It is now over eighteen months since wands were installed on Gosforth High Street as part of the Council’s response to Covid. This blog looks beyond the look and feel of the wands, focusing instead on their impact on traffic volumes, air pollution and road safety, and suggests specific actions that could be taken to help the High Street thrive in future.

Key Points

• Traffic volumes in 2021 were 15% lower than in 2018 and 2019.
• Less traffic means reduced noise and lower carbon emissions.
• Air quality measurements (where we have them) show a slight improvement.
• Road safety is improved.
• There are opportunities for future improvements if the single-lane layout is retained. This should include replacing the temporary wands with high quality permanent materials.

A Bit of History

Pollution, safety, noise and congestion have long been concerns on Gosforth High Street.

At SPACE for Gosforth’s launch event in September 2015, we asked local residents what they thought about Gosforth High Street. The answer was that “We love Gosforth High Street, but …”

On the plus side, people listed the High Street’s role as a community hub, with good quality independent shops, pubs and restaurants. The list of “buts” was longer: noise, pollution, too much traffic, not feeling safe, parking, “Too much concrete, not enough green’’.

In 2019, we ran a Gosforth-wide survey and the answers were much the same, which we wrote up in our blog Your Streets – Your Views – Gosforth High Street. Too much traffic, poor air quality and noise were the top three concerns.

DEFRA have estimated that pollution, congestion, carbon emissions, traffic collisions, lack of physical activity (because high levels of traffic stop people walking and cycling) and noise, cost the UK billions of pounds each year. We wrote about this in our blog Billion Pound Issues on Gosforth High Street.

Traffic Volumes

At the end of 2021 traffic volumes were 15% lower than in 2018 and 2019. This is despite the ongoing roadworks on the A1 and warnings in late 2020 that across the city traffic levels were back to pre-pandemic levels and could get worse.

Less traffic is generally a good thing. It means safer streets, less pollution, less carbon emissions and less noise, making it more pleasant (or at least less unpleasant) for people to stop and shop on the High Street. Moving vehicles away from the pavement to a single lane in towards the middle of the road further reduces noise levels for people shopping on the High Street.

Average Daily Traffic by Month and Year 2018-2021, on Gosforth High Street

Air Pollution

Air pollution levels improved dramatically in 2020, mirroring the reduction in vehicle traffic. The graph below shows pollution levels at the north end of Gosforth High Street by Woodbine Road, usually the most polluted part of the High Street. In 2020, all measurements on Gosforth High Street were within legal limits. Air pollution measurements for 2021 haven’t yet been published.

Traffic volumes in 2021 were similar to late 2020 so it is possible air pollution levels will have remained just under the legal limit. This would be substantially better than previous years, including 2017 when Gosforth High Street was the most polluted street in Newcastle.

Air pollution levels measured at the north end of Gosforth High Street

If air pollution measurements in 2021 are less than the legal limit, the Council would be bound by the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010 to “ensure that [pollution] levels are maintained below those limit values” in future.

Road Safety

There have been substantially fewer road traffic collisions on Gosforth High Street since the wands were introduced. The bar chart below shows recorded collisions between Elmfield Road and Regent Centre before and after the wands were installed.

Road Traffic Collisions on Gosforth High Street before and after the wands were installed.

The one serious injury in 2021 was by Regent Centre where a ten year old boy was struck by a driver in a Land Rover. This was in the section with two lanes heading north and a 30mph speed limit. SPACE for Gosforth has previously proposed the 20mph speed limit is extended north to past Gosforth Academy to be safer for school children crossing the road.

Opportunities

Returning to the pre-pandemic layout would be a significant backwards step, making Gosforth High Street more dangerous, more polluted and increasing carbon emissions.

Safety could be further improved by extending the single-lane 20mph layout to north of Gosforth Academy, and by setting vehicle lanes to be no wider than 3m.

The look and feel could be improved by replacing the temporary wands with high quality materials similar to the Grey Street proposals, including planters where there is space.

Continuous all age & ability protected cycle lanes & cycle parking would increase the people-moving capacity of the High Street and make it safer and easier for people to cycle to the shops. Most of Gosforth, Kenton, Jesmond and High Heaton are within a 15 minutes cycle ride of Gosforth High Street.

Decluttering the pavements, adding more planting and benches, and creating a continuous pavements over side roads would make the High Street more accessible and more pleasant to use on foot. With cycle lanes added, the existing bollards on the pavement could be removed adding 60cm to the width of the pavements.

