundabout to ensure that they do not cut across cyclists, horse riders or horse drawn vehicles in the left-hand lane, who are continuing around the roundabout.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We agree these changes.

Using the road

Rule 195 on zebra crossings will be updated to include reference to parallel crossings and also amended to advise drivers to give way to pedestrians and cyclists waiting to cross at a zebra crossing or parallel crossing. This rule restates guidance in Rule 17 and reinforces Rule H2. The additional proposed text is:

“[Zebra crossings] you should give way to pedestrians waiting to cross

Parallel crossings are similar to zebra crossings, but include a cycle route alongside the black and white stripes.

As you approach a parallel crossing:

• look out for pedestrians or cyclists waiting to cross and slow down or stop
• you should give way to pedestrians or cyclists waiting to cross
• you MUST give way when a pedestrian or cyclist has moved onto a crossing
• allow more time for stopping on wet or icy roads
• do not wave or use your horn to invite pedestrians or cyclists across; this could be dangerous if another vehicle is approaching
• be aware of pedestrians or cyclists approaching from the side of the crossing.

A parallel crossing with a central island is two separate crossings.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We agree these changes.

Using the road

There are several other changes within the using the road section (and we recommend reading the chapter before answering). Some of these changes are to update The Highway Code to recognise facilities and practices that are already in use on the highway. Other proposed amendments are to provide guidance on safe behaviour and practices. In summary, some of the changes include, but are not limited to:

• strengthening priority for cyclists
• road positioning at junctions to ensure the safety of cyclists and motorcyclists
• further clarity on behaviour at Advanced Stop Lines
• keeping crossings clear of traffic
• Do you have any further comments about the changes to the rules on using the road?

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We agree these changes.

Road users requiring extra care

The chapter on ‘road users requiring extra care’ in The Highway Code provides further advice on proceeding with caution around pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders and motorcyclists, as the main vulnerable user groups. It also strengthens the advice in earlier chapters on giving these groups priority in certain circumstances.

Rule 213 will be amended to advise that cyclists may ride in the centre of the lane for their safety. The additional proposed text is:

“On narrow sections of road, at road junctions and in slower-moving traffic, cyclists may sometimes ride in the centre of the lane, rather than towards the side of the road. Allow them to do so for their own safety, to ensure they can see and be seen. Cyclists are also advised to ride at least a door’s width or 0.5m (metres) from parked cars for their own safety.”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

The wording should make clear that cyclists may use any part of the lane they are using. This should not substantially impact other road users ability to overtake as rule 163 says that other road users should “give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car “

Suggestion:

“Cyclists may ride in the centre of the lane, rather than towards the side of the road. Allow them to do so for their own safety, to ensure they can see and be seen. This is particularly important on narrow sections of road, at road junctions and in slower-moving traffic.

“Cyclists are also advised to ride at least a door’s width or 0.5m (metres) from parked cars for their own safety.”

Road users requiring extra care

There are several other changes within the road users requiring extra care section (and we recommend reading the chapter before answering). Some of these changes are to recognise facilities and practices that are already in use on the highway, or to reinforce advice stated in other rules within The Highway Code.

Do you have any further comments about other changes proposed in the chapter on road users requiring extra care?

SPACE for Gosforth response:

To promote safety, traffic should be directed to use main roads where possible as those roads are best designed for higher volumes of traffic.

Suggested addition to Rule 218: Do not drive using roads in Home Zones, Quiet Lanes or residential areas where alternative main road routes are available.

“Each mile driven on a minor urban road, results in 17% more killed or seriously injured pedestrians than a mile driven on an urban A road.” https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/opinion/2018/august/are-route-finding-apps-making-streets-more-dangerous/

People also suffer the effects of traffic because of roadside air pollution.

Further suggested addition to Rule 206: For short journeys, do not drive if other options are available to you, for example walking or cycling.

This also helps to promote safety and a healthy, sustainable and transport system, while acknowledging that while most people will have alternative options to driving, some will not.

