Closing Roads To Traffic & Widening Pavements For Social Distancing

[Guest makapaka]

There’s signs out on the parking spaces outside the shops on Broomhill (Morrison’s Sainsbury’s etc) saying that there will be no parking from 24/05 due to social distancing measures.

 

seems weird to me. I can’t see why that would be better than people driving to the door to get their stuff and driving off.

[altus]

10 minutes ago, makapaka said:

There’s signs out on the parking spaces outside the shops on Broomhill (Morrison’s Sainsbury’s etc) saying that there will be no parking from 24/05 due to social distancing measures.

 

seems weird to me. I can’t see why that would be better than people driving to the door to get their stuff and driving off.

It's about creating space for pedestrians to keep apart. Even those who drive to the shops are pedestrians once they've got out of their cars.

[Bilge]

10 minutes ago, altus said:

It's about creating space for pedestrians to keep apart. Even those who drive to the shops are pedestrians once they've got out of their cars.

That bit of pavement in Broomhill is very narrow. Due to the angle of the parking bays it's about 1m wide at its narrowest point. It's not wide enough in 'normal' times.

 

I've often thought it would be better to get rid of the parking spaces, widen the pavement and maybe even build a better facade on the front of  the shop units or give them some street space.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Bilge

[Guest makapaka]

22 minutes ago, altus said:

It's about creating space for pedestrians to keep apart. Even those who drive to the shops are pedestrians once they've got out of their cars.

But they’re pedestrians longer if they have to park further away to then walk to where they need to get to.

[Planner1]

24 minutes ago, Bilge said:

That bit of pavement in Broomhill is very narrow. Due to the angle of the parking bays it's about 1m wide at its narrowest point. It's not wide enough in 'normal' times.

 

I've often thought it would be better to get rid of the parking spaces, widen the pavement and maybe even build a better facade on the front of  the shop units or give them some street space.

Removing or reorganising the parking  was something we looked at when we did the Broomhill traffic management project. We thought it would make a nice public space, possibly with tables outside restaurants / cafes, but the shops didn't want to lose or reduce the parking.

 

One of the problems you have when dealing with retailers is that they often don't really understand how most of their customers get to them. They usually think the vast majority come by car, when in fact the opposite is normally true. See this report and this study. Studies have shown that those who come to shop by active means actually spend more, see this report

Edited May 24, 2020 by Planner1

[altus]

22 minutes ago, makapaka said:

But they’re pedestrians longer if they have to park further away to then walk to where they need to get to.

So all the people who go to, or just walk through, a busy area can't social distance because of a relative few who don't want to walk to the busy place along less busy streets where it's easier to keep apart from others. There are 11 parking spaces there, lets say that only the two supermarkets are open during lockdown, just what proportion of the people who use that piece of pavement are customers who drove there?

[Guest makapaka]

22 minutes ago, altus said:

So all the people who go to, or just walk through, a busy area can't social distance because of a relative few who don't want to walk to the busy place along less busy streets where it's easier to keep apart from others. There are 11 parking spaces there, lets say that only the two supermarkets are open during lockdown, just what proportion of the people who use that piece of pavement are customers who drove there?

I would imagine quite a lot because there’s no real reason to use that pavement unless you’re going to those shops. 
 

I just think you’re gonna have the same concentration of people directly outside the shops and more people walking past each other to get there.

 

i get it in some areas - like pinstone street where

people generally wouldn’t use their cars anyway but not so much in the Broomhill example.

[Annie Bynnol]

40 minutes ago, makapaka said:

I would imagine quite a lot because there’s no real reason to use that pavement unless you’re going to those shops. 
 

I just think you’re gonna have the same concentration of people directly outside the shops and more people walking past each other to get there.

 

i get it in some areas - like pinstone street where

people generally wouldn’t use their cars anyway but not so much in the Broomhill example.

"...there’s no real reason to use that pavement unless you’re going to those shops." really does show how lack of awareness  causes problems.

 

Are you not aware of the people  walking from Ranmoor, Crosspool, Crookes, Broomhill and further afield, who are walking to from the the schools, the university, the hospitals and the businesses in the city? 

Are you  not  aware of the natives going to and fro about their businesses?

Are you not aware of the 70 car parking spaces 50m away?

Are you not aware that there are only 8 spaces available to most of us?

Are you not aware of the very busy pharmacy?

Are you not aware of the other businesses in the area?

 

The same lack of awareness applies on the others side of the road to where access is blocked to the pharmacy, cash machine, post office and peoples homes and business at the same time causing congestion, noise and pollution on the roads.

 

What more inconsiderate action can their be than to park on a pavement directly outside a pharmacy-on double yellows.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by Annie Bynnol

[altus]

19 minutes ago, makapaka said:

I would imagine quite a lot because there’s no real reason to use that pavement unless you’re going to those shops.

"Quite a lot" is not a proportion and is a rather weasely way of avoiding committing to a figure. Go on, give a figure - do you mean 25%, 50%, 75%? For comparison, the Nether Edge Sainsbury's is about the same size as each (not both) of the two supermarkets in Broomhill. Despite having a larger car park and roads around that are easier to park on, the vast majority of its customers walk there. I think you're suffering from the overestimation of shoppers using cars that Planner1 mentioned in post #75.

 

I just think you’re gonna have the same concentration of people directly outside the shops and more people walking past each other to get there.

If the same number of people are directly outside the shops, they will be less concentrated if you use the car park as pavement than if you'd kept the car park and everyone had to cram together on the existing pavement. When walking to the shops people are spread out along the length of many different roads and social distancing, even when passing each other, is much easier.

[Bargepole23]

13 minutes ago, Annie Bynnol said:

"...there’s no real reason to use that pavement unless you’re going to those shops." really does show how lack of awareness  causes problems.

 

Are you not aware of the people  walking from Ranmoor, Crosspool, Crookes, Broomhill and further afield, who are walking to from the the schools, the university, the hospitals and the businesses in the city? 

Are you  not  aware of the natives going to and fro about their businesses?

Are you not aware of the 70 car parking spaces 50m away?

Are you not aware that there are only 8 spaces available to most of us?

Are you not aware of the very busy pharmacy?

Are you not aware of the other businesses in the area?

 

The same lack of awareness applies on the others side of the road to where access is blocked to the pharmacy, cash machine, post office and peoples homes and business at the same time causing congestion, noise and pollution on the roads.

 

What more inconsiderate action can their be than to park on a pavement directly outside a pharmacy-on double yellows.

 

 

 

 

This. Well stated.