tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post8583059368974320594..comments2024-03-29T04:56:21.385+00:00Comments on The Ranty Highwayman: Blood On The ArterialThe Ranty Highwaymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17361350433158148025noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-8715302104583075612016-08-31T19:25:33.471+01:002016-08-31T19:25:33.471+01:00It's important to remember that behind the num...It's important to remember that behind the numbers, there are people involved. I hope some good can come from this and Essex CC finally provides better crossings of this awful road.The Ranty Highwaymanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17361350433158148025noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-16809570829780947522016-08-29T17:17:41.209+01:002016-08-29T17:17:41.209+01:00Joseph Sheridan went to my school, we all miss him...Joseph Sheridan went to my school, we all miss him ðŸ˜Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12202547627524987523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-72891023978782769362016-02-21T11:39:32.789+00:002016-02-21T11:39:32.789+00:00Yes, I have heard a bit about the M32 - we keep do...Yes, I have heard a bit about the M32 - we keep doing similar - look at Glasgow!The Ranty Highwaymanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17361350433158148025noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-14231986384631042702016-02-18T12:37:36.304+00:002016-02-18T12:37:36.304+00:00I meant the kind of through roads that go around t...I meant the kind of through roads that go around towns and cities not through them. Multiparty Democracy Todayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13359081992141220593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-68815704766283242652016-02-18T09:40:44.086+00:002016-02-18T09:40:44.086+00:00You ought to have a read of the history of the M32...You ought to have a read of the history of the M32 in Bristol. New urban motorway which cut districts in half in the early seventies. Pedestrian casualties and fatalities where people don't want to go through the scary pedestrian underpasses or over the footbridges.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-78177546910865688152016-02-18T05:46:39.486+00:002016-02-18T05:46:39.486+00:00Oh, and make "the built up area" speed l...Oh, and make "the built up area" speed limits better defined. The Dutch have a simple sign to indicate this. It is a rectangle with the name of the built up area in words in blue. In the UK, a good equivilent of this would be using a city skyline in a white rectangle at the entrance and exit of the community. The name of the community could be included too. Like this: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_faEyN3bqJL8/SsZVAF1qJuI/AAAAAAAAAFU/l4mm6QOAKzc/s400/BuiltUpAreaAndEndOfBuiltUpArea.PNG. Residential areas are 30 km/h zones by default. Each town would be advised to have a pedestrianized main shopping centre, with cycling allowed and deliveries happening at specific times of the day, with the rest of the city centre being a 30 km/h zone. <br /><br />A new rule in the design manuals and possibly regulations is that no road is to have a speed limit in excess of 30 km/h in urban areas and 60 km/h in rural areas without having a bicycle path or a cycle lane in exceptional situations next to it unless it has no destinations on it that would be useful to cyclists nor does it create a direct route that be attractive to cyclists, and in addition, no road may have mixed cycling above 2500 PCU/day in urban 30 km/h zones and no more than 2000 PCU in rural 60 km/h zones. <br /><br />You would be able to identify roads with various speed limits easily from now on. 30 km/h zones would have few, if any, official markings, junctions would often be raised and usually have no assigned priority, often with a brick paved surface. 50 km/h roads (a metricated 30 mph road) would have bicycle paths next to it for the most part, sometimes a cycle lane, they would normally have a centre line, normally they would not be 4 lane roads though that sometimes might happen, and junctions are typically roundabout or traffic light controlled. 60 km/h roads in rural areas would usually have either no markings and be about a car's width or 2 wide, or they might be the higher volume kind with separate bicycle paths and a dashed white line on the edge of the road but no centre line. 80 km/h roads would normally have a centre line or a median, would normally have a dashed white line on the edges, would not have a hard shoulder, and normally have at grade junctions with traffic lights, give ways signs or roundabouts and often have bicycle paths next to them. If they are a cycle route then they would have to have a cycle path. 100 km/h expressways would normally have hard shoulders, will have a centre line, will have a solid edge line, will have a divide between the two directions or a green strip in between the 2 white dashed or solid lines and be identified with a sign, like the Dutch autowegen. Motorways would have the motorway sign, 2 lanes per direction separated by a median, a hard shoulder and no at grade crossings and between 80 and 130 km/h speed limits. Multiparty Democracy Todayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13359081992141220593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-50118762478310434402016-02-18T05:17:40.437+00:002016-02-18T05:17:40.437+00:00Ironically an answer to some of the problems with ...Ironically an answer to some of the problems with dual carriageways these days in the UK, many of them at least, the A14 for example, ,is to make them official motorways. Built a hard shoulder, grade separate or remove the remaining junctions, ensure that wildlife, cyclists and pedestrians and local traffic have enough grade separated crossings on the desire lines, and also worth doing is adding a guardrail in the middle of the road where this hasn't been done yet, on many more road, and then make them full motorways, and perhaps metricate and offer 120 km/h and 130 km/h speed limits, with the latter being the default for motorways. <br /><br />AViewFromTheCyclePath and BicycleDutch both have good examples of both bridges and underpasses that are socially safe, direct, on the desire lines and not a challenge to go up or down, and cater well for cyclists. And if there was something like 30-45% rate of cycling for most journeys with walking taking another 5-20% of the journeys, and upgraded railways (8-16 car trains, 160 km/h-350 km/h speeds, reduced at grade crossings and signal and boom gate protection for the remainders and no at grade crossings above 130 km/h, reduced at grade crossings in general, and automatic signal enforcement with accessible stations with great bicycle parking at each station), taking a large chunk of the traffic away from the cars and their roads and making it something else. <br /><br />And rural roads need to be considered. Many communities are just a few kilometres apart in the UK. With metric speed limits this becomes easier to consider, but 60 km/h rural ordinary access road and links between smaller towns and villages and from those to cities, 80 km/h main distributor road limits, IE links between main cities and the links between larger towns, regional roads, and 100 km/h expressways with at least 1 lane per direction, as much as possible a divide between the 2 directions, a considerable amount of grade separation, ideally all junctions being grade separated, bypassing towns, villages and cities with very little local access, if any at all, and 100-130 km/h motorways that combined with expressways that link the counties together, like the A roads. Multiparty Democracy Todayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13359081992141220593noreply@blogger.com