Crossings by Regent Centre could be improved by removing the central ‘sheep pen’ so people walking can cross in one go. We have also previously proposed moving the crossing by Elmfield Road 70m south to be between Elmfield Road & The Grove.

Street ends could be pedestrianised like by Woodbine Road to create additional space for events or for more seats or planting. For example, Trinity Square could be extended across West Avenue and/or Ivy Road.

Even with these changes, there would still be a vast amount of space allocated to vehicles on and around Gosforth High Street. Some consideration could be given to whether this could be put to better use, either temporarily, for example for a street market, or more permanently.

Google Earth picture showing the huge area taken up by vehicles on or near Gosforth High Street

The post We still love Gosforth High Street appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

Sunday 10 November 2019 was Remembrance Sunday. As is traditional, local cadets and scouts paraded down Gosforth High Street and into Gosforth Central Park for a short service and to observe a two-minute silence in memory of members of the armed forces that lost their lives in the two world wars and later conflicts.

The Remembrance Day Service in Gosforth Central Park offers an opportunity to reflect and mourn for the past, and it is also an opportunity to pause and to examine the present.  On this occasion it also allowed us briefly the chance to see Gosforth High Street – the centre of our community – in a different way.

Usually the parade is marshalled by the Police who stop the traffic temporarily when the parade makes its way to the war memorial in Gosforth Central Park and again on the way back.  This year however Northumbria Police advised that they no longer had sufficient officers to support traffic management for Remembrance Day parades in addition to their normal duties.

A Lib Dem councillor said he found it 'very distasteful'https://t.co/hyS647Rbkc

— The Chronicle (@ChronicleLive) November 7, 2019

To ensure the parade could still happen, local Councillors stepped in to pay for a private firm to do the traffic management using funds from the ward budgets. This meant that, instead of the usual temporary closures, the High Street was fully closed to through traffic from 10am until the end of the parade at around 11.40am.

In previous years, despite the road closures, traffic has still been a presence on Gosforth High Street during Remembrance Parades often with engines still running, waiting on Gosforth High Street for the temporary road closures to be lifted, as well as on Saint Nicholas Avenue next to the park entrance.  This year the air was clearer and the noise of traffic was almost completely absent, creating an atmosphere more reminiscent of the first two-minute silence a century ago on 11 November 1919, as reported by the Manchester Guardian.

“The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition.“

In 2019 at 11am on Sunday 10 November there were also no motors on Gosforth High Street to ‘cough and fume’.

This picture above, taken before the start of the parade, gives an unusual view of Gosforth High Street without any vehicles. The atmosphere on the street was noticeably different from the normal noise and fumes from traffic, and the picture makes clear just how much of the space on Gosforth High Street is used for through traffic compared to the amount available for people to walk and visit the shops.

For an hour or so it was also possible to walk along Gosforth High Street without having to worry about traffic turning in or out of the many junctions, including here at the junction with Ivy Road.

The parade started about 10.30am from Woodbine Road. Even with crowds lining the pavements, there is still lots of space on the High Street.

This is even more clear on the march back down the High Street after the service.

Thanks to Newcastle University’s Urban Observatory we can also see the impact of the temporary road closure on environmental factors such as air pollution and noise.

For air pollution the monitor opposite Trinity Church showed that at 10am, before the closure, the NO2 pollution level was about 54μg/m³, which by midday had declined to almost zero. Even in the middle of the night it is rare for the air on Gosforth High Street to be this clean.

This also supports the Department for Transport’s analysis that the vast majority of road-side air pollution is generated by vehicle traffic.

While air pollution took several hours to disperse, the impact on noise was almost immediate. Noise levels dropped from over 70 to just over 55 decibels, a level rarely achieved under normal circumstances even in the middle of the night.

Conversational speech is about 60 decibels so, for a brief period, it was possible to have a normal conversation without having to shout or being drowned out by the traffic. For the remainder of the day noise levels were between 70 and 75 decibels, about the same level as if you were stood next to a dishwasher or vacuum cleaner.

While not everyone will want to observe the two minute silence, it felt appropriate on this occasion that, for just a short period, the traffic fell silent to allow the parade to pass in safety without danger from traffic or air pollution.

For now, for the other three hundred and sixty four days and twenty two hours of the year, we will have to live with the noise and the air pollution. But now we also know that an alternative is possible, certainly for a few hours for specific events and maybe even for more permanent measures that better reflect Gosforth High Street’s role at the centre of our community.

