More lunacy from the Council

[Lord Bracknell]

Why was the Lewes Road changed from single lane to dual carriageway all those years ago? Silly me, it was because the volume of traffic increased!!!!

Indeed. The volume of traffic increased because Lewes Road was the main A27 South Coast Trunk Road - and long distance traffic volumes increased inexorably during the seventies and early eighties. However ... Once the by-pass was built, the volume of traffic using Lewes Road fell very significantly. And it's now BELOW the level that highway design standards require to be served by a dual carriageway.

 

[8ace]

I was a bit meh about all of this but now I've heard it pisses off sherbert drivers I'm all for it. f*** it, make it 10mph for taxis and vans, 20mph for buses, cars and motorbikes and 30mph for pushbikes. NO speed limit FOR Enrest's TRYCYCLE.

 

[Easy 10]

If nothing else, this'll be fun for cyclists. Many of them clip along at 20mph+. Now, instead of cars passing them, many of them will be keeping speed with them, or barrelling up the inside of cars undertaking them.

How long before the first WIPEOUT then, as a car trundling along at 20mph with a bike keeping pace or undertaking, goes to turn left ?

Well. Done. Everyone.

 

[GNF on Tour]

If the police aren't enforcing it, then I'm not sticking to it.

I've carried on doing between 20-30 down Trafalger Road (traffic allowing) since they introduced it there anyway.

How very GANGSTA of you.

 

[Easy 10]

How very GANGSTA of you.

Well...not really. Its only what absolutely everyone else in an automotive vehicle does when faced with a "20mph" sign, or similar pointless tarmac tribute to drive over.

 

[GNF on Tour]

Well...not really. Its only what absolutely everyone else in an automotive vehicle does when faced with a "20mph" sign, or similar pointless tarmac tribute to drive over.

Yeah, maybe you are right. I actually find this thread quite depressing. I can see the reasons why 20mph zones are needed and developed by Council transport planners, they don't do it deliberately to piss people off. Its done because someone somewhere has made a decision to priortise pedestrian / child safety over vehicle speeds, to give a bit more equality and safety to road users. What does dropping to 20 mph do to your average journey time, probably adds on 30 secs to a few minutes on local trips - is that too much to ask. This is something that is going to happen (and is happening) all over the country and in a few years time will be the norm and no one will be complaining.

 

[Easy 10]

Yeah, maybe you are right. I actually find this thread quite depressing. I can see the reasons why 20mph zones are needed and developed by Council transport planners, they don't do it deliberately to piss people off. Its done because someone somewhere has made a decision to priortise pedestrian / child safety over vehicle speeds, to give a bit more equality and safety to road users. What does dropping to 20 mph do to your average journey time, probably adds on 30 secs to a few minutes on local trips - is that too much to ask. This is something that is going to happen (and is happening) all over the country and in a few years time will be the norm and no one will be complaining.

I would 100% support this policy if it was implemented outside schools. But to impose it across most of the city is mental. 30mph is a perfectly safe speed if you are not a dickhead. And if you are, then an arbitrary 20mph speed limit is NOT going to improve your driving or make you less dangerous behind the wheel.

It'll bring its own problems, not least cyclists travelling faster than cars, and drivers spending more time watching the speedo than the road.

 

[GNF on Tour]

Some people would say that cyclists travelling faster than cars is actually a good thing (for short local trips).

Maybe we should broaden the debate to what sort of city do we want to live in, the Brighton from our youth where cars were king, congestion was rife, little if any investment in PT, little or no cycling, little or no walking to work or the shops, little infrastructure to actually give us a choice on what mode of transport we took or a city that is at least attempting to broaden transport choices by investing in promoting non-car trips, investing in PT via new infrastructure, attempting to make roads more equitable for all road users, not just cars, investing in road safety.

I’m not a resident anymore and don’t have your local knowledge and whilst parts of Brightons transport network is still a dogs breakfast, I think the steps being taken are progressive and will lead to a better city.

