Lendal Bridge traffic ban: It has shifted the jams south
Lendal Bridge Week
We’re halfway through the six-month ban on private vehicles using Lendal Bridge between 10.30am to 5pm. This week YorkMix is running a series of articles from people with very different responses to the trial. What do you think? Comment below, Tweet us @theyorkmix or go to our Facebook page
Residents along one of York’s main roads are suffering the consequences of the trial, says Alison Sinclair
It is to be hoped that someone in the council is keeping count of the number of vehicles displaced by the Lendal Bridge restrictions to Bishopthorpe Road and Skeldergate Bridge.
There have always been hold-ups along Bishopthorpe Road at some times of the day but nothing like what is happening these days.
Since the partial closure of Lendal Bridge, traffic is backed up along Bishopthorpe Road for much longer periods, sometimes all the way from the Tower Street roundabout on the City side of Skeldergate Bridge, through the Bishopthorpe Road shops and up the hill to Southlands Church, even to the Winning Post pub.
Traffic round the Nunnery Lane / Prices Lane one-way system used to flow quite smoothly but now moves in fits and starts, inches at a time, because of the number of vehicles diverted along Blossom Street merging with the increased traffic from Bishopthorpe Road.
The journey home from Askham Bar to The Groves via Bishopthorpe Road and the inner ring road now takes at least half an hour longer than it used to, and the trip from South Bank to Fossbank recently took about four times as long as it used to with traffic gridlocked in both directions between the Barbican and the Winning Post.
The relocated traffic makes existing problems in the alternative location as bad as, or worse than, the original
It seems counter productive to ban traffic from one place with the object of lessening congestion and pollution in that place, only for the traffic to relocate to another place, where conditions are already bad enough.
All that happens is that the problems transferred with the relocated traffic make existing problems in the alternative location as bad as, or worse than, the original.
In the case of the Nunnery Lane / Bishopthorpe Road one-way system conditions are considerably worse, crucially for the residents of the island of houses around which traffic gyrates, who will suffer the greater effect of increased emissions generated by all those stopping and starting vehicles.
Traffic figures for other main routes into the city have been made public but not those for Bishopthorpe Road.
You have to wonder whether the traffic planners are aware of the fact that Bishopthorpe Road is an alternate route into the City in place of Tadcaster Road, and that it leads more directly to Skeldergate Bridge than Tadcaster Road and Blossom Street.
Up-to-date traffic and air quality figures for this route could provide an interesting comment on the ill-conceived trial on Lendal Bridge.
- Alison Sinclair is an historian and conservationist
- For all our Lendal Bridge stories, click here
I have yet to hear a plausible long term strategy from those who oppose measures like the Lendal Bridge trial. What we should be doing is identifying any potential locations now where peak traffic would allow quality cycle or bus lanes and get them in quick, before that roadspace becomes colonised by standing private cars. Those who say that drivers ‘have no choice’ fail to acknowledge that better and cheaper public transport provision is the flipside of making it easier for the motorist. In an historic city we have to choose one or the other. The public transport, walking and cycling option is by far the most efficient use of limited space and also happens to be the one which improves health, cuts pollution and limits climate change. It will be very interesting to see how the removal of bus lanes in Liverpool works out – increased traffic and pollution Im sure will be combined with a fall in revenue for bus companies and a worse service. ‘Speeding up’ the traffic will be a short lived outcome as more cars use the roads.
@dave
As a regular visitor to York, and someone who graduated there, I find myself increasingly amazed at how, on the one hand, there is a significant number of everyday cyclists in the city, and yet on the other the surprisingly meagre attention paid by traffic engineers to their needs. Coupled with the massive tourist footfall in the city centre, it seems clear to me that York badly needs to adopt the kinds of urban development policies that have proved so successful in reducing car-dependancy in cities like Copenhagen and Groningen.
The restrictions on Lendal Bridge, a crucial artery for much of that tourist footfall between station and city centre, are limited. But at least they are understood as part of a wider traffic policy to test the efficacy of the idea. The error so often made in the UK is that “traffic” is understood as meaning only “motorised traffic”. It isn’t. The needs of pedestrians, public transport and cyclists should be given at least equal weight. And in a small, compact city like York, that means a serious consideration of the allocation of road space between these users.
