Road humps

[DB617]

There are some incredible road humps - of the variant with plastic/rubber ramps on either side - on Michaelston Road in Ely, Cardiff. They are on a through route that's used as a rat run to dodge the traffic on the dual carriageway north-south in the mornings. Presumably the rat running is the reason - and the fact there are two schools adjacent to each other on the road. The bumps are so large they have scuff marks on the centre of each direction, which reminded me of the rubber deposits on the end of runways. This is all accompanied by a 20 zone - but the close spacing means that it's actually a second gear, 10mph stretch which is perpetually noisy and polluted. Rather than fix the small road mountains, they put up 'danger of grounding' signs. Seems to be a habit for Cardiff Council to use hazard signs instead of fixing hazards.

That said, there is a level crossing with a 2m steep hump further up the road that wouldn't support vehicles with many axles. But it's also no HGVs. Christ I don't know, there really is no logic to road policy in Glamorgan at all.

[Fenlander]

Standalone speed humps are an awful tool really, and a symptom of the worst excesses of 90s traffic calming ideas that have mostly now been abandoned.

In that case it's a shame that they're not being removed with any great haste.

Abandoned as in "not doing more of it" rather than actively removing.

That said I have successfully removed speed humps from a road where they were unpopular and caused bus users to be very uncomfortable. See here: https://goo.gl/maps/6zWCpRvhjvy (2009) and https://goo.gl/maps/i4FnMazARR92 (2017).

Why the 3 way give way at the crossroads?

[Bryn666]

In that case it's a shame that they're not being removed with any great haste.

Abandoned as in "not doing more of it" rather than actively removing.

That said I have successfully removed speed humps from a road where they were unpopular and caused bus users to be very uncomfortable. See here: https://goo.gl/maps/6zWCpRvhjvy (2009) and https://goo.gl/maps/i4FnMazARR92 (2017).

Why the 3 way give way at the crossroads?

I had it removed then some eejit put it back. Apparently it was safer, despite being an unlawful layout.

[Berk]

If it’s unlawful, it can’t be safe by definition, surely??

The worst example I know of is Taverner’s Road, in New England, Peterborough.

It’s barely possible to do more than 10-15mph down there.

It’s not so much the need for a lower limit, it’s in the middle of a busy residential area, with lots of housing close to the road, I can completely accept that. But is it really necessary to have humps every 100 yards?? Surely another one or two speed cushions would do the job??

The air quality must be pretty foul too, with or without the revving and braking. I do try and aim to do around 15mph on streets with severe traffic calming.

[DB617]

Ultimately that's my problem with traffic calming. You reduce not the maximum speed but the average speed of the road, leading to aggressive, noisy and polluting acceleration and braking in one gear by nature of the fact we almost all drive manuals. It's completely counter to quality of life on a residential or school street. Even priority narrowings have the same problem, arguably worse because of vehicles coming to a complete stop - especially buses and large/small commercials like mine. I simply could not live on a busy street with heavy traffic calming, I'd rather live back on the 30mph through road I used to.

Without wanting to sound preachy, this is a problem solved by electric/partially electric vehicles where enforced 'quiet mode' would actually be handy, one day when we have more of them on the road.

[Berk]

You would think that a ‘home zone’ mode, or gear setting could be introduced. Something similar to second gear where you can just engage it, and accelerate gently -keeping your foot to the floor, but the car will limit the amount of power available, and no clutch.

When you’ve left the area, you can just change up easily, job done.

Again, though, I find that there are people like myself who would attempt to drive as smoothly as possible through the area, and others who will brake very hard to cross the humps at 5mph, and often accelerate up to 25 to move between them. You’re often forced to copy their driving style, to avoid bumping into them.

[FosseWay]

A few posts above have mentioned rat-running.

Surely the best solutions to this are:

1. Sort out the main roads (where you want traffic to go) so that people aren't tempted to use the rat runs. People won't be put off by traffic calming on rat runs so long as they perceive themselves to be moving more uniformly there than on the main road. There have been plenty of studies showing that people perceive congestion very differently if they are constantly moving towards their goal than if they are stationary, even if the average speed over the total stretch is lower in the former case than the latter. This is true in supermarkets too - people perceive that using the self-service checkout is quicker because they're interacting with it throughout the process, whereas at manned checkouts they are passive except when unloading the trolley onto the band. But in reality, the trained checkout operator scans the goods faster than the customer generally does, and doesn't have to call the supervisor for alcohol etc., so it generally goes faster overall on a staffed checkout.

2. Make it physically impossible to use the rat runs. Many residential areas in Sweden consist of a warren of small lanes that all feed in to one entry point to the main road network. An (admittedly extreme) example of this is that it is about 50 metres from my house to my neighbours' on foot up a steep path, but about 4 km by car. There are paths (that are legally and physically usable by bikes and mopeds) connecting these lanes, but you can't generally drive all the way through, so the only vehicles using the roads belong to people who live or have business there.

