The York Council will consider a report on how air quality in the City varied during 2019.
It reveals that, even before lock-down, NO2 emission levels had continued to fall in the City. The report cites a number of reasons for the improvement including a move to electric buses, anti idling measures and general improvements in vehicle technology.
Perhaps surprisingly, the report fails to analyse what has been happening recent weeks. Despite a return to near pre lock-down levels of traffic on many roads in the City, air quality has remained good.
Rather disingenuously the report author tries to draw a connection between COVID-19 deaths and poor air quality. No figures or independent research is offered to support the thesis.
Latest air quality monitoring information published on the Council dedicated web site confirms that pollution levels remain at low levels in the City. Even historic hot spots like Gillygate are recording the lowest recordable level of NO2 pollution.
Latest figures in York
The Council provides a weekly commentary on air quality
The Council has not published traffic level information recently but a national study by theTravel Technology Forumsuggests that vehicle use is at about 80% of pre lockdown levels. HGV movements have returned to February levels. Bus services are running but with reduced usage.
National transport use trends
Cycling activity has fluctuated. Figures suggest that use is sensitive to weather conditions. Relatively few choose to cycle in wet weather and this may result in a further decline as winter approaches.
The latest COVID restrictions may also further reduce the number of journeys being made in the City.
The introduction of street closures in places like the Groves has had little impact on journey times. Alternative routes remain lightly trafficked.
Around 20% of the workforce remains economically inactive. This may change when the governments furlough scheme comes to an end.
In turn any general return to work, and the reopening of city centre offices, may further test the transport system in City.
City of York Council has announced a year-long e-scooter trial and selected Europe’s leading operator TIER to run the game-changing technology on its streets.
The first e-scooters will be deployed at the University of York in a few weeks, offering residents a new, green and Covid-safe mode of transport for getting around the city. Discussions are taking place as to whether York Hospital will also be able to host the scheme
The Department for Transport-approved scheme, will initially see up to 100 e-scooters deployed, with more e-scooters and TIER e-bikes to come. Renting an e-scooter in York will cost riders £1 to unlock the vehicle and 15p per minute travelled.
After a highly competitive tender process involving over 15 other applicants, City of York Council selected TIER as sole operator because of the company’s pioneering approach to safety, ability to ensure orderly parking and its unrivalled sustainability credentials.
TIER scooters come with industry-leading safety features including an integrated helmet, the largest front wheel in the market, a wider foot plate, dual suspension, a double kick-stand and dual drum brakes for stable riding on uneven surfaces and conditions.
TIER, founded in 2018 and already in 70 cities across Europe, was the first e-scooter operator in the world to become climate-neutral and is rolling out swappable batteries across its fleet, removing the need to collect and transport the vehicles to a warehouse for charging. York will benefit from this leading model. The company is also demonstrating its financial sustainability, becoming profitable in only its second year.
City of York Council is asking disabled people across York to let them know how city centre changes made in response to coronavirus have affected accessibility.
In June 2020 the council executive agreed to emergency measures to expand the number of pedestrianised ‘footstreets’, which now run for an extra three hours until 8pm, to allow more space for social distancing and for cafes and restaurants to take advantage of pavement trading.
“The actions are designed to support the council’s Economic Recovery – Transport and Place One Year Strategy, adopted by the Executive on 24 June 2020. This aims to build resident, visitor and stakeholder confidence that York is a safe, healthy and attractive place for everyone”.
Replacement blue badge parking has been added at different locations around the edges of the city centre, with more added this week*. A free taxi service – set to continue until at least 20 September – has been available between Monk Bar car park and St Andrewgate.
Most of the spaces reserved for the disabled at Monk Bar car park have not been used
The council want to hear from all disabled people in York, whether they use a blue badge or not, and any other residents who feel the footstreets extension has affected their ability to access the city centre.
The council wants to hear from disabled people, blue badge holders, carers and anyone else who feels the footstreets changes have affected the ease with which they can access the city centre.
