Safe Speed Forums

Back in 2004 Hampshire County Council and Eastleigh Borough Council installed a traffic calming scheme near me in Moorgreen Road, West End, costing £200,000. The traffic calming involved tightening roadspace at junctions and building chicanes and build-outs, which serves to force oncoming traffic closer together or mount the pavement. A lot of people were not happy at the installation of the traffic calming, including a significant number of residents living on the road in question.

I found out today from my local councillor that there was only one local resident actively campaigning for traffic calming in the road, and was kicking up a fuss and throwing the dummy out of the pram about safety. And that's all it took for the councils to listen, one solitary person. As I said, many more people have complained about the traffic calming, not to mention the excessive amount of money spent on the scheme.

So much for democracy, when councils are persuaded to take action by a single person. Strange, they haven't taken action as a result of more residents not being happy about the installation. Kind of shows that council's are nanny-state freaks, anti-car fanatics, or a mix of the two.

could be worse they could have stuck road humps every like a bad dose of chickenpox

Hey, Sotonsteve,

I thought the most gross example of traffic calming in your neck of the woods was the road past the schools in Hedge End (I forget the name but it runs from the big roundabout near B&Q to the centre of Hedge End Village. Bumps every 20 yards, as I recall, for a long distance. Shame that the school children are only there for about 2 hours in every 24.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Bumps knacker your suspension, build-outs and chicanes force oncoming traffic into each other. Neither are particularly good, but at least there isn't a 20mph limit like Wildern Lane in Hedge End, where you leave the roundabout and have to brake rather than accelerate.

Reminds me of Poole council. "We want to put single & double yellow lines everywhere around this school entrance where there isn't enough space for people to park already."... They got more people objecting to part or all of the plan than people in support of it, including a presentation from the people at the school, but they decided to ignore them all and go ahead anyway. Well, the school have stalled them, so far the TROs have been made, some signs have been put up but no lines painted.
And they didn't list my objection in the report I read, possibly because it pointed out that the council make money from parking enforcement.

Anyway, "traffic calming" is a bad name. People want "calm traffic" but what they get is an obstacle course which they have to endure themselves, which increases noise and does no good whatsoever.

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Andrew.