Do Sheffield City Council Have Something Against Roundabouts ?

[HeHasRisen]

8 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

point is that people like living in Milton Keynes

Do they? Surely it's a means to an end as a London commuter town, and nobody has any great affinity to the place. 

[Zinger549]

2 hours ago, HeHasRisen said:

Do they? Surely it's a means to an end as a London commuter town, and nobody has any great affinity to the place. 

[Chekhov]

2 hours ago, HeHasRisen said:

Do they? Surely it's a means to an end as a London commuter town, and nobody has any great affinity to the place. 

On the contrary, in these much quoted "surveys" of where people like living Milton Keynes consistently does well.

[Planner1]

2 hours ago, Chekhov said:

But my point is that people like living in Milton Keynes, so how is it "enlightened" and "progress" to stop building towns / cities like Milton Keynes ?

Do they? Have you been round and asked them all?

 

What has people being happy living in one town got to do with national standards for highway design or town planning?

 

5 million cars on the roads of the uk in 1960. Over 32 million now.

 

They didn’t design settlements or roads then for the traffic volumes we experience now. Vehicles were different too.
 

Life moves on, we understand more and learn more. Why would that not be applied to how we plan our redevelopments and transport system?

 

[cytine]

There's a police car on it's side outside the Acorn at High Green.

I don't know any details but  I do hate that junction. 

Coming up Hollow Gate to turn left outside the Acorn is a nightmare, you need eyes in the back of your head. The extended pavement outside the pub forces you to swing out unnecessarily onto the main road, (Burncross Rd, I think). This junction is dangerous but I agree that some of the blame is on drivers who don't use it properly.

Edited August 27, 2023 by cytine
correction

[Chekhov]

12 hours ago, Planner1 said:

5 million cars on the roads of the uk in 1960. Over 32 million now.

The number of cars on UK roads in 1960 is irrelevant as regards Milton Keynes as the great majority of MK was built in the 80s / 90s and indeed after that :

 

 

The increase in the number of cars on UK roads started tailing off around 20 years ago and, in fact, because the cars we do own are driven fewer miles per year these days, the total number of cars on the roads at any one time has not actually gone up that much since the late 80s / early 90s : 

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-statistics-great-britain-2022/transport-statistics-great-britain-2022-domestic-travel

 

12 hours ago, Planner1 said:

Do they? Have you been round and asked them all?

What has people being happy living in one town got to do with national standards for highway design or town planning?

Milton Keynes consistently does well in polls of where people like living. It is not all about its car friendly road system, but I would be amazed if that had no bearing on the answers.

 

>>What has people being happy living in one town got to do with national standards for highway design or town planning?<<

 

Is that a serious question ?

I suppose it depends on what one thinks planning is for. Maybe naively I would have thought to was to improve people's lives.....

Edited August 28, 2023 by Chekhov

[Chekhov]

11 hours ago, cytine said:

There's a police car on it's side outside the Acorn at High Green.

I don't know any details but  I do hate that junction. 

Coming up Hollow Gate to turn left outside the Acorn is a nightmare, you need eyes in the back of your head. The extended pavement outside the pub forces you to swing out unnecessarily onto the main road, (Burncross Rd, I think). This junction is dangerous but I agree that some of the blame is on drivers who don't use it properly.

That's the junction I pointed out was awkward, you have to look left, right and front right, all at the same time as working out who is going to go first when the vehicle opposite is also about to pull out*.

They might be limited for room there but a roundabout there would solve all those problems, as well as slowing all the cars down.

 

* just out on interest who does have right of way in those circumstances ?

If two people want to turn right at the same time it must be 50/50.

But what about if one wants to go straight on and the other turn right ?
Or one wants to turn left and the other turn right ?

[Planner1]

45 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

Milton Keynes consistently does well in polls of where people like living. It is not all about its car friendly road system, but I would be amazed if that had no bearing on the answers.

 

>>What has people being happy living in one town got to do with national standards for highway design or town planning?<<

 

Is that a serious question ?

I suppose it depends on what one thinks planning is for. Maybe naively I would have thought to was to improve people's lives.....

There will be a number of reasons it’s popular. It is very central and it’s easy to get to a lot of places. It’s commutable for London and Birmingham, so you  can earn a good salary and live a better lifestyle in MK as it’s cheaper.

 

They seem to have incorporated good amounts of green space and there’s decent enough leisure and shopping.

 

Some of the other new towns didn’t turn out so well though.

 

The Mosborough townships in Sheffield were planned on quite similar principles, roads in a grid system etc.

 

Back to the subject, roundabouts are just one option available to a designer. They’re used if they are the most appropriate solution. Designers are steered by government guidance, which evolves over time. A roundabout might have been the right solution at some location 40 or 50 years ago, but now, with higher levels of traffic and more consideration of the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, the solution might be different. Land cost and availability is a factor too. Roundabouts take more space, need more land, which often it isn’t available or isn’t easy to obtain in built up areas. Easier if you are building in a field and starting from scratch.

[Chekhov]

On 28/08/2023 at 11:27, Planner1 said:

Back to the subject, roundabouts are just one option available to a designer. They’re used if they are the most appropriate solution. Designers are steered by government guidance, which evolves over time. A roundabout might have been the right solution at some location 40 or 50 years ago, but now, with higher levels of traffic and more consideration of the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, the solution might be different. Land cost and availability is a factor too. Roundabouts take more space, need more land, which often it isn’t available or isn’t easy to obtain in built up areas. Easier if you are building in a field and starting from scratch.

As I mentioned earlier the amount of traffic has not really gone up that much since the late 1980s.

 

It comes down to this, if using a certain type of junction significantly reduces capacity for 99% of its users (incl any passengers in those vehicles), but makes it easier to use for the other 1% (cyclists mainly), is that reasonable ?

 I cannot help thinking that if the council were having to pay, even at only at the national minimum wage for all the time people had to spend waiting in queues, they'd sort the roads out on double quick time.

And the same goes for all the utility companies road works.....

Edited August 29, 2023 by Chekhov

[butlers]

Theres  50 percent more registered vehicles niw that 1989