With thanks to Friends of Gosforth Central Park, All Saints and St Nicholas churches and their combined choirs, local Scout groups, Cadets and everyone else who took part in or contributed to the parade and service.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

from “For the Fallen” by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

There is also a World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims commemorated on the third Sunday of November each year, in 2019 on Sunday 17 November, to remember those killed and injured on the world’s roads, together with their families, friends and many others who are also affected.

The post Gosforth Remembers 2019 appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

In our recent Your Street – Your Views survey of Gosforth residents, poor air quality, traffic noise and dangerous driving were the 2nd, 3rd and 4th greatest issues for Gosforth High Street. All three can be made better through a reduction in the speed limit, which the Council are now proposing.

You can comment on the proposals on the Let’s Talk website up to Tuesday 7 May. We have included some extracts of the proposal below.

We have blogged about speed limits on Gosforth High Street before, and noted that if we want it to thrive as a family destination and the businesses to prosper, then we need to make the High Street a safe environment where parents are happy to window shop with their children.  

New speed limits won’t be sufficient by themselves but will be a good start. 

The speed limit will also be reduced on parts of The Great North Road. In a collision between a person walking or cycling and a vehicle, the chances of serious injury or death (KSI) increases dramatically with the speed of the vehicle.

As the mother of cyclist Daniel Rushton, who was killed on Newcastle’s Great North Road, says a speed limit change could save lives.

Newcastle City Council’s Proposal

Starting at the north end of the Great North Road by the A1, the speed from the A1 to just north of Brunton Lane will be 40mph, shown in green. From Brunton Lane south, the speed limit will be 30mph.

The 30mph speed limit will continue until just north of the shops on Gosforth High Street. From there the High Street will become 20mph. The 20mph limit will also extend west to Hedley Street and east just past the Moor Road North traffic lights.

The road will become 30mph again just south of Elmfield Road, which will continue past the Blue House roundabout. After that it becomes 40mph again right up to the junction with Claremont Road outside the Civic Centre.

Our Response

In the SPACE for Gosforth response we have supported the proposal and also asked for:

• Consideration of extending the 20mph zone up to Gosforth Academy, or temporary speed reductions when children are arriving or leaving the school
• Extending the 20mph zone west to the Gosforth Traders roundabout for similar reasons. This area is busy with children travelling to and from Gosforth Junior Academy and Archibald First school.
• Extending the 20mph zone further south so it starts before The Grove so it covers the pedestrian crossing.
• A review and redesign of the Gosforth High Street shopping area so that people driving through intuitively understand that 20mph is the right maximum speed rather than just relying on new signs.
• Ensuring residential streets parallel to the Great North Road / High Street are not used for through-traffic.

The post GNR Speed Limits – comments by 7 May appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

Newcastle City Council has announced the start of the works to replace the Killingworth Road Metro bridge and widen Killingworth Road. From 20 July 2017 for up to nine months, Killingworth Road will be shut to all traffic including people walking and cycling. Salters Bridge and Castle Farm Road will also be shut to motor traffic.

The Council have established a ‘Mitigation Board’ to plan for and manage the impact of the works. They tell us “We’ve got a lot of data about the impact of the closure of Killingworth Road on the network from all the monitoring we have done during the temporary closures so far. The Mitigation Board are confident that they have anticipated the issues and created an effective traffic management plan, having said that, there is always the potential for people to start behaving differently so we will continue to monitor flows and volumes and throughout the closure … the Mitigation Board will continue to meet and take action if issues arise that haven’t been anticipated.”

The key word here is ‘behaviour’. While some people will have little choice but to drive, many more can change when they travel, how they travel or even if they travel at all. In the British Social Attitudes Survey from 2013 “a third ( 33%) said that they could just as easily catch the bus for many of the journeys of less than two miles they now travelled by car, 37% said they could just as easily cycle (if they had a bike) and 40% of people agreed that they could just as easily walk“.

The table below is from the study Disappearing Traffic? The Story So Far that looked at over 70 examples of where roads had been closed, mostly planned but in a few cases as a result of natural disasters with no notice at all. The consistent conclusion was that traffic levels  adjust to the new capacity and that “predictions of traffic problems are often unnecessarily alarmist“. As if to prove a point, this was the headline from the Chronicle’s coverage of the works in March: Killingworth Road roadworks LIVE: Updates as traffic chaos expected at major Newcastle junction.

