20 mph speed limit agreed for north York

Behind closed doors logo

In another behind closed doors decision, the Council has agreed to introduce a wide area 20 mph speed limit across north York (Clifton/Rawcliffe/Huntington area)

Several formal objections were raised to the traffic orders. All were ignored.

Residents are becoming resigned to these limits being imposed but will expect them to be removed next year when a new Council takes over.

In other similar City’s the introduction of wide area 20 mph speed limits has coincided with an increase in the number of serious traffic accidents.

Just a shame that £600,000 of taxpayer’s money is being wasted.

Four local Councillors objected to the proposal (3 LibDem and 1 Tory)

Labour Blocks Lendal Bridge Inquiry

Labour councillors last night formally vetoed Liberal Democrat calls for an inquiry into the Lendal Bridge trial.

Lendal Bridge signs A scrutiny committee review of the controversial trial was requested by Lib Dem councillors Ann Reid and Keith Aspden. But, at last night’s ‘Economic & City Development Overview & Scrutiny Committee’ Labour councillors used their majority to reject the Lib Dem proposal.

Last week Labour leader Cllr James Alexander and Cllr Dave Merrett (the cabinet member responsible for the trial) publicly opposed calls for a review.

Cllr Ian Cuthbertson, who sits on the committee for the Lib Dems, commented:

“It is hugely disappointing that Labour councillors have blocked an inquiry into the Lendal Bridge trial. Liberal Democrats wanted a proper cross-party review of the trial to ensure that unanswered questions are addressed and lessons are learnt.

“Whatever the rights and wrongs of having the trial in the first place, it is clear that it was very badly implemented and managed. Poor signage meant that over 50,000 motorists were fined, the closure caused increased congestion in other parts of the city, then it was ruled ‘unlawful’ by the Government’s Traffic Adjudicator. We need to understand why these things happened, so that future attempts at tackling congestion do not end in similar failure.

“It is hard to escape the conclusion that Labour councillors cynically blocked the scrutiny review to shield their Leader and the Cabinet Member responsible from proper public scrutiny. If this is the case, it is clearly an unacceptable approach which does our city and its residents a huge disservice.”

Labour’s controversial closure of Lendal Bridge was abandoned in April after overwhelming opposition from residents and businesses and after a Government Traffic Adjudicator ruled the closure was unlawful.

The Economic & City Development Overview & Scrutiny Committee voted 4 to 3 against holding the review with Labour councillors Anna Semlyen, Neil Barnes, Stephen Burton and Joe Riches voting against.

A video of the meeting can be found here: http://www.york.gov.uk/webcasts

More use Park and Ride at Askham Bar

Askham Bar cycle parking in use

Askham Bar cycle parking in use

The new Askham Bar park and ride site on Tadcaster Road has proved to be popular with drivers.

Many have transferred from the, now closed, site adjacent to Tesco – making the most of the additional spaces now available.

At 11:00am today a small queue of bus passengers had formed.

However work on the site has still not been completed.

Official estimates say that it could be another 2 weeks before all the work is done.

Well used car park at Askham Bar

Well used car park at Askham Bar

Still the Council were right to bring the site into service as soon as practical. It has reduced the number of vehicles on Tadcaster Road and buses are taking advantage of the reduced congestion to run into the City centre more quickly.

The situation at the other new site at Poppleton Bar couldn’t be a bigger contrast.

Fewer than 100 vehicles were using the car park there this morning.

A substantial amount of work needs to be done both on the car park and on the nearby highway network.

Askham Bar bus waiting area

Askham Bar bus waiting area


Sources at the Council say that the project – which is 3 months behind its original schedule – will be finished in 3 weeks time. The contractors have apparently been given until the weekend of the Tour de France (5th July) to complete the works.

Unfortunately, by then, damage to the park and ride site’s reputation may be beyond repair.

Buses continue to be mired in a web of temporary traffic lights and lane restrictions.

Electric bus at Poppleton Bar

Electric bus at Poppleton Bar


Today, rather than a queue of passengers waiting for buses, there was a queue of buses waiting for passengers.

Ironically one of the major improvements yet to be commissioned is the cycle underpass on the A1237. This was to be used to encourage cyclists to pedal to the park and ride site before boarding a bus to complete their journey.

It will not be used by the Tour de France competitors!

New Park and Ride service hit by traffic congestion at Poppleton

click for video

click for video

There are two aspects of the new Park and Ride services which the Labour Council Leadership will be keen to avoid discussing over the next few days

The first is the crass stupidity of launching the Poppleton Park and Ride site before road works in the area had been completed. 

Another 2 or 3 weeks and the service could have been sold – to those travelling to the City from the north – as being a quicker, cheaper, congestion reducing and a more environmentally friendly way of accessing the City.

It is none of these things at present with traffic congestion as likely to delay the park and ride buses as those drivers who continue their journeys into the City by car.

This morning (off peak) the electric buses were taking over 5 minutes to exit the site and cross the A1237 junction.

Not surprisingly the buses were empty with only a handful of cars parked at the new centre.

The second policy – now relegated to the long grass – is Labours “Quality Bus Contract” plan.

When In opposition, they were keen to blame all public transport deficiencies in the City on the lack of influence that the Council had on bus fares and routing policy.

Labour’s solution was to introduce what is known as a “Statutory Quality Bus Contract”.

 This, in effect, is a franchising system when bus companies bid to provide services to a contract specification set by the Council.

Labour were warned in 2009 that their plan was impossibly expensive to operate and would only get the go ahead in areas where bus use was falling.

 Decisions taken in 2011 by the new Labour administration – not least scrapping the popular ftr service – meant that bus usage reversed a trend of several years and started to decline.  

However, more recently, timetable changes have reversed the trend again.

