- Businesses will be able to request permission to use part of the street for queueing or seating, to facilitate social distancing while supporting the local economy.
- Bus routes to be spread out across a number of central streets to allow for social distancing at bus stops and reduced green time at city centre traffic lights. This will require infrastructure changes, such as an end to the one-way system on Winetavern Street.
- Many part-time cycle lanes which are normally used as parking or loading bays at night will now have bollards placed along them. This is expected to encourage cyclists to feel safe using them during the daytime.
- 14 new or upgraded cross-city, on-road cycle routes, to encourage cycling where it is feasible.
- Traffic lights to give a head start to cyclists to reduce the number of collisions caused by cars turning without looking, in turn encouraging cyclists to feel safe.
- Improved priority measures for buses at junctions to keep bus journey times down (and therefore increase capacity through PVR). This also appears to represent feedback from bus users on how much better the last few weeks have been.
- Pilot example of a temporary build-out to be installed, to facilitate social distancing at crowded bus stops.
- Speed limits will be reduced which will supposedly account for pedestrians stepping out into the street while social distancing.
- Only a statement on pedestrianisation: "The Council is open to the idea, and willing to explore the potential." They also mention an aspiration for "conversion of the complete space" at College Green.
- All pedestrian crossings to fire automatically during the daytime, to remove the need for touch. They seem to think they have invented a new form of traffic calming with this one.
- Up to 40 seconds per 120s cycle has been removed from road traffic's green time at every set of traffic lights, to facilitate social distancing at pedestrian crossings.
- For cars, there is this line - but I can't find anything to back it up: "measures which facilitate continued car use have been identified and incorporated into this framework".
Public transport capacity has been reduced to 20% of its usual size, which in turn implies that more buses will be needed. Traffic light capacity has been reduced by 30%, which somewhat optimistically they think can work, but they do acknowledge that it is a "major reduction in capacity".
Regardless, the attitude seems to be that road space needs to be taken away and there is nothing that can be done in the short term about that. Car drivers are to be encouraged to use off-street parking and to walk to their destination.
The focus of the framework is on changes which can be made overnight, and can stay in place for years, with those which are well received becoming permanent. This means the council's fetish for orcas is set to continue.