Some of the posters on here are labelling this all just a folly of Green local transport policy, but this sort of stuff is being developed all over the world by Green, Left and Right wing Councils because its creates better more liveable cities for ALL inhabitants, not just car drivers bought up in the luxury of 80’s car biased transport policy.

 

[HovaGirl]

Soon it will be quicker to walk.

Reckon that's the plan.

 

[Brovion]

As a pedestrian, bus user, and train user in that order, with the odd taxi thrown in, I do have one issue with a 20mph limit which is pollution. Most cars, and nearly all motorbikes cannot travel at that speed in top gear, hence burn more fuel.

Most cars, petrol or diesel should be able to travel at 30mph in fourth gear at 1200rpm, hence just sipping fuel. Take most vehicles down to 20mph and the revs are higher in say third gear, hence burning more fuel.

Indeed. I'm broadly neutral in this whole debate but in some ways I'm surprised at the Greens supporting this as it will mean an increase in petrol consumption* and a decrease in air quality. A story that appears periodically in the Argus is about Storrington in West Sussex. The locals were, quite rightly, worried about speeding traffic on the A272 so they introduced several measures to slow it down through the town. Now they're complaining about the poor air quality on the High Street. This will obviously happen in Brighton and then the usual response will be to put all the blame on 'lazy and selfish' motorists - which is as intellectually-bankrupt an idea as blaming all the country's problems on immigrants. (Although having said that if the population of Britain was twenty million less we wouldn't need nearly so much road space ...)



(* - Although my one dingodan-esque conspiracy theory is that all politicians of every hue secretly support every scheme to increase petrol consumption so as to increase the tax paid)

 

[GNF on Tour]

I'm no expert but I would not imagine the difference in terms of air pollution based on vehicle speed dropping by 10mph is that significant?

 

[Brovion]

I'm no expert but I would not imagine the difference in terms of air pollution based on vehicle speed dropping by 10mph is that significant?

Well its. Doing 10 miles in a lower gear uses more fuel and produces more emissions than doing 10 miles in a higher gear. By all means be in favour of the scheme but it's not a win/win; the increase in pedestrian/cyclist road safety is at the expense of increased environmental damage.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Tried it for fun yesterday. Firstly, compared to about 28 mph usual speed, the difference seems immense. The traffic lights are in view at green, but you cannot get to them before they change to red. Fifth gear i.e. Most economical was out of reach, but managed fourth a few times. As for adding 30 seconds, I would suggest rather longer to get across town. I have to drive across town to visit clients at different places throughout the day and this will certainly reduce my productivity as I will need more travel time instead. It also needs much higher level of concentration inside the car which means less on what is going on outside. It feels more stressful because it is unnaturally slow.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I assume the buses will be completely re-timetabling to take the lower speed limit in to account? I bet Roger French is DELIGHTED.

 

[Tory Boy]

I'm no expert but I would not imagine the difference in terms of air pollution based on vehicle speed dropping by 10mph is that significant?

This particular issue got the Greens in a spin, as originally they wanted to big up the pollution issue and say this would reduce it, that is until their own officials said the 20 mph policy would increase pollution.

It all went rather quiet after that.

TB

 

[The Large One]

Indeed. I'm broadly neutral in this whole debate but in some ways I'm surprised at the Greens supporting this as it will mean an increase in petrol consumption* and a decrease in air quality. A story that appears periodically in the Argus is about Storrington in West Sussex. The locals were, quite rightly, worried about speeding traffic on the A272 so they introduced several measures to slow it down through the town. Now they're complaining about the poor air quality on the High Street. This will obviously happen in Brighton and then the usual response will be to put all the blame on 'lazy and selfish' motorists - which is as intellectually-bankrupt an idea as blaming all the country's problems on immigrants. (Although having said that if the population of Britain was twenty million less we wouldn't need nearly so much road space ...)



