Agenda item

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

            The Convener and Councillor Kevin Stewart declared interests in the subject matter of the following article by virtue of their NESTRANS involvements.  Neither considered it necessary to withdraw from the meeting.

There had been circulated a report by the Director of Corporate Governance dealing with objections received after the statutory advertisement of the above named traffic orders and associated speed cushions.  The projects had been advertised separately but were closely related in terms of considering the value judgements raised in the objections.  Accordingly, the report dealt with them as a unified set of proposals.

Also, a third traffic order – containing new waiting restrictions for Westerton Road – had also been drawn into the overall balance of value judgements.  This order – The Aberdeen City Council (Various Roads in South Aberdeen) (Traffic Management) Order 2009 – was actually “on standby” for confirmation, having been approved by the Committee in all respects other than the Westerton Road element.

The recommendation was that the objections be overruled and the speed limit orders and associated speed cushions be introduced as originally envisaged, but that the intended new waiting restrictions for Westerton Road be abandoned in the meantime (i.e. dropped from the current order otherwise ready for confirmation) even though the need for them should be kept under consideration.

The report then went on to summarise the overall situation.  An appendix, in the authorship of the roads officials, offered detailed commentary on the main points raised in the objections.  Copies of the original communications were available for inspection.

There was one broad issue of public policy and public perception which needed to be clarified at the outset.  Increasingly in recent years, objections to traffic calming had been able to be thematised in terms of a particular type of scepticism about whether the measures in question were being pursued out of piety rather than hard-edged traffic management rationale.  This was an intellectually respectable debate which ought to be rehearsed when it was relevant, but it was not particularly apposite here.  In the present case, recorded speeds were high – sometimes distinctively so.

In fact, the objections from Westerton Road were founded on the assumption that traffic calming did work, and, indeed, that it was precisely because it worked that the proposals for Inchgarth and Pitfodels Station Road would displace traffic back onto Westerton Road – even though it already had speed cushions.

So scepticism that the virtue of traffic calming was largely abstract, and lacked concrete conviction, was not at the heart of the representations from Westerton Road.  To the extent that such scepticism had been expressed by objectors from Inchgarth Road, members needed to be aware that the 85 percentile speeds at the top end of that road had come in at 37 – 40mph.  Accordingly, it did not seem to be particularly abstract to look at those recorded speeds and to imagine that it would be desirable to reduce them to something closer to 20mph. 

The report represented the Westerton Road residents as critics of the bald proposal to establish traffic calming on all the relevant routes in this particular case, on the grounds that that would mean that motorists would have no choice but to use a road with traffic calming on it, and would therefore revert to their road to an unfair level. 

Again, Westerton Road already had speed cushions on it.  Before the installation of those cushions, a rough breakdown of traffic on the three routes used for rat-running between North Deeside Road and Garthdee/Altens had been (roughly) 20% on Inchgarth Road, 32% on Pitfodels Station Road and 48% on Westerton Road. 

After the establishment of traffic calming on Westerton Road, the levels there had fallen back to 30% (Pitfodels 49% and Inchgarth 21%).  Residents now feared that levels on Westerton would go back up again.

The roads officials accepted this, but believed that, once all the roads had been made the subject of traffic calming, motorists would experiment with the three options, and that, in a kind of natural selection, the vehicular burden borne in each case would end up being at worst 20% on Inchgarth and 40% each on Pitfodels and Westerton. 

On the other hand, residents of Westerton Road believed that their road would look like the best option of the three, and end up suffering unfair disadvantages in a scheme predicated on the assumption of achieving a reasonable share of the burdens at stake.  

Not only did the residents believe their road would end up being used much more heavily than at present, but, also, they thought that the physical setting of some of the houses on Westerton Road was such that the safety of pedestrians was actually going to be more compromised at their location - even though they had footways. 

In contrast, Pitfodels Station Road, when walking southwards from North Deeside Road, had only a small section of narrow substandard footway on the west side, for a distance of approximately 105m. There were no footways over the remaining 240m to the junction with Garthdee Road, and the route was not only used by residents but also by students walking to and from the Robert Gordon University.

The observations of the roads officials here were fairly clear;  experience dictated that, if a number of roads were treated by traffic calming, motorists might well choose the route that looked most like a main road, or the route that looked likely to be the quickest, but that, if that became a common perception, the favoured route would then become congested and attract tailbacks, and those tailbacks would cause some drivers to move away again.

Needless to say, the idea of a new road altogether at this location, although a well-known desire, was not at stake vis-à-vis traffic management measures under consideration in the here and now.

