Army and Navy flyover, Chelmsford, "can never reopen"

[Jeni]

You wouldn’t be saying that straight afterwards. Nor would the lady who was fiddling around with her phone when she was hit crossing the road.

Go on then, quote me some statistics on the number of deaths per year caused by cyclists per those caused by motorists?

[Berk]

I think it’s very low, but amongst those rare cases the risk of fatalities is much higher.

Whether that’s down to unique circumstances or because the victim already had a medical issue, things like that.

[Jeni]

I think it’s very low, but amongst those rare cases the risk of fatalities is much higher.

Whether that’s down to unique circumstances or because the victim already had a medical issue, things like that.

Sorry, you haven't been clear

[Berk]

I’m saying I don’t know what the exact figures are, but I believe that in those cases the victims are very unlucky (to have died, been injured).

Not that that absolves the cyclists.

[Jeni]

I’m saying I don’t know what the exact figures are, but I believe that in those cases the victims are very unlucky (to have died, been injured).

Not that that absolves the cyclists.

So, do you think that you're more likely to be killed by a cyclist or a motorist?

[Bryn666]

People keep banging on about the Allinson case but that simply proves that cyclists causing fatalities is so rare that it causes a moral panic.

Meanwhile about 20 cyclists die a year in London alone and no one bats an eyelid.

[Berk]

I’m saying I don’t know what the exact figures are, but I believe that in those cases the victims are very unlucky (to have died, been injured).

Not that that absolves the cyclists.

So, do you think that you're more likely to be killed by a cyclist or a motorist?

More likely to die being hit by a motorist, but the likelihood of dying being hit by a cyclist is even higher.

And the people who are killed by cyclists are likely to be the most vulnerable, as they are already pedestrians.

[Bryn666]

That doesn't follow. Several hundred people die after being hit by a driver every year yet single figures die from being hit by cyclists.

The risk posed from cyclists is negligible and the post Allinson moral panic is more about the pathological hatred of cycling that the British media have than any actual safety measure.

[Fenlander]

The problem is a lot of journeys under 3km are made in cars when other modes that don't require even an engine exist. How much of this is necessity and how much is just laziness because the car offers convenience is of course a subject of much debate.

My morning school run is less than 3km, takes 5mins on a good day and nearer 10 if we get stuck at the level crossing. What I don’t do though is drive straight back home, I carry on to either my first site visit or to the office. Same in reverse at the end of the day, if I leave the office by 1500 I am at school on time for pickup and if we’re quick we’ll beat the level crossing and be home for 1530, if not it’s another 10/15mins working our way through the jam the crossing creates.
A classmate of one of my sons lives a little further away from us on the same road, she cycles in every day with her mum, they leave 30mins earlier than us as they have to be across the level crossing on time else they will be late. Coming home is a different storey, they head straight out the school gate and are away, cycling along the footpath straight past all the cars. They get to the head of the queue for the level crossing and use the pedestrian phase to cross the road after it where we get delayed at an uncontrolled junction. Sometimes we pass them on the last stretch, sometimes we don’t, they jump the red light (on the path) that we have to stop for and that often means she gets to her house before we get to ours.

We occasionally cycle but it’s only really possible when I have a light day that starts later as I have to return home and then get in the car to go to work.
Chuck in a few after school clubs/events and then early evening ones too and we’re usually time poor for a couple of hours.
We choose to rush about to make some of it fit in, we could go at a much slower pace but then the kids wouldn’t be able to do all the clubs/activities they do.

[Jeni]

More likely to die being hit by a motorist, but the likelihood of dying being hit by a cyclist is even higher.

And the people who are killed by cyclists are likely to be the most vulnerable, as they are already pedestrians.

Wait, so, if hit by a 2 ton big metal box, you're *less* likely to be killed than if you're hit by a bike?

And what even is that logic in the second sentence!?

[Bryn666]

The problem is a lot of journeys under 3km are made in cars when other modes that don't require even an engine exist. How much of this is necessity and how much is just laziness because the car offers convenience is of course a subject of much debate.

My morning school run is less than 3km, takes 5mins on a good day and nearer 10 if we get stuck at the level crossing. What I don’t do though is drive straight back home, I carry on to either my first site visit or to the office. Same in reverse at the end of the day, if I leave the office by 1500 I am at school on time for pickup and if we’re quick we’ll beat the level crossing and be home for 1530, if not it’s another 10/15mins working our way through the jam the crossing creates.
A classmate of one of my sons lives a little further away from us on the same road, she cycles in every day with her mum, they leave 30mins earlier than us as they have to be across the level crossing on time else they will be late. Coming home is a different storey, they head straight out the school gate and are away, cycling along the footpath straight past all the cars. They get to the head of the queue for the level crossing and use the pedestrian phase to cross the road after it where we get delayed at an uncontrolled junction. Sometimes we pass them on the last stretch, sometimes we don’t, they jump the red light (on the path) that we have to stop for and that often means she gets to her house before we get to ours.

