Cycling UK Forum

Responses

Here's a sample, but there are more to find.
“Tonbridge is already at grid lock at certain times of day - surely impeding traffic flow will clog up the roads even more.”
If it's grid locked aren't motor vehicles travelling at less than 20mph?

“Not necessarily the right decision, most people have sense enough not to speed through these areas”
Really?

And yet
“Several roads to do require speed humps - Whistler Road, Hunt Road & The Ridgeways seem to be a racetrack.”
Obviously drivers on these roads don't have enough sense.

“A far better plan to reduce pollution would be to make Tonbridge and Kent at large a friendlier place for electric vehicles. More public charging spaces in public car parks for example. The introduction of Hybrid/Electrical buses for local bus routes?”.
Apparently electric vehicles don't kill or maim people.

“Will cyclists speed be targeted as well as motorists?
Obviously the respondent hasn't ever ridden a bike Very few cyclists will or can travel faster than 20mph in this area.

others gave the following reasons why cycling and
walking is no substitute for car usage:
Doing the school run
Disabled, elderly and infirm people
Carrying shopping
Adverse weather conditions
Lack of bike storage

I'm obviously not elderly This isn't a ban on cars it's a 20MPH zone.

The problem is the Kent CC is forced to take notice of these answers.

Working link.

There's a lot to take in but it's fair to say it wasn't popular with the majority of respondents.

gaz wrote: ↑19 Sep 2021, 10:04pm Working link.

There's a lot to take in but it's fair to say it wasn't popular with the majority of respondents.

Seems my link has a time out. No it doesn't seem to be popular but there doesn't seem to be valid reasons posted. It appears people are objecting to being "forced" to do something new and can't give valid reasons.

I've only read it once... but was there no attempt to obtain opinions that were quantitatively representative of the population of interest? That's pretty basic in competent polling.

Jonathan

It's not really an issue provided it's not treated as a representative sample, sadly most councils tend to fall down on that second part.

The previous iteration of national guidance on consultations set out quite nicely that the point of an open consultation was to consider responses based on their merit and any evidence provided and gather information for finer details. Not to treat the exercise as some kind of proxy vote on the whole policy.

Unfortunately that guidance was replaced a little under a decade ago with a few sides of vague nothing. I think it may have been collateral damage from the coalition's red tape bonfire. That said, plenty of councils made the same mistake back then too.