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It makes sense to me to have a blanket 20mph speed restriction in the parish, with the exception of the rural section of Low Road and the A1307. That includes those areas of the parish that are in what many folk think of as ‘St Ives’. There is no other stretch of road in the parish where a speed above 20mph is safe. Of course, enforcement, either by the police (fat chance) or low-cost engineering measures, would reinforce the community’s commitment to road safety. Moreover, one or more pedestrian crossings in the High Street would provide an element of protection for vulnerable road users, particularly elderly pedestrians, patronising the village’s retail outlets. They would also make rat-running, rendered unnecessary by the new A14, less attractive to people driving from St Ives towards Cambridge.
Whilst it may sound counter-intuitive, the current ‘rule’ for 20mph imposed by the police in any application is the average speed BEFORE any measures has to be 24 mph or less. Consequently, we will be collecting data to show this is the case in the village centre. There are parts of the Parish, such as London Road, St Ives and Cambridge Road through the old dairy where the average speed is significantly higher, so will will need to look at alternative methods on both roads to bring the average speed level down.
I was aware of the so-called ‘rule’, which was designed, rather cynically I thought at the time and have had no reason to revise my view since then, to shift road safety expenditure away from the highway authority. As to the High Street, having vehicles parked on both sides of the road has always been an effective way of slowing traffic and discouraging prohibited traffic, but it’s a last resort and would be very unsightly. The rule is Catch 22: the current speed limits were set long before most of the development in London Road and all the development in Cambridge Road. (They were also set before 20mph limits became routinely available in residential areas.) Without physical intervention to reduce the perception of a safe speed, even responsible motorists will drive up to the speed limit, preventing the ‘rule’ from being triggered.. We were having the same (sterile) arguments 35 or 40 years ago, when I was first actively involved in road safety.
Hi Ian
I agree entirely, it seems to me to be a cop out (pardon the pun!). “We’ll only look at roads where speeding isn’t too much of an issue, because we wouldn’t want to have to actually enforce anywhere its actually a significant problem”
If you are interested, we have a working group, currently made up of parish councillors, with our District and County Councillors, but are looking to add members of the community, not least as we push to bring in a blanket 20mph in Fenstanton, and also begin to reduce the speed limits along London Road, St Ives (working in conjunction with Hemingford Grey PC and the Highways Dept at CCC).
Cambridge Road, through the old dairy site has been recently reduced to 30mph. However, somewhere in the order of 45% of all traffic is still speeding. There is also an issue with HGVs, including overnight parking, which we are looking to address. We are looking to secure some of the Community Infrastructure Levy which was raised through the developments, but is currently sitting in HDC coffers, to fund a private highways initiative along that stretch of road to put in place traffic management measures to help alleviate the parking, road safety and speeding issues.
Was that an invitation?
Yes
I’m up for that. If you email directly, I’ll let you have other contact details (if you haven’t got them already). BW