The report concluded by observing that it was by no means clear that pedestrians (residents and also students) walking on Pitfodels Station Road without the protection of footways were a lesser consideration than residents on Westerton Road who did have the protection of footways but who might live in properties that were distinctively close to the road.   A sense of vulnerability in the latter situation – notwithstanding the existence of footways – was a concrete reality, and not in dispute.   However, driving on a footway was a serious offence, and a footway continued to be a considerable and significant place of legitimate refuge.   Parents told their children that on all accounts they should remain on the pavement.   The feeling that a sense of vulnerability remained even when walking on a footway was an admissible and compelling idea, but it should not be exaggerated.

As agreed in article 1 above, the Committee had acceded to requests for deputations from (1) Dr. Shan Parfitt, Mr. Ian Roche and Mrs. Audrey Sheal (representing residents of Westerton Road) and (2) Mr. Eric Dalhuijsen, an objector from Inchgarth Road.  The Committee proceeded to hear both deputations, in the course of which the objectors outlined and amplified their respective concerns. 

In the former case, those concerns were as alluded to in the circulated report, but Dr. Parfitt, Mr. Roche and Mrs. Sheal wished to present them in a very different light.  There were striking differences of opinion about the significance of footways on Westerton Road (but a continuing sense of vulnerability) and the absence of footways on Pitfodels Station Road (which the objectors believed had to be viewed in the context of distinctively limited pedestrian usage at the location).

There was also a difference of opinion between the roads officials and the objectors in regard to the assumption by the latter that, once traffic calming appeared on Inchgarth Road and Pitfodels Station Road, vehicular presence on Westerton Road would revert to its original high level and remain at that level.  As the report had already indicated, this assumption took no account of the tendency of motorists to experiment with routes, and the inevitability that, if one route did indeed look like the most favourable, it would then become congested enough to become in turn less favourable.  The objectors were sceptical about this speculation. 

Finally, the roads officials believed that the objectors were placing far too high an emphasis on the imminent opening of Core Path 65, a footpath that would run parallel to Pitfodels Station Road and, in the words of the Core Path Team, “provide a safe alternative to … Pitfodels Station Road”.  As baldly stated, that did indeed suggest that pedestrian vulnerability on Pitfodels Station Road would be cured by the new footpath, but, whatever the virtues of the new track, it was in the judgement of the roads officials not remotely likely to serve as a pedestrian alternative in many circumstances – in particular, during bad weather or in hours of darkness.  Accordingly, the assertion that Core Path 65 would mean that pedestrians on Pitfodels Station Road would no longer require to walk on a road without footways was judged by the officials to be artificial and unconvincing.

Mr. Dalhuijsen presented a different case that did to some extent express scepticism about the accountability of establishing traffic calming on his street.  In particular, he expressed the opinion that a 30mph limit on Inchgarth Road was considered appropriate, the implication being that vehicles travelling as fast as that were appropriate.  Indeed, he acknowledged that actual driving speeds were substantially higher – up to around 40mph – and that, in his judgement, this would probably be reduced by traffic calming to something around the legal limit of 30mph, but with elements of slowing down to 10mph or 15mph and then speeding up between bumps to around 40mph.  This obviously came close to saying that the traffic calming would get speeds down to a lower level, but his caveat was that driving practices would become erratic, and that bursts of 40mph would still occur. 

The roads officials’ experience was that this overstated the erratic driving behaviour, and probably understated future speed levels, which it was hoped would be brought down to something closer to the intended 20mph. 

Mr. Dalhuijsen also drew attention to what he characterised as “start-stop- accelerate” traffic that would increase noise, emissions and driver irritation, and pointed out that the main virtue of reducing speed was relevant only at peak times. 

Expecting a significant police presence to enforce a speed limit without traffic calming was certainly unrealistic.  The requirements vis-à-vis speed cameras were simply not fulfilled.  Electronic speed reminder signage and traffic lights were not credible proposals, and the long-discussed possibility of an alternative route between Deeside and Garthdee/Altens was not at stake at the present time, and had no chance of being a concrete proposal in the near future.

After hearing the deputations, the Committee considered the circulated report in the light of all it had heard, and detailed discussion ensued.

The Convener, seconded by the Vice-Convener, moved the recommendations in the report;  namely, that the objections be overruled and the speed limit orders and associated speed cushions introduced as originally envisaged, but that the intended new waiting restrictions for Westerton Road be abandoned in the meantime, but kept under review.

As an amendment, Councillor Boulton, seconded by Councillor Milne, moved that no action be taken on the orders, or the associated speed cushions, and that the funding saved be invested in roving speed restrictions instead.

On a division, there voted:-  for the motion (10) – the Convener;  the Vice-Convener;  and Councillors Clark, Corall, Cormie, Greig, Jaffrey, Penny, Robertson and Kevin Stewart;  for the amendment (5) – Councillors Adam, Allan, Boulton, Crockett and Milne.

The Committee resolved:-

to adopt the motion.