Traffic calming chicanes in Little Stoke Lane could be replaced with raised table crossings if a £150,000 scheme being proposed by South Gloucestershire Council gets the thumbs up from local residents.
The Council has recently launched a public consultation on the plans, which foresee five ‘priority narrowings’ being replaced with two-way raised table crossings. A new raised table crossing will be installed opposite Giffard House and ‘school – keep clear’ markings around Little Stoke Primary School will be reviewed.
The existing traffic calming measures were installed to support the 20mph zone in the vicinity of the school, however, concerns have been raised by local residents regarding the driving behaviour that the narrowings have promoted, with drivers failing to give way and driving aggressively to negotiate them.
A project to review traffic calming in Little Stoke was selected as a priority by SGC’s Southern Brooks Area Forum at its November 2011 meeting, which approved the spending of £5,000 on the initial investigation.
Additionally, an e-petition calling for the removal of the chicanes and their replacement with two raised tables and a pedestrian crossing collected 38 online signatures over the six month period from 29th November 2011. The petition was launched following an incident on 19th November 2011 in which a car crashed through the traffic calming chicane located near the junction with Maple Close.
The ‘statement of reasons’ attached to the consultation also claims that buses have difficulties negotiating the priority narrowings and reveals that funding of £150,000 has been secured from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund in order to replace the priority narrowings with a form of traffic calming which is “less onerous to buses”.
According to the statement, South Gloucestershire Council’s accident record shows that there have been four personal injury accidents on Little Stoke Lane since 2009, one involving a bus at a priority narrowing.
Speaking to The Journal’s reporter, former Stoke Gifford Councillor Frank Middleton said the Parish Council had tried to “get rid” of the chicanes in Little Stoke Lane and Braydon Avenue in 2006 but the move had been unsuccessful because South Gloucestershire Council couldn’t afford to do the work.
Mr Middleton, who is the caretaker at Little Stoke Primary School, said he would like to see the chicane near the school ripped out and replaced with a zebra crossing.
He added that Little Stoke Lane is used as a rat run by traffic trying to avoid the congested A38 and problems are caused by vehicles without priority racing to clear the chicanes.
The public consultation on the proposals runs until Friday 31st August.
Related link: South Glos to benefit from multi-million Government investment in transport (South Glos Post)
Photo 1: A bus passes through the chicane opposite Little Stoke Primary School.
Photo 2: Sign displayed near the Clay Lane junction.
I forgot to mention that the existing road humps, located at a number of locations between the chicanes, are to be retained.
Do the people proposing this change happen to have shares in the motor repair industry? Little Stoke and Bradley Stoke areas are already inundated with speed bumps, some fiercer than others, and I am sure this is why I had to recently have the CV joints on my relatively new car replaced.
I cannot be classed as a boy racer and, in fact, because of medical problems, I always go over these bumps extremely slowly, so the jarring does not hurt me too much.
I am opposed to even more damaging speed bumps to be installed around this area. This is both for health reasons and for the sake of my pocket via car repairs!
I am in total agreement with Jenny. I do not personally have the problem with a car (not having one) but my visitors all complain about the damage it does to their cars, and since more and more traffic calming humps are being installed they say and I find I myself affected with back injuries, Ihave a trapped nerve in my back, which is agony. I can only imagine what it must be like if you are pregnant. If more of these humps are installed I think it can only get worse.