In 2010, when decisions on how to take forward a trial of a bus contract system were being considered, the Council agreed to trial the use of the franchise system in part of the City.

The area selected was York north west – essentially the Poppleton/Acomb to City centre quadrant.

One of the options was to integrate the new Park and Ride services with the stage carriage services in the area, providing a more frequent service for some parts of the Boroughbridge Road/Poppleton area.

It was likely that off peak services would have benefited considerably.

After spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on the miscalculated “bus contract” adventure Labour quietly abandoned  their plans some 18 months ago.

Unfortunately they now appear also to have ditched the promised integrated public transport system in north west York!

 

 

Road Safety Event in York on the 9th June

cyclesafe card

UK Road Safety Week, runs from the 9- 15 June 2014, with an event in Parliament Square, York, on the 9th June.

The event in York is being supported by 95 Alive, the York and North Yorkshire Road Safety Partnership, City of York Council, North Yorkshire County Council, North Yorkshire Police, CFOA and the Mineral Products Association.

MP for Scarborough and Whitby and Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department for Transport, Robert Goodwill,will be attending as will Dave Etheridge, Road Safety Lead for CFOA and Honor Byford, Chair of Road Safety GB.

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Electric buses finally make it onto York streets.

Poppleton Bar park and ride site

Poppleton Bar park and ride site

The Council are claiming that battery powered buses will run from the Poppleton Park and Ride site from Sunday.

If they do, then it will be due to the efforts of workers on the car park and Poppleton roundabout improvements which were still far from finished earlier today.

Battery powered buses were first proposed by the, then LibDem controlled, Council in 2010.

The introduction of seven zero emission buses on the new park and ride route now is due to a grant from the coalition government.

It is a step in the right direction.

However, there will be some concern that the new service is being introduced before works at the car park site (opposite the Wyevale garden centre) and on the A59/A1237 junction have been completed.

The new service needs to be a showpiece for the City – not just in terms of appearance, but also in providing a swift journey across a junction which has often been congested in the past.

We seem to be some days away from being able to guarantee that kind of improved visitor experience.

The new Park and Ride site at Askham Bar seems to be further advanced and should be ready for service on Sunday.

Approach to A59/A1237 roundabout

 

Tomorrow crunch day for latest Monk Stray plans

Monk Stray

Monk Stray

 There are fears that a gate onto Monk Stray could end up costing taxpayers thousands despite local residents saying they don’t want it.

Labour run York Council wants to install a permanent 8 metre timber gate onto Monk Stray from Stockton Lane.

The gate would allow largevehicles to access the site during next month’s Tour De France.

While York Council was forced to cancel plans for camping on Monk Stray when the Caravan Club pulled out of running the site after opposition from local residents, the Stray will still host a ‘Spectator Hub’ for the Grand Départwith thousands of visitors expected.

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Lendal Bridge – Council Leadership move to block scrutiny review of their decisions

Lendal bridge notice

Papers published for a meeting of the Council scrutiny committee, which covers transport issues, today reveal that the Labour Leadership are trying to block an inquiry into their handling of the Lendal Bridge closure.

Residents in general – and the 70,000 motorists fined “unlawfully” by the Council for using Lendal Bridge and Coppergate in particular- had been expecting the answers to a string of questions about the muddle and confusion which surrounded the ill-judged trial.

The Council Leader describes the request as “politics not scrutiny” and says that “an independently chaired congestion commission” should report first.  As any such commission would take months – if not years – to report, this is clearly an attempt to bury the issue until after the local elections which are scheduled to take place next May.

Similarly the disgraced Cabinet member, who was responsible for the shambles, argues that a review is “premature” and should await the result of the Council’s appeal against the traffic adjudicator’s judgement. As this appeal expected to be resolved within the next 2 months, it does not seem be a valid reason to delay setting up a review committee.

The committee meets next week to decide on its work programme for the coming year.

Although there is a Labour majority on the committee, they will not be able to deny answers to residents legitimate questions for ever.

The new Council, which will be elected in May 2015, will be able to set up an Inquiry when it takes office.

 There will be nowhere for the former Labour Leadership to hide then.

Spy camera car in Front Street?

Minster FM is claiming that the parking enforcement camera van has now expanded its coverage area to include shopping streets.

Amongst them is Front Street in Acomb together with Acomb Road itself.

Traders in the sub-urban area have been having a difficult time over recent years and any suggestion that customers could pick up a £70 fine for parking would be an unwelcome development.

Free parking is one of the few advantages that small traders in Acomb have over the retail giants.

The camera car was introduced to stop poor (sometimes dangerous) parking outside primary schools in the City. Although not popular with everyone, we recognise that the initiative was a genuine attempt by the Council to address a real problem.

Local schools being monitored include Westfield and Woodthorpe

Extending the use of spy cameras to routinely issue tickets in less critical streets would be a step too far.

spy car

We are fortunate that York’s parking wardens (civil enforcement officers) do exercise discretion before issuing fixed penalty tickets. That approach needs to continue.

It appears that the Labour Council have learned little from the Lendal bridge fiasco. There, the crude use of cameras to enforce restrictions that were misunderstood by many, damaged the City’s reputation.

Labour’s inclusion, in their budget for the current year, of an additional £150,000 from spy camera generated fines confirms that they intend to continue the war against their own citizens.

NB. Respondents to our survey in west York have come out by 2:1 against the extended use of spy cameras in the  City.

Businesses challenge each other in ‘The York Cycle Challenge’

Workplaces in York are being invited to take part in a free competition to encourage even more people to ride bikes as part of the 2014 York Cycle Challenge.

York_cycle_challenge_web

With less than 50-days to go until the world’s largest cycle race comes to York, more than 90 businesses and 1,800 people are set to take to the streets over the next three-weeks to compete in their own cycle challenge. (more…)