York Traffic Congestion Commission gets off to poor start

No attempt made to gain broad based support

Papers published this week give details of a Congestion Commission (CC) which is supposed to plot a way forward for transport policy in the City. It will cost taxpayers around £130,000.

Lendal bridge notice

Lendal Bridge closure went on for 8 months costing taxpayers over £1 million

The origins of the “Commission” are the lamentable failures of the present Council’s transport polices which culminated in the Lendal Bridge fiasco. When the extent of the failure of that “trial” became apparent it was abandoned and proposals for a “Commission” were hastily unveiled.  The, now unseated, Leader of the Council, had a penchant for “Commissions” which sounds grander than a policy review (which is effectively what the proposal is).

Labour and Green Councillors then voted not to review how and why the Lendal Bridge trial had gone so badly wrong.

One previous Commission (the Fairness Commission) failed simply because it didn’t attempt to attract all party support.  A former Labour Councillor was even parachuted in to be the chair of that organisation.

 The terms of the new Congestion Commission are similarly being bounced onto opposition Councillors, more or less guaranteeing an atmosphere of distrust if not downright hostility from day 1.

A sensible approach would have been to publish the proposed terms of reference of the Commission and invite comments.  If a mixture of lay people and Councillors were considered to be necessary, then the skills required (as have been suggested in the report) could also have been discussed.

Blossom Street/Station Rise remodeling has been a success. But Council is failing to maintain car park space availability signs

Only after a consensus on these issues had been achieved, could approaches be made to individuals who might contribute.

Instead Labour have published their preferred choice for Chair of the Commission – effectively daring non Labour Councillors to come up with alternatives.  That will place the prospective  “Chair” in a difficult position.

The other issue is, of course, one of timing.

There is both a General Election (which will help to determine how much money will be available to be spent on transport across the UK) and “all out” Council elections (at which York residents will have the opportunity to give a verdict on the current Councils transport mishaps) taking place on May 7th.

The result’s of both elections will have a major impact on the amount of money that York has to spend on transport and the priorities of York residents.

Each party will publish a manifesto and – at least at the Local Elections – residents will vote for the package that they most favour.

It almost beggars belief that the draft timetable for the CC specifies the 6 weeks leading up to the elections on May 7th as the period when “written submissions” will be invited.

Electric buses

Successful Park and Ride electric buses

 

Work should have been going on now for 6 months monitoring actual traffic volumes against forecasts.

At least until recently, traffic levels in the City were actually below 2008 levels. This was partly a result of the economic downturn.

Prior to that congestion levels had been stable for over 15 years.  That did not happen by accident.

It was partly due to car drivers choosing to make journeys at off peak times and partly due to Council policies such as Park and Ride and encouraging cycling/walking. 

The default position is not as some claim “do nothing”. The base position is “do more of what has been successful if the past”. Add in technology change, which should reduce unnecessary mileage, and you have the makings of a solution.

We have grave doubts about whether the Congestion Commission is the way forward.

 If it is, then its work should start in June when the political background will be much clearer.

Improvements to A19 junction

Following a consultation, City of York Council is taking a further report to a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday 20 January to progress plans to improve one of York’s busiest road interchanges.

Proposed extra lane for A19 announced

Proposed extra lane for A19 announced

The proposed changes to the A19/A64 junction will form the first phase in the A19 Pinch Point Scheme, which York received approximately £2million for from the government’s Department for Transport, aimed at helping support growth and tackle congestion.
(more…)

Lendal Bridge “automatic fine” refund process revealed

Report published – administration to cost extra £150,000

The Council Cabinet will decide on 20th January how to implement the Councils decision to “automatically” refund those who were fined during the Lendal Bridge trial.

Lendal Man

So far 12,512 refunds have been issued by the Council.

The most likely course of action is that all 35,000 motorists, who have not yet claimed a refund, will be written to and advised of their opportunity to claim.

After that the process will be much the same as the scheme currently in operation.

The cost of sending out and managing the notification process is put at £150,000. The money will come from grant income which otherwise would have been spent on public services in the City.

In total the Council took around £1.8 million in fines from the Lendal bridge and Coppergate schemes. The Council continues to pursue a claim that the Coppergate fines were levied lawfully but their appeal has been outstanding for over 9 months now.

Additionally, over £700,000 was spent on implementing and administering the original schemes.

The Council is shying away from simply putting a cheque in the post to the registered vehicle keeper details that its agents have on file. They fear that many of the payments would not reach the right people (hire cars, parental cars, foreign tourists, deceased etc)  and Legal Counsel have said that such an option could jeopardise the Councils  Coppergate appeal.

All in all it now looks like the Lendal Bridge experiment will cost over £1 million.

That is money which could, and should, have been spent addressing road safety issues across the whole City.

