Tag Archives: Equality Streets

Traffic regulation and zealotry

Today’s concluding Point of View by the great Roger Scruton had a bearing on the subject of relationships on the road. Apologies if I oversimplify. He spoke of shared values arising from shared experience, with families and nation states tolerating difference but sinking their differences … Continue reading

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Who are they trying to kid?

The RAC Foundation has discovered that councils are making serious profits from parking enforcement, as if we didn’t already know. Claims that “parking control keeps traffic flowing and pedestrians safe” are specious. Pedestrians will never be safe as long as priority rules. And … Continue reading

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Equality v priority

One day, Equality Streets or shared space will be the norm. Yet in the early 21st century, assuming people have even heard of them, they are still seen as oddball, alternative. It’s the current system of priority and signal control … Continue reading

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So last century

In Victorian times, children were seen and not heard. In the 20th century, road-users were hounded and herded. In the 21st century, with a few notable exceptions such as Poynton, road-users are still hounded and herded. Even in creative Totnes, the traffic … Continue reading

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Equality Streets coming to Totnes?

Working with Re-open Totnes. Traders’ group in call for ‘Equality Streets’ Totnes Times Wednesday 26th June 2013 RE Open Totnes, set up to challenge the current experimental traffic order road reversal system and to explore alternative solutions to the town’s … Continue reading

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If

If I’m right: that the edifice of traffic control, based as it is on anti-social priority, is flawed and misguided; and that self-control on streets designed for equality are safer and more efficient than streets governed by priority and signals, … Continue reading

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Dead red time and space

Scenes like this are repeated ad infinitum up and down the land.

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Minister on the road to nowhere

On 8 May 2013, before the start of a conference organised by PACTS (government road safety advisory council) for the UN’s Decade of Action, I met transport minister, Patrick McLoughlin. What did he think of Poynton? He looked blank. I … Continue reading

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Deference be damned

The 1960s were supposed to have seen off doff-capping class deference, but deference on the road – people on foot deferring to people in vehicles (even waiting for permission to cross at zebra crossings) – persists to this day. The … Continue reading

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J’accuse

Research fellow at UCL, Dr Katharine Giles, is the latest cyclist to die on London’s roads. Crushed under a tipper truck in Victoria. The report in the Evening Standard calls it a “tragedy”. For once the word is correct, partly … Continue reading

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