Just slapping down humps seems the worst of all worlds. It doesn't stop the rat-runners, but it does annoy them. It also annoys the residents who have to drive over the humps all the time and also get delayed at artificial pinch points by all the rat-runners. They also get to "enjoy" the increased emissions, noise and vibration from the rat-runners going over the humps at 20 that would be notably less invasive if they were doing 30 on a flat, reasonably free-flowing road.

[Chris Bertram]

A few posts above have mentioned rat-running.

Surely the best solutions to this are:

1. Sort out the main roads (where you want traffic to go) so that people aren't tempted to use the rat runs. People won't be put off by traffic calming on rat runs so long as they perceive themselves to be moving more uniformly there than on the main road. There have been plenty of studies showing that people perceive congestion very differently if they are constantly moving towards their goal than if they are stationary, even if the average speed over the total stretch is lower in the former case than the latter. This is true in supermarkets too - people perceive that using the self-service checkout is quicker because they're interacting with it throughout the process, whereas at manned checkouts they are passive except when unloading the trolley onto the band. But in reality, the trained checkout operator scans the goods faster than the customer generally does, and doesn't have to call the supervisor for alcohol etc., so it generally goes faster overall on a staffed checkout.

2. Make it physically impossible to use the rat runs. Many residential areas in Sweden consist of a warren of small lanes that all feed in to one entry point to the main road network. An (admittedly extreme) example of this is that it is about 50 metres from my house to my neighbours' on foot up a steep path, but about 4 km by car. There are paths (that are legally and physically usable by bikes and mopeds) connecting these lanes, but you can't generally drive all the way through, so the only vehicles using the roads belong to people who live or have business there.

Just slapping down humps seems the worst of all worlds. It doesn't stop the rat-runners, but it does annoy them. It also annoys the residents who have to drive over the humps all the time and also get delayed at artificial pinch points by all the rat-runners. They also get to "enjoy" the increased emissions, noise and vibration from the rat-runners going over the humps at 20 that would be notably less invasive if they were doing 30 on a flat, reasonably free-flowing road.

Amen to this. But (1) must happen before (2) - and all too often (2) is done while (1) is deferred indefinitely (to be polite).

[FosseWay]

Amen to this. But (1) must happen before (2) - and all too often (2) is done while (1) is deferred indefinitely (to be polite).

Simply to alleviate the problem of rat-running, (1) doesn't need to happen. Congestion remains on the main road and motorists are forced to sit in it or find more societally acceptable ways of avoiding it, such as getting the bus or working from home. That isn't ideal, I agree, but it isn't a precondition to getting (2) to work in favour of the residents.

Really, (1) is only absolutely essential if there are reasons why (2) is not a good idea or would be rejected by residents. I think there have been cases of estates in the UK where through traffic by cars or larger vehicles is physically impossible, where the police have complained that it is essentially impossible to pursue criminals who escape on mopeds or cycles. I guess this could be avoided by having gates that are unlockable by remote control by authorised people (e.g. the police and fire brigade) to allow through traffic by cars in exceptional cases. This would be easier to retrofit to a road that used to be a through route than to an estate that was built with no through routes for cars, and therefore would apply particularly well to rat-runs.

[Bryn666]

(2) is filtered permeability.

The problem with (1) occurs when said routes are also heavily residential areas that just happen to be a major road.

I'd rather we bypassed urban areas and then dealt with the <3 mile journeys that cause the majority of problems. As a 30+ mile commuter by car it is extremely frustrating to be delayed by people travelling short distances and bunging up the network. The biggest culprit? School run mummies.

[Fenlander]

Has much work been done on wavy roads? Get the amplitude and wavelength right and you can drive comfortably at a steady speed without the need for the constant start/stop of humps, conversely drive them too fast and you get launched off the up face of one and land uncomfortably.
I remember as a kid going to away sports competitions and the car park approach was done like this with a bypass lane for the coaches and delivery vehicles.

[FosseWay]

The problem with (1) occurs when said routes are also heavily residential areas that just happen to be a major road.

I realise this is going to be controversial...

Like in all things in a crowded country there needs to be some give and take. On some routes, the "major road" aspect of the road should perhaps take greater priority than the "residential" aspect. The practical effect of that is that pedestrians should be on the pavement or using approved crossings. If they're not walking around in the roadway at other points, they're not going to get hit by traffic. The quid pro quo of this is that roads that physically speaking are through routes (in the sense that you can physically and legally drive a car all the way through) but go through completely residential areas and have more suitable alternatives available should have much more priority given to NMUs, possibly up to and including blocking them off for through motor traffic.