As for your complaints about this policy “punishing” people with limited choices, well there are far more people in society who for one reason or another cannot drive at all. It is remarkable how many of us on this island deem our use of the car “absolutely essential” when exactly the same journeys are made by exactly the same people – parents with school children, people with disabilities, shoppers, even tradesmen – by bicycle in cycling-friendly cities. I believe traffic planners call it “smart choices” – we discover that we can actually choose which way to make a journey, rather than feel tied to the car because, for example, we don’t know the bus timetable or we think we “need to” drive our children to school.
Traffic policies in York have, for decades, “punished” cyclists with poor and/or dangerous infrastructure, all for the benefit of a 1960’s vision of the motorised city. A limited step in another direction, more in keeping with the needs of the 21st century, is long overdue.
In reply to Andy. You say, “There is no way that every car trip made in York is done because there are no alternatives.” and I think this gets to the nub of the issue in many ways, in that it highlights the blunt instrument nature of using road closures to socially engineer transport choices.
Closing a major part of York’s road network is totally indiscriminate: you are punishing those people who have no choice but to use cars or other motor vehicles as much as the proverbial ‘driving 500 yards to the corner shop’ types. In fact you are punishing those who actually need to drive more, because they – by definition – have far less choice about when and by what route they drive.
Its this punishment of people whose choices are limited anyway that has provoked such fury. Unless, of course, you are one of those people who believe that we sit in congested rush-hour traffic because we’re ‘in love with our cars’ and all us fools require is a short sharp shock to make us reconsider and see the light. Sadly, the latter dim-witted point of view seems quite common.
Well, I haven’t spoken to “everyone”, as I suspect you haven’t, but I’m just reporting what I’ve seen, as I spend most of my life (working and home) on Bishopthorpe Road. The fact that traffic increases are a common moan would indicate that there is a problem that needs solving, but I don’t see it any worse now than it was a year ago – it’s usually bad. This problem is not created by restricting use of a river bridge, but by unnecessary use of private cars. There are undoubtedly plenty of journeys that necessarily use a private car, but I personally know people who use a car for journeys in York to transport one perfectly able-bodied person alone from A to B. You cannot argue that this is not an inefficient use both of extremely limited space and scarce resources! Funny thing is, a lot of the people who moan about heavy traffic always justify their own journeys and spectacularly fail to acknowledge that THEY are the traffic – THEY are the problem.
We don’t have to use subjective and anecdotal evidence to debate this issue.
Traffic has increased – see CYC’s reports on this here
http://www.york.gov.uk/citycentreimprovements
Unfortunately the reports lack consistency, so don’t raise your hopes too high.
The objective of the trial was to reduce bus transit times in the city. My understanding is the bus people proposed and funded it. If it ‘fails’ , then it will result in fewer bus services (or more buses .. which ain’t gonna happen due to cost constraints!)
I am in Southbank and everyone in York is moaning about the traffic increase. Council Elections are in May next year. Shall we let democracy have a chance?
John Young
In reply to John. It is certainly true that traffic has increased by a small amount on those alternative routes and that is exactly what COYC traffic planners predicted (and they never claimed otherwise). With increasing population and increasing pressure on the network, that is certainly going to happen on all routes anyway regardless of what you do with the bridge. The closure just brings this ‘pain’ forward. What COYC are doing with the closure is trying to reduce the absolute amount of the network available to the private car in the hope of tipping the balance in favour of other modes of transport (which must happen if we are to accomodate that growth). The carrot is that it improves the conditons for the other modes, the stick is that it makes it less convenient for car users. Those people who have to make the journey by car (such as Alison I presume), will continue to do so, those who don’t will make the switch as the balance of convenience would have shifted. There is no way that every car trip made in York is done because there are no alternatives. Yes, it may be unpopular, but the council is taking the long view. They and their traffic planners are not ‘incompetent’ or ‘idiots’, as I’ve heard them described elswhere, but responsible people making tough choices that they know will be unpopular.
I’m amazed at what Alison says here. I’m sitting here at my place of work, with a view of Bishopthorpe Road from the shop where I work and I can’t believe how quiet the street and the dreaded gyratory are! It’s 3.20pm, school finishing time, when you’d expect an increase in traffic volume from Scarcroft and Millthorpe Schools, and the traffic is flowing freely. I also live on Bishopthorpe Road near the South Bank Avenue junction and have to say that I do not recognise in the slightest what she is describing. There have always been hold-ups down the hill to the traffic lights at Scarcroft Road and traffic has always been backed up around the gyratory. Could it be that Alison is sub-consciously seeing things now that this bridge closure is such a hot topic?