That doesn’t mean to say that road closures / road works don’t need to be planned for. Good planning, and good communications, can significantly reduce the short term impact while people adjust to the new circumstances, especially where these short term impacts might put vulnerable road users, for example children walking to school, at greater risk. We’ve compiled a checklist below that we will also be sending to the Council’s Mitigation Board.

Mitigation Planning Checklist

Planned Works

This is an important location for walking and cycling improvements. The current road (shown on the right) is both extremely unpleasant to use and is one of the few locations heading north out of the city where people walking and on bikes can cross the metro line on the level without having to use a bridge.

It’s worth noting that the air pollution measurements from by the care home in the picture below were, in 2015, the worst of any in the Gosforth Air Quality Management Area. Making it easier to walk and cycle, and allowing buses to bypass queuing traffic, should all help improve the air quality in this area, however this may be offset if separate plans for the Haddricks Mill junction increase vehicle capacity and induce additional traffic.

The changes to be carried out are those that were consulted on as part of the Blue House / Haddricks Mill proposals in the summer of 2016. While we haven’t seen final designs we believe they are largely unchanged from those originally presented i.e.

• Replacing and widening the Metro Bridge.
• Creating on-street parking spaces for residents living on Killingworth Road.
• Widening the pavement and removing the need for pedestrian railings.
• Creating a new south-bound bus lane and 2-way cycle track.

The original consultation and residents’ comments can still be seen on the CommonPlace consultation website. Planned changes to the Haddricks Mill junction are not in scope of this change and will be published separately.

Ecological Impact

One further aspect of this scheme that deserves scrutiny is the impact on the wooded verge on the east side of the road. The associated planning application (reference 2017/0641/01/GRA) includes:

• Removal of 500 smaller trees plus 35 semi-mature and 3 mature trees to be replaced by 2100 native woodland trees and shrubs and 44 large standard oak trees.
• Planting 2000 daffodil and bluebell bulbs and 150 native wild flowers.
• Installation of bird boxes, bat boxes and hibernacula for smaller mammals.
• A management plan for the area.

Details of the full Ecological Impact Assessment and associated mitigation plans can be found on the Planning Applications website.

Longer term, helping people walk and cycle more will not only help reduce the devastating impact of air pollution on us, but also on plant and animal life.

Residents’ Letter

This is the letter that was sent to local residents by the Council.

The post Killingworth Road – Metro Bridge Replacement appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

In this post we look at the Environmental Impact Assessment Screening & Scoping Report (“the EIASSR”) lodged as part of the planning documents for the original plans for the Blue House roundabout and Jesmond Dene Road.  The EIASSR’s aim was to identify the different types of environmental assessments that would have been needed had those plans gone ahead.

Despite the plans not going ahead, SPACE for Gosforth wanted to look at the EIASSR as it contains a substantial amount of information about the ecosystem of the Town Moor and its relationship with the surrounding communities.  In short it gives us an insight into the many different reasons why Newcastle Town Moor is not only special to the surrounding communities, but an iconic location known throughout the North East of England and beyond. This information remains important as alternative plans for the Blue House roundabout and Jesmond Dene Road are formulated.

THE EIASSR also contains information about the background and scope of the previous plans –  again important information for new plans. As the previous plans were so comprehensively rejected, one question relating to them was whether it was the plans themselves that were flawed, or the objectives that the plans aimed to fulfil?  And are there any issues not included in the EIASSR that ought to be looked at when alternatives are created?

What is the EIASSR and who wrote it?

The EIASSR was lodged with Planning Application documents for the Blue House Roundabout and was prepared for Newcastle City Council by AECOM.  Its purpose was to identify which environmental reports would be needed to assess the impact of the plans for Blue House and Jesmond Dene Road.  The proposals for Haddricks Mill were not considered in the EIASSR.

It was originally lodged in a version dated the 18 July 2016 and then amended during the consultation to the version dated 28 July 2016.  The EIASSR contains 17 sections each dealing with a different aspect of the original application or the Town Moor.

What is the wider context of the plans for the Blue House roundabout and Jesmond Dene Road?

The first section introduces the proposal and confirms that the proposals for Blue House, Jesmond Dene Road (as well as Haddricks Mill) are part of the Northern Access Corridor, which:

“runs in an east to west direction approximately 1 km north of Newcastle Upon Tyne City Centre and is intended to enhance and integrate the major routes into and through Newcastle in the north of the city.” (1.1.1)

The Gosforth section of the Northern Access corridor is shown above.