We occasionally cycle but it’s only really possible when I have a light day that starts later as I have to return home and then get in the car to go to work.
Chuck in a few after school clubs/events and then early evening ones too and we’re usually time poor for a couple of hours.
We choose to rush about to make some of it fit in, we could go at a much slower pace but then the kids wouldn’t be able to do all the clubs/activities they do.

That's a linked trip and more logical than just going straight back home.

Or those who drive half a mile and then clog up the street parked up badly up to an hour before the kids come out because little Prosecco can't walk anywhere and needs to be in a Range Rover.

[Steven]

Or those who drive half a mile and then clog up the street parked up badly up to an hour before the kids come out because little Prosecco can't walk anywhere and needs to be in a Range Rover.

There's also a larger element in this to be examined beyond the classic parental over-protective (and lazy) behaviour, and all parental pickups should not be tarred with the same brush.

For the last thirty years or so, local authorities have generally merged schools together for all sorts of reasons (though generally around costs). This means that the average distance to even primary schools has gone up considerably in some cases, and school bus service provision has gone down.

For example, when my kids started school, their nearest schools were all approximately 1.5 miles (or a 30 minute walk) away, involved crossing several major radial routes at peak hours (including uncontrolled ones). However, there was a perfectly reasonable intact primary school building less than 0.5 miles away that would have been an easy walk. However, this school was closed and merged with another school in the 1980s, and so was not an option.

My son is currently at one of the nearest secondary schools to our home. Despite living in a large city, it is approximately an hour's walk away (2.5 miles), and involves going around the edge of the city, in a manner inconsistent with bus services. It is possible to do it, but it involves multiple services which mesh poorly - not surprisingly for what is a minority journey. Fortunately, the school runs minibus shuttles to a location just under a mile away from our home which he can then walk home from as there is sufficient provision across the busy D2 radial that requires crossing. However, there are only a few minibus shuttles, and should he be out of his final class anything other than immediately, he will generally miss the last one. That then means that someone needs to collect, hence adding to the traffic unnecessarily.

[jackal]

And compared to cycling, safety. There are academic studies showing that a shift from cars to cycling increases the rate of serious injury.

The safety of the driver, or the safety of everyone else around them? I'd rather be hit by a bike than a car.

The population taken as a whole.

IIRC the main factor in the increase are serious but non-fatal injuries to cyclists where no other person is involved.

[DB617]

The crux of school travel is that unfortunately a lot of Local Authority financial pressure decisions have led to increased levels of parental dependency to keep the schools running and the kids coming through the gate. We've heard a lot about schools asking for contributions for everything from stationery to toiletries (though that is conspicuously missing from the national media over the last few months, but we know it hasn't stopped suddenly), so it's unsurprising that school travel is also getting more difficult. Take my area for an example - the Comprehensive I attended, the only one in Llantwit Major, is now oversubscribed and has no places for children living in the town despite it being substantially rebuilt less than five years ago. Incredibly, it still accepts kids from within its historical catchment in Rhoose, ten minutes from a Barry school. Any new subscriptions, of which there are many because of massive (and car-dependent) housing developments outside the town, have to travel by bus to Barry, until such a time as the Barry schools also become full. Increasingly the parents of those students have absolutely no choice but to drive them, as a bus which takes an hour may stop at two or three places in the town but is very unlikely to hit the developments built in random fields between villages. I would assume this is the case in many small towns and cities. It's a mess, and most of it comes back to terrible development plans wherein the LA has no choice but to obey its LDP, but no money to make provision for the one-built-every-minute houses in some beleaguered farmer's worst fields.

[KeithW]

More likely to die being hit by a motorist, but the likelihood of dying being hit by a cyclist is even higher.

And the people who are killed by cyclists are likely to be the most vulnerable, as they are already pedestrians.

Wait, so, if hit by a 2 ton big metal box, you're *less* likely to be killed than if you're hit by a bike?

And what even is that logic in the second sentence!?