39% of drivers on Wetherby Road exceeding 30 mph speed limit

It is over a year since the Police stopped using cameras to monitor traffic speeds on Wetherby Road in York,

30 mph sign lit wetherby Road 4th Jan 2015 1500 hours

The section of the road falling between the Ridgeway/Beckfield Lane junction and the end of the built up area, is notorious for problems with speeding.

The man difficulty arises for residents seeking to leave their driveways with an awkward bend reducing visibility.

About 8 years ago the Council installed flashing signs which illuminate when a passing vehicle exceeds the 30 mph limit.

It is probably time for these to be modernised with the type which shows the actual speed of the vehicle.

In a sample check of vehicle speeds on the road taken this week, 39% of those entering the City triggered the sign. This is slightly higher than a similar survey found (38%) in 2011.

On the outbound carriageway, 31% were found to be exceeding the speed limit. In 2011, 42% were exceeding the limit on the same section of road.

We think that it is time for the police to recommence their camera checks in the area.

York Council still refusing to provide bus reliability information

On the busesIn the latest in a long running saga the Councillor responsible for transport systems in the City (Levene) again, at the last Council meeting, refused to publish bus service reliability figures.

Cllr Levene was asked by LibDem Councillor Ann Reid  “In view of the fact that successive Cabinet Members for Transport have told previous Council meetings that they were trying to get more information about bus service reliability in York, could the current Cabinet Member now say – for each of the last 6 months – what reliability was achieved on stage carriage services (quoting commercial and subsidised separately) operating in the City?”

He responded that agreements with local bus company’s pre vented the publication of such information. He would only confirm the statistics that are available on the national DoT website

  • For 2013/14, 84% of non-frequent buses (fewer than 6 per hour on a given route) ran on time (between 1 minute early and 5 minutes 59 seconds late).
  • The average excess wait time for frequent buses (6 or more buses per hour on a given route) was 0.6 minutes.  Bus punctuality

Neither figure is particularly helpful as passengers know that reliability varies form route to route.

It is little short of disgraceful that quality of service information is not made available at least on those services which enjoy a £800,000 a year subsidy from taxpayers.

Nationally the government promoted the introduction of “bus punctuality” partnerships, but the transparency underpinning this initiative never found its way to York

Although most passengers will feel that their most immediate need is to know when the next bus will arrive at a particular stop they are also aware that the “real time” information reverts on many occasions to basic timetable data.

This indicates when the next bus is timetabled to arrive not when it actually will.

It would be so much more honest if the industry – like the train operating companies – published reliability information on the regular basis.

Traffic signals and parking barriers still proving to be unreliable in York

Traffic signals

This year to date (1st Jan to 3rd Dec) there have been a total of 696  traffic signal faults reported to the York Council’s maintenance contractors.

This number was 678 for the same period last year.

The Council does not have a means of recording the total duration for which signals have been out of operation; however, for high priority faults in this period – which are recorded in their own indicator – 91% were resolved within 4 hours, compared to 82% for the same period last year.

Marygate car park

Barrier faults have occurred during a total of 17 days since they were introduced at the Marygate car park. Currently income from the car park is less than it was when operated on a pay and display basis.Marygate-car-park-equipment-768x1024

Income from the Marygate car park, from the start of July to the end of October, totalled £231,000 in 2014/15.

The equivalent figure for 2013/14 was £246,000.

The York Council spent £100,000 installing the barrier system at Marygate.

NB. The Council has admitted that due to faults on its automated vehicle counting systems it doesn’t know how many motorists have taken advantage of the free parking offer which is available at some car parks from Thursday to Saturday. 

Overall income from car parking is, however, over £400,000 below budgeted levels.

£11.9 million road resurfacing boost for York

Potholes

The government has stepped in to give York an additional £2 million a year to tackle the road maintenance backlog.

Details of the announcement can be found by clicking here

The York Council gained notoriety in 2012 by halving the amount that it invested in repairing local footpaths and roads.

 They continued the policy into 2013 with a large backlog of repairs developing. Investment only returned to 2011 levels this year.

The York Council announced its provisional resurfacing programme for 2015 a couple of weeks ago. The government announcement means that this list should now more than double in size.

Lendal Bridge fine repayment deadline scrapped

The York Council has agreed tonight to cancel the end of December deadline for  motorists wanting to reclaim fines unlawfully levied on Lendal Bridge.

They have promised that there will be a report in January which will confirm how the fines will be repaid “automatically”.

The decision was taken after the new Council required the Labour Cabinet to act to make the refunds.

It has also emerged that very few of the fines lodged against foreign tourists have been repaid.

The figures are:

Of the 5460 payments issued,

  • 1927 (35%) have been to YO postcodes,
  • 3531 (65%) have been to the rest of the UK, and
  • 2 overseas (0.04%).