Waiting and parking

The main change to the chapter in The Highway Code on ‘waiting and parking’ is the introduction of a new technique, commonly known as the ‘Dutch Reach’, that advises road users to open the door of their vehicle with the hand on the opposite side to the door. The additional proposed text is:

“you should open the door using your hand on the opposite side to the door you are opening, e.g. use your left hand to open a door on your right-hand side. This will make you turn your head to look over your shoulder. You are then more likely to avoid causing injury to cyclists or motorcyclists passing you on the road, or to people on the pavement”

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We agree these changes.

Waiting and parking

The only other change in the section on waiting and parking is to provide advice on good practice when charging an electric vehicle (also Rule 239).

Do you have any further comments about the other change proposed to Rule 239 on waiting and parking?

SPACE for Gosforth response:

No.

Annexes

The annexes to The Highway Code provide useful advice for drivers and riders. We are proposing additional new text to Annex:

• 1 on ‘you and your bicycle’ aims to ensure that riders are comfortable with their bike and associated equipment. The proposed new text will recommend cycle training
• 6 provides useful advice to drivers of motorised vehicles on how to undertake simple maintenance checks to ensure the safety and road worthiness of the vehicle, the proposed new text will recommend daily walkaround checks for commercial vehicles

SPACE for Gosforth response:

No further comments.

Other comments on The Highway Code

Do you have any further comments regarding the proposed amendments to The Highway Code which focus on safety improvements for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders?

SPACE for Gosforth response:

We wholeheartedly support the updated objectives for the Highway Code to “promote safety on the road, whilst also supporting a healthy, sustainable and efficient transport system.”

We also fully support the proposed hierarchy of road users and the emphasis on responsibility to avoid harm to others, with those that are capable of inflicting the greatest harm having the greatest responsibility to mitigate that risk.

Final comments

Any other comments?

SPACE for Gosforth response:

At least one person is killed every week on the roads in NE England, and three seriously injured every day. While this might be ‘good’ in historical terms, it is still far too many and we support the use of the Highway Code as one tool amongst many to help achieve a Vision Zero objective of no deaths or serious injury.

We should all have the right, however we travel, to expect to arrive safely and not be put at risk through the actions of others.

Likewise, we should all be able to choose how we travel without fear for our safety being a factor in that decision.

As well as updating the Highway Code, priority and appropriate funding is required for:

• Communicating the changes so road users understand their responsibility to avoid harm to others.
• Road policing so, at least for offences where others are put at risk, there is a realistic chance of prosecution.
• Engineering interventions, including pedestrian crossings, protected cycle lanes and low-traffic neighbourhoods, to encourage safe behaviour and enable people to travel safely whatever their chosen mode of transport.

END

Update 30 July 2021

The Government has published it’s response to the consultation here. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/review-of-the-highway-code-to-improve-road-safety-for-cyclists-pedestrians-and-horse-riders

A copy of the Government’s Executive Summary is below.

Government response to the review of The Highway Code – Executive summary

The majority of respondents to the consultation were in favour of all the changes proposed, believing that they would improve safety for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders. They welcomed the timing of the changes as more people embrace alternative modes of transport, with cycling and walking on the increase. Feedback also emphasised the importance of offering greater protection to those road users.

Overall, percentages of those respondents agreeing with the changes ranged from 68% to 96% agree. Statistical analysis suggests that all the changes proposed should therefore be implemented. However, we have carefully considered the disagree comments and note there are some valid points raised that need to be considered. As a result, we will be seeking to introduce all the amendments as outlined in the consultation, but with changes to the text where a significant concern has been identified.

The proposed introduction of the hierarchy of road users on responsibility (new Rule H1) was widely supported with 79% agreeing with its introduction. There were concerns raised, particularly from road haulage and freight companies, that larger vehicles would automatically be held liable in the event of a road collision with a road user higher up the hierarchy. However, the introduction of this rule does not detract from the requirements for everyone to behave responsibly. We will ensure this is clearly recognised and emphasised by amending the text of this rule.