Number of people killed by cyclists last year was I believe 3, around 450 pedestrians and 120 cyclists were killed by motor vehicles, as the Americans would say - do the Math

[SteveA30]

Or, as we Brits say, do the maths. Do Americans say mathematic?
Anyway, the Chelmsford flyover seems to have been left behind in this thread.
As for schools, the not rocket science answer is to provide more buses and minibuses per school to reduce car use by at least 75% or more. Compulsory use, based on distance from school. The nearest can walk/cycle, the furthest can still come by car. All the rest on the buses. To be decided on a school by school basis.
This can apply just as well to colleges/uni and all firms employing more than 100, or perhaps 50 upwards.
All of that would massively reduce car commuting. Car sharing is another option, 4 in each car with each driver doing a week in their own car, on a rota system. Parents see child onto bus or, leave for work earlier, child is picked up at a school bus stop nearby. I did that at a stop 200 yds away, to go from Fleet to Hartley Wintney along the B3011, now A323.

(You could see the A30(T) from the school grounds)

[KeithW]

Or, as we Brits say, do the maths. Do Americans say mathematic?
Anyway, the Chelmsford flyover seems to have been left behind in this thread.
As for schools, the not rocket science answer is to provide more buses and minibuses per school to reduce car use by at least 75% or more. Compulsory use, based on distance from school. The nearest can walk/cycle, the furthest can still come by car. All the rest on the buses. To be decided on a school by school basis.
This can apply just as well to colleges/uni and all firms employing more than 100, or perhaps 50 upwards.
All of that would massively reduce car commuting. Car sharing is another option, 4 in each car with each driver doing a week in their own car, on a rota system. Parents see child onto bus or, leave for work earlier, child is picked up at a school bus stop nearby. I did that at a stop 200 yds away, to go from Fleet to Hartley Wintney along the B3011, now A323.

(You could see the A30(T) from the school grounds)

Ah back to the future again, when I went to school anybody who lived more than 3 miles away got a bus pass, everyone else used to walk or cycle.

At primary and junior school I used to walk about half a mile each way.
In Grammar school I cycled 2 miles each way.

The worst example I saw in recent years was a neighbour of mine who would drive her kids to the local school which was less than 200 metres across the playing fields from their garden so they didn't have to set a foot on the road. My sister was once accused of being a bad mother for allowing her kids to walk from home to the school that was around 350 metres away on a quiet suburban road. And people wonder why childhood obesity is a major problem.

[RichardA35]

The problem is a lot of journeys under 3km are made in cars when other modes that don't require even an engine exist. How much of this is necessity and how much is just laziness because the car offers convenience is of course a subject of much debate.

What if you’re travelling 15 or 20 k’s or more?? You need to drive into the city (or cross it) from wherever you live (or are going to). The city may not even be your final destination, but the roads system means you’re forced to go into it.

Your shift pattern may not coincide with the P&R’s opening hours either. Many P&R schemes knock off fairly early in the evening. The Cambridge system starts to shut down not long after 8.

Unless you can work on how to make modal shift attractive for people in rural areas, or shift workers (make P&R either 18/7 or 24/7), this is a zero-sum debate.

Back to the specifics of Chelmsford - the eastern Park and Ride at Sandon is also explicitly served by local buses with the last one back from the city sometime after 11pm - so what is not to like about that?
On the times when I have walked through the long stay car parks there are office and shop workers parking their vehicles for £5.50 per day (cheapest most distant car park) rather than £3.60 on the P & R.
So if they are further out than the P & R why not use it when it is cheaper or if they are closer in why not use a bus, walk or cycle?
I am not talking about the most lavishly rewarded staff but surely free travel by foot or a smaller sum on P & R is preferable to paying out over £5 each day?

[millionmiledriver]

Just try to get from say Bishops Stortford to the Southend area you have to use the Army and Navy roundabout (it is adding significant mileage to use the M11/M25/A127 ) The flyover has for years looked like a cheap 1960s (?) gimcrack Bailey Bridge type construction probably put up very quickly Chelmsford has the A12 north and South but no proper East /West bypass a road I would much rather use The city must have doubled in size over the past 30 years

[Bryn666]

Just try to get from say Bishops Stortford to the Southend area you have to use the Army and Navy roundabout (it is adding significant mileage to use the M11/M25/A127 ) The flyover has for years looked like a cheap 1960s (?) gimcrack Bailey Bridge type construction probably put up very quickly Chelmsford has the A12 north and South but no proper East /West bypass a road I would much rather use The city must have doubled in size over the past 30 years

That's an argument for a proper outer bypass. Provide one so that the central areas can be made less car dominated. However what will happen instead is a bypass will be filled with houses and tin sheds thus undermining its function. This is where new roads generate new traffic.