Cycling UK Forum

Thanks for all your comments. Especially to Richard for links to experiments in 40mph trials in Yorkshire - very useful.
Closure of rural roads to through motor traffic seems like a good idea, tho probably too radical for AberdeenshireCo. You could even give local farmers a key to the obstruction, tho they would probably leave it open all the time then. Nice link to the Norwegian example.

I take the point about the irritation of bumps in the road, but I found that the speed tables very commonly used in France at the beginning and end of rural villages were an acceptable measure esp with good design, and they certainly brought motor traffic speed down, and served to encourage NMUs..

I accept the view of most experts that new road-building serves to generate more motor traffic, and that new roads will simply fill to capacity and then overflow onto the rural roads around. This consequence will be particularly accentuated as the predicted development takes place along the new road corridor.

The threat pointed out that cars simply drive faster on rural roads, when traffic is sucked off them by the new road, seems to me to be a real issue, albeit a temporary one until the rural roads get saturated again with traffic.

I hope that this discussion may interest CTC staff to take up the issue of rural roads policy.
It has honed my thinking about the agenda for discussion locally.

birkhead wrote:I accept the view of most experts that new road-building serves to generate more motor traffic, and that new roads will simply fill to capacity and then overflow onto the rural roads around. This consequence will be particularly accentuated as the predicted development takes place along the new road corridor.

The threat pointed out that cars simply drive faster on rural roads, when traffic is sucked off them by the new road, seems to me to be a real issue, albeit a temporary one until the rural roads get saturated again with traffic.

Road building doesn't 'generate' traffic. People generate traffic. Road building influences the convenience of car use, and the division of traffic volumes. A 'good' road attracts higher volumes of traffic. Most of those drivers, however, would not have chaged their mode of transport for one road (or lack thereof). The quality of the road network does affect modal choices, but so does the quality and availability of public tranport, the cost to operate a private car....

The shift and growth of traffic can be quite a slow process, as well. The higher speeds and lighter volumes on the 'old' roads can remain for some years, as traffic volumes increase on the new roads. And it also depends upon the situation and the person. I will consider a couple of specific examples in Essex...

Sections of the A120 and A130 have been replaced by motorway-like roads. The 'new' A130 was constructed 10ish years ago, and traffic on the old road now typically moves at or above speed limit. Prior to the construction of the new road, traffic could only go that fast between 10 pm and 5 am. That might be a slight exaggeration, but it was a busy and frequently congested road. It is difficult to articulate the problems, but it seems to have increased in intimidation levels, especially around a couple of junctions. There are few enough cyclists willing to use the road, I would not expect to see any statistically adequate accident data, but it might be worth looking at it.

The new A120 (Braintree to Stansted) is more recent and also resulted in an improvement in cycling conditions on the old road. While traffic moves generally faster now on the old A120 (which may put off some cyclists), I don't think that drivers are quite so aggressive. That may be explained by the lower volumes of traffic.

In both cases, traffic volumes remain much lower on the old roads than they were 10 years ago. It remains to be seen whether they will return to the old volumes of traffic. But if they do, I would expect to take some time, possibly as much as another 10 years. Of course, when a problem occurs on the new road, traffic is diverted onto the old road, and congestion is much worse than it was before the new road was built...