Acomb Front Street pedestrian crossing upgrade

Ageing and outdated traffic signals on the Front Street, Acomb, are set to be replaced this month by City of York Council.

Works are estimated to take around two weeks to complete and will start on Monday 5 July and is expected to be fully completed by Friday 16 July.

New, more reliable, traffic signals will be installed on the crossing as part of the Traffic Signal Asset Renewal Programme.

The new traffic signals will be cheaper to run and more reliable. It will also enable the new systems to link direct to the council’s Traffic and Control Centre, so that the Network Monitoring Officers can manage the flow of traffic better in busy periods by adjusting traffic lights to best suit traffic conditions.

To help minimise disruption works will be carried out from 9am and 4pm, Monday to Friday.

To allow for the works to be undertaken safely, it will be necessary to close a lane of the carriageway and operate temporary signals during the works.

Everything will be done to keep delays to a minimum, but motorists are expected to experience some delays while the works are underway.

Twenty metres of on street parking to the west of the crossing on both sides of the road will be suspended, to allow for the works to take place.

The council will be undertaking pedestrian crossing upgrades on Front Street in Acomb to provide more reliable traffic signals and improved pedestrian access.

A temporary controlled crossing will be provided during construction to allow pedestrians to cross the road safely. Pedestrian routes and access to all businesses and properties will be retained throughout the duration of the works as will vehicular access.

It will be necessary to temporarily close footways in the works area at certain times during the works and footway diversion routes will be put in place.

Those using the route are urged to plan ahead, allow more time for journeys and to consider alternatives and to use public transport where possible.

For any enquires regarding these works please contact tsar@york.gov.uk.

Pedestrian crossings in York – how safe?

Recent accidents at pedestrian crossings in York have prompted one commentator to question whether the low level signs, installed at many crossings over the last 10 years, are the best option.

The more traditional high level “green man” signs located on the opposite side of the road are arguably easier to monitor while walking across the road.

It has also been suggested that countdown clocks – indicating how much time is left for a pedestrian to finish crossing the road – are worth installing as a trial in the City.

They are in use in other areas such as Torquay.

Better beacons promised at 14 zebra crossing sites in York

Foxwood Lane among those to be upgraded.

The Council is to upgrade the Belisha Beacons at 14 pedestrian crossing sites in York

New beacon design

A report says,

“There are 43 zebra crossings across the city and outlying villages. A
zebra crossing is required by law to have a black and white striped pole
with a flashing yellow globe on each side of the crossing. If there is an
island in the middle, additional beacons may be provided as considered
appropriate. For years this equipment remained fairly standard, but in
the last decade new products have come onto the market using high
intensity light emitting diodes (LEDs) to enhance the conspicuity of
the globe.
In recent years 9 zebra crossings have been upgraded to high
conspicuity units as part of road safety schemes. Feedback on these
has been very positive. The remaining 34 crossings have equipment of
variable age and condition”.
The new design is promised to be more visible with diodes also lasting longer than older type.

The work is expected to be completed before the end of January.

Crossing sites to be upgraded

39 requests for predestrian crossings in York

The York Council has received 39 requests to install additional pedestrian crossings in the City during the last 5 years.

It has, so far, actually provided only 5 additional crossings in response to the requests.

This has prompted calls for a larger proportion of the Councils transport budget to be spent in future on pedestrian safety.

Traffic signal reliability questioned

The seemingly endless series of faults on York’s traffic lights and signalised pedestrian crossings will be questioned at the Council meeting on 10th October.

Residents were particularly concerned when the pelican crossing on Front Street was faulty for several days last week.

The London solution

The Council has not published any reliability statistics on traffic lights for over 2 years.

The response time targets for the Council’s maintenance contractor have also not been published

Cllr Ann Reid will ask the transport chief

“How many faults have been reported on traffic signals in York so far this year and what is the total time that signals have been out of service? How does this compare to the equivalent period last year?”

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The continued unavailability of traffic camera real time information on the Councils web site will also be highlighted at the meeting.

It is 6 months since the Council opened its new £300,000 CCTV control centre and put traffic camera icons on its web based congestion map.

In July the Council accepted that the move had been premature although the North Yorkshire Council has had similar camera access available for many years. Assurances were given that the links would go live shortly.

3 months later and the links still aren’t working.

Liberal Democrat Councillors have therefore tabled a question asking, “Why is the feed from the traffic cameras to the “itravel” York web site map still not working despite the assurances given at the July Council meeting? “

A list of all the questions submitted for the meeting can be read here: http://democracy.york.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=32384