This section also confirms that the proposals would require land take from Registered Common Land.  This would require separate consent, which would be sought in conjunction with the planning application (1.3.2).  The version of the 18 July stated that a proposal had been agreed in principle between Newcastle City Council and the Freemen of Newcastle upon Tyne. However, the later version replaced that statement with the following:

“Any land take from Registered Common Land will require separate consent which would need to be sought in conjunction with the planning application. NCC has discussed the issue of a land swap with the Freemen. Currently no agreement is in place as this relies on a detailed design which is not yet in place and is also subject to public consultation. During these early discussions the Freemen of the City have noted that any changes at this location should ensure that the city’s growth and success in future years is secured. Further, that if major changes are made in this location that they should be done sympathetically to the surrounding areas and be designed in such a way as to ensure that further roadworks or changes are not required in this location for decades.” (1.3.2)

What does the EIASSR tell us about the Town Moor?

1. Wildlife

The EIASSR brings together a substantial amount of information about Newcastle’s Town Moor, and the surrounding open space and communities.

Newcastle’s Town Moor is known to be common land, but the EIASSR confirms that Duke’s Moor, Little Moor and the allotments adjacent to Jesmond Dene Road are also areas of Registered Common Land (13.2.3).
The EIASSR lists the different species that live on the Town Moor (Table 8.1), these include protected species such as:

•  bats;
• 5 species of birds that are on the red list of birds of conservation concern (skylark, house sparrow, mistle thrush, song thrush and starling) and 3 species on the amber list (swift, housemartin and meadow pipit).  Swifts have also been identified as a species under particular threat locally.  These classifications result from all native birds in the UK being split into three groups. Red is the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action. Amber is the next most critical group.  Green are species that occur regularly in the UK, but are not classed as amber or red. The RSPB also explain that with the right action, species can recover and be moved on to the green list.  One such success is a bird that has become an iconic bird for Gateshead: the red kite.
• There are no records of reptiles on the survey area, but the EIASSR states that the Little Moor allotments
  could provide habitat for them, most probably for slow worms, another protected species.
• Hedgehogs are also to be found in the area, and while not protected, they have been identified as a species under threat locally.  The photograph on the right was taken on Linden Road in Gosforth the same day the article in the last link was published and illustrates the threat to wildlife posed by human lifestyles.

The EIASSR also confirms that the Town Moor is a site of local conservation interest (8.2.6) and that there is a  wildlife corridor that runs from the Town Moor, through the junction of Jesmond Dene Road and Osborne Road and the Little Moor to the Metro line (8.2.7).  The previous proposals for the Blue House Roundabout were identified as potentially having these effects on wildlife:

• construction phase: loss or degradation of habitat; mortality of protected species; damage to retained trees (8.4.1);
• operational phase: severance / fragmentation of habitat and disturbance due to changes in lighting and traffic volumes (8.4.1).

2. Cultural heritage and historical significance

The EIASSR also acknowledges the Town Moor’s historic status, by noting that it was granted as common land by King John around 1213 and that its boundaries are largely unchanged (Appendix D).

The EIASSR also confirms that Newcastle City Council recognise that the Town Moor is a special space and that it is one of 6 areas in Newcastle considered to be of “exceptional landscape value” and that development that will “demonstrably harm” it will not be allowed (7.1.3).  Figure 7.1 in Appendix C confirms that both Duke’s Moor and the Little Moor are included in the definition of “exceptional landscape value”.  All 3 moors are also  designated parkland (7.1.8), and the Town Moor and Duke’s Moor are considered to be an “Area of Countryside Character” (7.2.7).

Section 6 gives details of the buildings and other items of cultural heritage in the area of study, but concludes that they are “low value” (6.3.1), with the exception of the Town Moor Boundary Stone (pictured right, a grade II listed building deemed “medium value” by the report), the Town Moor itself and the conservation areas of Gosforth and Jesmond Dene.

The Blue House itself is a locally listed building, as is the Laing Memorial Fountain (pictured left), and both of these could have been affected by the previous proposals (6.4).

Another locally listed building close to the Blue House is the Colvill Memorial Fountain (pictured right).

What threatens the landscape of the Town Moor?