The results of the engagement will: 1. Provide ways to improve the existing alternative access arrangements 2. Give the council’s Executive a full understanding of the impact of the footstreets extension and provide options to increase accessibility to the city centre if the extension continues.
With public gatherings difficult during the current restrictions, the council is using a survey approach – available online and hard copy – as well as talking to disabled groups across the city to reach their members.
The council is also scheduling an online workshop in Mid-September to explore the challenges.
You can join the conversation in a number of ways. You can fill in a survey by Monday 28 September at www.york.gov.uk/OBCAccess, A hard copy of the survey along with a freepost return address will also be included in the September edition of the council’s Our City publication, distributed to York households from 7 September. If you are interested in taking part in an online workshop to explore the challenges around accessibility and footstreets and ideas please email OurBigConversation@york.gov.uk .
Marygate car park has been full today with around half a dozen cars at anytime patrolling the service roads waiting for someone to vacate a space.
The 40 odd spaces on the railway side of the car park are still coned off. There is little use made of these by cyclists and an alternative is available – using the service road – only a couple of feet away.
The old shared use footpath is also very lightly used making social distancing easy.
Residents will wonder what it takes to get the Council to review this obviously perverse decision.
Perhaps the Groves counter-revolutionaries will pay a visit and realign the cones?
In the meantime the Council is losing around £400 a day in car park charge income.
Marygate car park full todayStation car park largely empty
With City centre car parks very busy this week, it is surprising that LNER haven’t taken the opportunity to sell more spaces on their otherwise largely empty car park at the railway station.
Not many people are going to pay £18 for a days parking but the company could help themselves by marketing spaces at a discounted rate.
At the moment they are bringing in no income for the beleaguered, state owned, outfit.
Lord Mayors Walk was busy at lunchtime today as was Clarence Street. But traffic was moving. Debris from York’s inner city riot (planter damaged by counter revolutionaries!) has been removed. A damaged road closed sign can be seen in Lowther StreetConcrete blocks have been installed on Penleys Grove Street…and on St Johns Crescent. (Rather ugly?) NB. The planters were supplied, on a commercial basis, by the disabled persons cooperative. Meanwhile LEGO has been deployed at the junction of Eldon Street and Lowther StreetContraflow cycle lane on Markham Street. In effect there is no room for a cyclist to pass a van coming in the opposite direction. Street is heavily parked up so avoidance is very difficult. Really quite an unsafe arrangement.Haxby Road end of Markham Street. No warning about contraflow cyclists. Dead end sign no more true of this street than several others nearby. Misleading sign on Lowther Street. Should read “no through road”. Shops and businesses are open…and a superfluous sign on St John Road.? Hasn’t been a through route for some years.
After the shambles of the Bishopthorpe Road closure and before it the Lendal Bridge fiasco, you might have expected that proposed major changes to the road network in York would have been handled with caution by the Council.
Planters vandalised
It appears not judging by the reaction to the road closures in The Groves yesterday. Activists even took to removing some of the physical barriers (planters) while a Press headline pronounced a (slightly exaggerated) “Gridlock” on Lord Mayors Walk..
If gridlock is to become a reality, then it is likely to be in wet weather following a return to school and the reopening of city centre offices. It is then that the emergency services together with public transport, utilities and delivery drivers will face their greatest challenge.
Unfortunately, without the consent of residents, changes like this will always result in confrontation.
Executive Cllr Andy D’Agorne approved a plan to limit traffic in the Groves area at ameeting held on 24th October 2019. The plan was supported by the two Labour Councillors and one Green who represent The Groves area.
Later Green Party supporters were to try to blame the LibDems for the plan using an “only following orders” from the coalition defence. In truth, the LibDem leadership stood aloof from the issue and chose to watch on while the drama unfolded. The Tories as usual were late into the game, waiting to see how the wind blew before acquiring retrospective wisdom. The timetables attached to the Tory government transport grant offer helped to provoke the stumble.
We believe that Andy D’Agorn is a sincere man who holds passionate, albeit uncompromising, beliefs. He deserves respect for standing up for his views in a very public way. However such drive needs to be tempered with humility and a willingness to take a step back.