The introduction of new Rule H2 on pedestrian right of way was supported by 75% of respondents, and 89% agreed with the introduction of new Rule H3 on cyclist priority. There were concerns raised that the changes could lead to cyclists and pedestrians taking greater risks when using the roads, believing that the onus for their safety rests with others. We will consider whether any changes are required to these proposals to clarify that cyclists and pedestrians have a responsibility for their own safety, and need to be respectful and considerate of other road users to ensure a culture of safe and effective road use.

The proposed changes to the rules for pedestrians were widely supported overall. The proposed change to give way to pedestrians waiting at a zebra crossing was supported by 95% of respondents, with many already believing that this was already the cultural norm.

More concerns were raised about the proposal to give way to pedestrians waiting at a junction with worries that the proposed change could be confusing and could lead to an increased risk of road collisions. We will review the wording to ensure these concerns are addressed.

There were considerable changes proposed in the rules for cyclists chapter of The Highway Code, but once again respondents were in broad agreement that all the changes should be implemented with percentages ranging from 76% to 91% in agreement with all the changes proposed. Disagree comments mainly reflected on the notion that cyclists would take greater risks due to having priority in certain circumstances. There were also concerns about cyclists passing road traffic on the left. As before, where valid concerns have been identified, we will amend the text to address these points.

Given the large number of changes proposed in the rules for cyclists, there was a considerable amount of feedback to analyse. Of significance were comments on Rule 66 on riding 2 abreast, recognition of disabled cyclists and emphasised safety messaging for cyclists passing to the left of larger vehicles. We will consider the points raised and seek to amend the wording along with educational and awareness campaigns.

In the chapter on using the road, we consulted on the introduction of safe passing distances and speeds. These were widely supported with agreement of over 80% for all the changes proposed. However, there were some concerns that the passing distances were too complex and would benefit from a standard distance (such as 2 metres in all cases) and some disagreement that the speeds proposed were either too fast or too slow. We will review these proposed amendments to consider how we can simplify the wording.

A strong theme in many of the consultation responses was the need to ensure that all road users know about the changes and can act on them. Many respondents highlighted the need for a publicity campaign to raise awareness of the amendments and to achieve the changes in behaviour that will lead to safer roads for all road users.

In conjunction with the consultation, we commissioned research on sharing our roads, including seeking views on some of the proposed changes. This has provided valuable insights on how to effectively communicate the changes. We will be launching an awareness-raising campaign alongside the publication of the updated highway code. And led by THINK!, we will develop behaviour change communications aimed at both motorists and vulnerable road users to support the aims of the review. Research will be used to identify priority audiences for communications to achieve the greatest impact.

Along with asking explicit questions about specific rule changes, the consultation sought general views on the other changes proposed within each chapter of The Highway Code. There have been many valid and helpful comments received. We would like to thank all those who took the time to respond to the questions and to those who provided further views.

However, many of the comments received were out-of-scope of the consultation and general views on the government’s policy position. For example, the consultation did not seek opinions on the use of cycle helmets, insurance, infrastructure improvements, shared space and so on. Many of the issues raised have already been considered in-depth as part of the initial ‘Cycling and walking investment strategy safety review’. We will not be reporting on any feedback we received on those topics which were not within the range of the consultation, but we have noted wider concerns for future policy considerations.

Update 1 December 2021

The Government has published its proposed update to the Highway Code. Details can be found here. If agreed by Parliament, these could come into force from early 2022.

You can read the full outcome of the consultation here.

The significant changes are:

– A hierarchy of road users
– Drivers overtaking people cycling to give at least 1.5m
– Preventing ‘car-dooring’ cyclists by using the Dutch Reach
– Simplification on rules related to non-signalised junctions to prevent “left-hook” collisions

— APPG for Cycling & Walking (@APPGCW) December 1, 2021

This was the response from Cycling UK.

For the last ten years we've been campaigning for a Highway Code update. Today new rules were laid before Parliament. By February we should have a Code which better protects vulnerable road users, including 'hierarchy of responsibility' and Dutch Reach: https://t.co/m9RYyJWfFd pic.twitter.com/fHGLqiTdS9

— Cycling UK (@WeAreCyclingUK) December 1, 2021

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