1. Japanese Knotweed

It may seem surprising that an area of exceptional landscape value could also be “land in a contaminated state”, but the Town Moor is due to the presence of Japanese knotweed.  One risk of the proposed construction works is that they risk spreading this species (8.4.1). The EIASSR does not contain any information about action being taken to remove this species.

2. Air pollution

The Blue House Roundabout is within the South Gosforth Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) (see map right for the extent of the AQMA) due to the high levels of nitrogen dioxide in this area.  The readings quoted in the EIASSR confirm that levels of this pollutant are decreasing, however some readings are still in excess of the air quality standard, and the AQMA is still required (5.2.3).

The EIASSR considered that proposed development had the potential to cause air pollution which would have affected public health in the following ways (5.4.1):

• changes in traffic flows/composition/speeds could affect pollutant concentration
• changes in location of sources of air pollution due to changes in the road layout could also affect pollutant concentration, and
• construction related dust emissions could affect dust deposition rates.

The EIASSR does not include any other pollutants as the AQMA has only been declared for nitrogen dioxide.  However, SPACE for Gosforth’s own monitoring of pollution on Gosforth High Street (one of the roads leading to the Blue House roundabout) detected levels of another pollutant, fine particles, that were always above the WHO levels for that pollutant, and at times above higher EU level.  Nor does the EIASSR include any discussion of the many medical conditions where air pollution is thought to be a contributing factor.

3. Noise

The previous proposals for the Blue House and Jesmond Dene Road had the potential to increase noise levels, both from construction work and any increase in traffic (10.4).  For more information about current noise levels in Gosforth, Defra have an interactive map showing estimated noise levels from major roads, railways and industrial premises.  The EIASSR confirms that the junction of Jesmond Dene Road and Osborne road is within an noise important area associated with the metro line  (10.2.1).

4. Water

The original proposals had the potential to affect both the drainage systems on the Town Moor and the Ouseburn (11.4.1), to cause water pollution to surface water (11.4.3), and also to adversely affect an acquifer (11.4.4).

What is missing from the report?

The post Why is the Town Moor special? appeared first on SPACE for Gosforth.

In 2009 the UK government calculated the negative impact of transport on the UK economy to be between £38.1 and £48.7 billion each year. With price inflation, growth in traffic volumes and a better understanding of the damage caused by pollution, the cost for 2016 could be much higher still.

The graph below shows the cost of each of the negative impacts of transport, with the light blue indicating the likely maximum and minimum costs:

The Wider Cost of Transport in English Urban Areas

Source: The wider costs of transport in English urban areas in 2009, Cabinet Office Strategy Unity. Also reported in Air Pollution: Action in a Changing Climate, Defra, 2010

On Gosforth High Street:

1. Excess Delays

Gosforth High Street – October 2015

Congestion might be less of a concern than preventing accidents or the health impacts of pollution, but no-one can deny that it affects Gosforth High Street.  You can see this most mornings and afternoons throughout the year.

The traditional response to congestion has been to increase road capacity, for example by adding extra road lanes. In theory, more capacity should lead to a greater throughput and less waiting, but in practice the extra capacity attracts more traffic in an effect called induced traffic. This negates a large part of the expected benefit while also creating more pollution and traffic danger.

The opposite effect, called disappearing traffic, also exists. An analysis of this effect published in Municipal Engineer –  Disappearing traffic? The story so far – concludes that:

“Reallocating road space from general traffic, to improve conditions for pedestrians or cyclists or buses …, is often predicted to cause major traffic problems on neighbouring streets. … Predictions of traffic problems are often unnecessarily alarmist, …  Significant reductions in overall traffic levels can occur, with people making a far wider range of behavioural responses than has traditionally been assumed.”

This analysis suggests that life goes on – congestion does not get worse.  As a result the whole area benefits from better air quality and safer streets.

2. Accidents

Any calculation of the cost of road casualties assume that the value of life and health can be quantified, and that  deaths and/or injuries should be accepted in order to facilitate the movement of traffic. This need not be so.

Vision Zero is a multi-national road safety project that targets zero deaths and zero serious injuries in road traffic. It takes the opposing view that

“Traffic deaths and injuries are preventable; therefore, none are acceptable”

and that 

“Human life and health are paramount and take priority over mobility and other objectives of the road traffic system“.

SPACE for Gosforth would like to see this principle applied to Gosforth High Street.

This map from www.crashmap.co.uk shows road traffic crashes on and around  Gosforth High Street from 2005 to 2014. Only crashes reported to the police which have one or more  recorded casualties are shown.