Letting people steam through residential areas just because they can when there is a perfectly good bypass is justifiably frowned on and gets complaints from the residents who are put at risk and annoyed by the noise etc. But the balance swings too far the other way when people complain about traffic "speeding" along an A-road when the subtext really is "I was on the phone and got honked at by someone when I randomly walked off the pavement" or "I expect there to be traffic lights at every junction but can't be bothered to wait for the green man/will cycle on the pavement to avoid every red".

I'd rather we bypassed urban areas and then dealt with the <3 mile journeys that cause the majority of problems. As a 30+ mile commuter by car it is extremely frustrating to be delayed by people travelling short distances and bunging up the network. The biggest culprit? School run mummies.

More public transport would go a long way towards solving that issue, but obviously you can't magic a whole PT network out of thin air. I haven't done an in-depth analysis of public spending in the UK vs Sweden to know what Sweden goes without in order to provide comprehensive bus services out to the suburbs that cost me about £600 per year for a season ticket, but it is possible if there is the political will.

[Berk]

What about link roads, that link one suburb to another, and maybe on to another?? Taveners Road is a good example of that, it runs from Lincoln Road (ex A15 many years ago, still an important ‘main road’ between neighbourhoods), on to Westfield Road, which links up with Gresley Way, and then Bretton Gate and on to the A47.

So you can still cross the city reasonably directly in 15-20 mins, even at peak times. It’s hard to see how filtered permeability would work there, unless you’re going to introduce cul-de-sacs (like on nearby Gladstone Street, now basically three streets, all of which can be accessed by peds/cyclists).

[Berk]

The problem with (1) occurs when said routes are also heavily residential areas that just happen to be a major road.

Loughborough is an example that springs to mind. Nearly every major road in town is partly or wholly residential.

I'd rather we bypassed urban areas and then dealt with the <3 mile journeys that cause the majority of problems. As a 30+ mile commuter by car it is extremely frustrating to be delayed by people travelling short distances and bunging up the network. The biggest culprit? School run mummies.

This is where you wonder where your council tax goes, and why there aren’t more small, and medium-sized cities with rapid transit, or tram systems in place.

Just having another option to get to work would be nice.

[Ruperts Trooper]

(2) is filtered permeability.

The problem with (1) occurs when said routes are also heavily residential areas that just happen to be a major road.

I'd rather we bypassed urban areas and then dealt with the <3 mile journeys that cause the majority of problems. As a 30+ mile commuter by car it is extremely frustrating to be delayed by people travelling short distances and bunging up the network. The biggest culprit? School run mummies.

Society expects to be able drive on journeys that used to be walked by the children on their own, and walked by workers to their jobs - so much for progress.

[FosseWay]

The problem with (1) occurs when said routes are also heavily residential areas that just happen to be a major road.

Loughborough is an example that springs to mind. Nearly every major road in town is partly or wholly residential.

I used to live in Loughborough and I see what you mean. The thing is, if you live on the A6 it is simply not reasonable to treat the road outside your house in the same way as you would if you lived on one of the cul-de-sacs in the "Lake District". People do largely grasp that if they live in a flat with thin walls and floors they can't indulge their passion for heavy metal at 3 am, and that if they live in a town centre location with no garden, having a large, active dog is perhaps not ideal. If they don't grasp this, their neighbours surely do and so do the council, eventually. There isn't the same level of understanding when it comes to the road outside. In the case of the heavy metal and the dog, moving to somewhere that allows either without annoying the neighbours or being unfair to the dog is likely to involve costs that many can't afford, and that is a societal as well as an individual problem. This is less of an excuse when it comes to whether your dwelling is on a major road or not. There are plenty of high-end homes on major roads and plenty of sink estates with low-use cul-de-sacs. If being able to walk out of your door while on the phone and straight across the road without looking is something you value, don't buy/rent a house on the A6. But people don't think that way, they think "this is my road and I'll do as I like", and again unlike the case with the heavy metal fan or the dog owner, we as a society positively encourage people to think in this entitled fashion because pedestrians can do no wrong and drivers are nothing but wrong. (Cyclists come in either category, depending on whether the other road user in a dispute is a pedestrian or a driver.)

[AndyB]

Most new developments are single entrance for cars.

The problem with preventing rat running on through roads is that wherever the proposed blockage is, the residents will demand to be on the other side...

[Chris Bertram]

Most new developments are single entrance for cars.

The problem with preventing rat running on through roads is that wherever the proposed blockage is, the residents will demand to be on the other side...

There's a new blockage proposed for a through road near me, and I can see just this happening. My order for popcorn goes in very soon.

[Big L]

I thought most people want to be on both sides of the blockage, but insist on the blockage being there to stop everyone else.

[Norfolktolancashire]

I have noticed a trend in SUV ownership and the ease of these going over the speed humps in front of my house, these vehicles are better at riding over the many potholes too.

I don't blame people buying them!