Adecision was made by Cllr D’Agone on 22nd June 2020 to restyle the proposals as a reaction to the COVID crisis. Ostensibly he wanted a slice of the governments sustainable transport grant. Significant changes were made to the original proposals although there was no further consultation.
Very low traffic levels on Penley’s Grove Street in recent months
There was no poll which could have offered all affected residents, whether they lived in the Groves or elsewhere in the City, the opportunity to support the new plans or opt to retain the status quo.
A change of this scale should have been publicised by delivering a leaflet to every home at least in east York. It was not. Publicity relied heavily on social media.
The Variable Message Signs on York streets referred to changes in The Groves, repeating the Lendal bridge failing. Many motorists do not actually know the names of the bridges, streets and neighbourhoods that they might be driving over or through.
“On street” signage was woeful – possibly the consequence of the rushed implementation.
Sat Nav systems still direct drivers into what are now dead-end streets. A nightmare for the growing number of delivery drivers who have filled the supply void since the pandemic.
So what can be done? It is true that things will “settle down”. Police action could force drivers onto alternative routes like the already congested Clarence Street.
If “through traffic” is to be excluded from The Groves, then a gate or rising bollard could be introduced on Penley’s Grove Street and Lowther Street. This would allow selective vehicle access for local residents together with emergency vehicles, utilities, deliveries etc. It might be a costly system with reliability an issue but it would remove some unnecessary journey’s, and the pollution which they would generate, from neighbouring roads.
There does need to be an attempt to find a consensus solution, which could attract wide support in the City, before any more impulsive decisions are made.
York could follow other cities like Milton Keynes and Cambridge by introducing a new 12-month trial to offer e-scooters and e-bikes at York Hospital and the University of York.
If approved by City of York Council, the preferred supplier will work alongisde York Hospital and the University of York to bring forward the trial later this month – ensuring safety, security and engagement with key groups are core to the trial being implemented.
The trial is part of efforts to support a ‘green’ restart of local travel and help mitigate the impact of reduced public transport capacity.
Funded and run in partnership with the Department of Transport (DfT), the trial could be rolled out in the city at York Hospital and the University of York.
There may be some scepticism about this project. Cycle hire schemes have not been successful in the past with some of the bikes ending up in the river.
We do have some doubts about the safety of electric scooters given the poor standards of road maintenance in parts of the City.
Still it may be worth a trial as long as taxpayers money is not put at risk.
City of York Council has teamed up with walking and cycling charity Sustrans to urge parents across York to try walking, cycling or scooting with their children to school to create a safer, less congested, more healthy environment for start of the new term.
As schools reopen, roads are expected to be busier than normal in September, and the council is urging road users to plan ahead when travelling around York, plan ahead and use public transport outside of peak hours and walk or cycle where possible.
Parents who can opt to leave the car at home or park (or wait with their switched engine off) away from the school entrance area will help families maintain social distancing as well as reduce congestion and air pollution. More active travel (walking, cycling or scooting) will also help support public transport to cope with Covid secure measures which have reduced capacity.
Recently released guidance from the Department for Education shows that due to physical distancing restrictions on public transport, at least 50 per cent of journeys to school of two miles or less need to be walked and cycled to allow space for those on public transport who need to travel further[1].
Around 69 per cent of children in York currently walk, cycle or scoot to school, a figure that rises up to 85 per cent in some schools during active travel incentive days[2]. The council is encouraging schools to sign up for Sustrans’Bike to School Week from 28 September to 2 October.
The council has recently renewed Sustrans’ contract to work intensively with eight primary schools in York, helping to support an increase in children walking, cycling and scooting to school and a reduction in congestion. Following a successful pilot at Carr Junior School earlier this year, some schools will also redesign their school street, aiming to make them safer and healthier for the whole community.
At Carr Junior School Sustrans’ designers worked with children to assess the problems around the school gate and suggest improvements such as informal street crossings and build-outs. In March, Sustrans tested the designs and gathered feedback from local residents and these can now be developed through the active travel fund measures.