Orange tags denote slight injuries, red tags are for serious injuries and the black tag shows a fatality. Purple tags show clusters where there have been multiple crashes.

[Source: www.crashmap.co.uk ]

Clearly Gosforth High Street does not meet Vision Zero standards.

Vision Zero also assumes that mistakes are inevitable, so roads should be designed to minimise injury to the people that use them, rather than relying on road users to always avoid mistakes. In Gosforth, “road users” could include a middle school pupil having to cross a busy road on the way to school, or an 11-year old on a bicycle (as UK law requires 11 year-olds to ride on the road).

The two main ways of minimising injury are

1. reducing traffic speed to 20mph. At 20mph a pedestrian would have approximately a 90% chance of surviving a collision;  and
2. providing separation on faster roads, roads with a high volume of traffic, or roads used by larger vehicles such as buses or lorries. Separation in this context might include protected cycle lanes or signalised pedestrian crossings.

See also the SPACE for Gosforth posts 20 mph – the right speed for Gosforth’s children and Lots of children want to cycle to school, but hardly any do.

3. Poor Air Quality

SPACE for Gosforth monitored the air pollution on Gosforth High Street last year.  This graph shows the results:

Source: SPACE for Gosforth, 2015

To put our findings into context, a report on cognitive decline in older people concludes that

“people living in high pollution areas, with 15 micrograms per cubic meter or more of PM2.5 had error scores one and a half times those of the participants who lived in low pollution areas with no more than 5 micrograms per cubic meter.”  

The reading cited in that report (15 µg/m3) is less than the average reading for our monitoring on Gosforth High Street: that was 23 micrograms per cubic meter.

Other health effects of pollution are widely documented, including in this SPACE for Gosforth post.

We listed ways to reduce pollution in our article Fixing Pollution on Gosforth High Street, including encouraging the use of public transport or walking or cycling.

4. Physical Inactivity

According to the report Turning the Tide of Inactivity by UK Active over a quarter of Newcastle residents are classed as inactive – doing less than 30 minutes of moderate physical activity per week. Activities could include walking, cycling, playing sport, gardening  or dancing. The consequence of this inactivity is reported to be 279 premature deaths and a cost of £16.8m each year for Newcastle alone.

Making our streets safer for walking and cycling helps people be active in their every-day lives. Even a short walk to buy a pint of milk could make a big difference to someone’s health.

5. Greenhouse Gas Emissions

We don’t have figures from Gosforth High Street but this graph shows the Europe-wide change in transport-related emissions since 1990.

Source: European Commission – Climate Action

This is what the associated report has to say about greenhouse gas emissions:

“Road transport alone contributes about one-fifth of the EU’s total emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas. While emissions from other sectors are generally falling, those from transport have continued to increase until 2008 when transport emissions started to decrease on the back of higher oil prices, increased efficiency of passenger cars and slower growth in mobility.”

“Despite this trend transport emissions were in 2012 still 20.5 % above 1990 levels and would need to fall by 67 % by 2050 in order to meet the 2011 Transport White Paper target reduction of 60% compared to 1990.”

Not all journeys can be made using public transport or on foot or by bike, but at present many people are deterred from walking and cycling because they do not find it safe or pleasant. Making it easier and safer to do so will allow people to make choices that suit their lifestyle. That will also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

6. Noise – amenity

Gosforth High Street is undoubtedly noisy.  We discovered this when we spent a Saturday morning measuring pollution levels, and talked to shoppers over the sound of the traffic. We don’t have any measurements but we do know the effects can be far more serious than you might expect.

In one study we found, researchers discovered that:

“exposure to the sounds of car traffic significantly increases the risk of heart attack in people over 50. For every 10 decibels of increase in traffic noise, the risk of heart attacks rises 12 percent.”

Another study found that:

“people living in areas with high traffic noise were 25 percent more likely than those in quieter neighborhoods to have symptoms of depression, even when adjusting for socioeconomic factors.”

If you own or have access to a noise monitor we would love to hear from you!

Join us to campaign for safer streets, cleaner air, quieter neighbourhoods and a better environment

These are improvements we all want. The proposed changes to Gosforth High Street are a once in a generation chance to make this happen in Gosforth, and a strong response from residents is important to ensure that the proposed plans will minimise these issues.

To find out more, get involved and be kept up to date on issues and initiatives in Gosforth you can join SPACE for Gosforth  here.

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