(* - Although my one dingodan-esque conspiracy theory is that all politicians of every hue secretly support every scheme to increase petrol consumption so as to increase the tax paid)

At 20mph you're still doing a nominal (say) 1500rpm, but you haven't indulged in speed increase and gear changes to do so, so petrol consumption doesn't increase.. That's the difference.

Pollution

 

[The Large One]

This particular issue got the Greens in a spin, as originally they wanted to big up the pollution issue and say this would reduce it, that is until their own officials said the 20 mph policy would increase pollution.

It all went rather quiet after that.

TB

You keep on inventing stuff. You said Cllr Davey had the casting vote on the issue. He didn't need to - it went through 8-2.

You salso made a whole load of other claims on here which were refuted.

And you keep banging on about spin...

 

[The Large One]

Some people would say that cyclists travelling faster than cars is actually a good thing (for short local trips).

Maybe we should broaden the debate to what sort of city do we want to live in, the Brighton from our youth where cars were king, congestion was rife, little if any investment in PT, little or no cycling, little or no walking to work or the shops, little infrastructure to actually give us a choice on what mode of transport we took or a city that is at least attempting to broaden transport choices by investing in promoting non-car trips, investing in PT via new infrastructure, attempting to make roads more equitable for all road users, not just cars, investing in road safety.

I’m not a resident anymore and don’t have your local knowledge and whilst parts of Brightons transport network is still a dogs breakfast, I think the steps being taken are progressive and will lead to a better city.

Some of the posters on here are labelling this all just a folly of Green local transport policy, but this sort of stuff is being developed all over the world by Green, Left and Right wing Councils because its creates better more liveable cities for ALL inhabitants, not just car drivers bought up in the luxury of 80’s car biased transport policy.

And this is the nub of the matter, in the face of much of the empty rhetoric on here.

It's not as though Brighton is the first city in England to introduce a blanket 20mph - though it might be the first left-of-centre council to do so.

 

[BadFish]

Some people would say that cyclists travelling faster than cars is actually a good thing (for short local trips).

Maybe we should broaden the debate to what sort of city do we want to live in, the Brighton from our youth where cars were king, congestion was rife, little if any investment in PT, little or no cycling, little or no walking to work or the shops, little infrastructure to actually give us a choice on what mode of transport we took or a city that is at least attempting to broaden transport choices by investing in promoting non-car trips, investing in PT via new infrastructure, attempting to make roads more equitable for all road users, not just cars, investing in road safety.

I’m not a resident anymore and don’t have your local knowledge and whilst parts of Brightons transport network is still a dogs breakfast, I think the steps being taken are progressive and will lead to a better city.

Some of the posters on here are labelling this all just a folly of Green local transport policy, but this sort of stuff is being developed all over the world by Green, Left and Right wing Councils because its creates better more liveable cities for ALL inhabitants, not just car drivers bought up in the luxury of 80’s car biased transport policy.

This

The processes of change are slow and it takes time for people to come to terms with new ways of thinking. Eventually this will all happen and we will all get used to it and embrace it. Bit like the BBC sport website last year!

The car is not the most important thing any more and other ideas for transport and movement are being trialed and considered. I for one think this is a fantastic idea. The government should probably think about introducing it more gradually so people can get used to it though.

 

[Brovion]

At 20mph you're still doing a nominal (say) 1500rpm, but you haven't indulged in speed increase and gear changes to do so, so petrol consumption doesn't increase.. That's the difference.

Pollution

Nope, sorry I disagree, and that "Twenty's plenty" website is hardly an unbiased resource. Anyway we won't agree on this aspect, so we'll have to wait and see but I bet the next big issue will be the air quality in Brighton, and that will be despite an increase in the number of bus journeys and cyclists. And I also wouldn't mind betting that the next time bus fares go up they'll blame an increased fuel usage caused by having to crawl up hills in a lower gear to keep within the limit!

And I also wouldn't describe the Greens as 'left of centre', but that's just from a personal political perspective.