Community / ‘Overkill’ traffic measures more suited to Edinburgh than Lerwick, meeting hears
Community councillor describes calming measures as ‘wet finger in the air stuff’
TRAFFIC calming measures proposed for Lerwick have been criticised as “overkill” during a meeting of the town’s community council.
Shetland Islands Council (SIC) is proposing to introduce or maintain 20mph speed limits in sections of King Harald Street, Gilbertson Road and South Road as part of a continuing series of works to improve safety and encourage active travel.
But it was traffic calming measures such as road humps, speed cushions and raised table junctions along the three areas that drew strong criticism.
The lack of accidents in the three areas over the last 25 years led community councillors to question why the changes needed to be made.
One criticised a lack of data provided by the council, and said their reasoning was “wet finger in the air stuff”.
Duncan Swainston also suggested the only reason the council was doing the work was because it was being funded entirely by the Scottish Government.
And another community councillor said the changes were more like what you would see in major cities, such as Edinburgh.
Lerwick Community Council eventually decided to feed back to the council’s roads department that they were in favour of lower speed limits – but not any more calming measures.
However roads manager Neil Hutcheson, who attended the Lerwick Community Council meeting on Monday night, claimed lower speed limits and traffic calming measures needed to go hand in hand.
He said data showed that going from a 30mph limit down to a 20mph limit only reduced the speed of drivers by two or three miles per hour.
The SIC is proposing to install two road humps along King Harald Street, along with a raised table junction at the corner with King Erik Street – just before the play park.
Three road humps and two pairs of speed cushions would be installed on Gilbertson Road as a measure to slow drivers down on their approach to Bell’s Brae Primary School.
And two road humps would be constructed to South Road, along with a pair of speed cushions on Scalloway Road between Burgh Road and King Harald Street.
The roads manager admitted however that the changes to South Road were probably unlikely to go ahead due to the number of objections.
Hutcheson attended Monday’s meeting to answer questions and gauge opinion about the proposed changes, which he said had already drawn numerous objections.
Eleven households had objected about to the changes in Burgh Road, where Hutcheson admitted there had been no recorded accidents in the last 25 years.
Community councillor Brian Smith said a lot of people had criticised the traffic calming measures across the town.
“The reduction to 20mph hasn’t been the issue,” he said. “Speed bumps has been the issue.”
Graham Nicolson accused the council of “putting a problem where there’s not a problem” for its proposal to build a zebra crossing on South Road, just after the Bells Road corner.
He said that nobody uses that crossing unless the school is on, at which point a crossing attendant helps pupils to get across.
However Hutcheson said there had “actually been accidents across that road”.
In his opinion, he said, “if you want it to be 20mph you have to traffic calm it too.”
He said data showed that reducing the speed limit alone had a negligible initial effect on drivers’ habits, with speed only reducing by a few miles per hour.
Asked by Lerwick North and Bressay councillor Stephen Leask whether he thought the changes would have a positive effect on active travel, Hutcheson replied: “I think it will certainly help.”
The roads manager pointed to the roads around Bell’s Brae, and said he had witnessed first-hand the other week a “horrendous amount of people parked” on the approach to the school.
Community councillor Amanda Hawick said that if it was a terrible day of weather “folk are going to park anywhere” regardless.
Hutcheson said there had been a lot of requests for crossings on King Harald Street, across from the play park and at Islesburgh.
Diana Winfield said three traffic calming measures “seems excessive” for King Harald Street.
Community councillor Swainston delivered the most stinging criticism of the plans, saying he was “totally surprised about the lack of data-driven decision making”.
“This seems like wet finger in the air stuff,” he said.
“Are we just doing this because the Scottish Government is giving us the money, because it’s not coming from the council?”
Some people in the room vocally agreed with Swainston on this point, but Hutcheson claimed that was not the case.
“It’s certainly nothing to do with the government giving us money,” he said.
“There’s been very little in the way of accidents, to be perfectly honest. We’re right on the edge of where do we go, do we want to go this far?”
Community councillor Karen Fraser said it was “not just about the number of accidents” though.
“There’s too much traffic and too much fast traffic. It’s not just about accidents, it’s about public health, wellbeing and getting more people to walk more.”
Nicolson said there were seven proposed zebra crossings in the space of a mile of roads, questioning if that was “overkill”.
Hutcheson resolved to take back to the SIC that the Lerwick Community Council would support 20mph limits in all three highlighted areas, but would not support more traffic calming measures.
The proposals will go to the SIC’s environment and transport committee for approval at a later date, if no resolution can be agreed with objectors.
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