NEW NORFOLK'S Graham Chapman has been in touch with a response to my comments about the Burnett St planter pots and he has agreed to share his comments online. He writes:
I believe from an article in the Gazette that the main motivation for the Burnett St pots was traffic calming rather than beautification. Granted they may be too high for the purpose, they should probably be round instead of square, and many people have a problem with the colour. Nevertheless I think you have overlooked the fact of the traffic calming objective, and the benefits to be had from traffic calming in Burnett St.
Traffic calming helps reduce the extent of hooning. I suspect it is because hoons don't like having to drive slowly and will pick another street. If they do this is a good thing for the pedestrian users of the street. The higher the pedestrian use, the more the benefit from traffic calming. Since New Norfolk has a proud history of hooning up and down High and Burnett Sts, I think traffic calming this is a good thing, to be applauded, explained and promoted by our civic leaders, not condemned because everybody else does.
One final point - traffic calming devices take many forms. Road humps annoy people (they get the hump?!), so widening the median strip and narrowing the road to one lane persuades drivers to slow down and drive more carefully, so the whole point of the devices is to make them large and to get in the way!
It would be useful and constructive if Council could provide statistics on traffic accident rates before and after the changes. Hopefully when you get elected you will do that for us :-)
Regards,
Graham Chapman
Traffic calming helps reduce the extent of hooning. I suspect it is because hoons don't like having to drive slowly and will pick another street. If they do this is a good thing for the pedestrian users of the street. The higher the pedestrian use, the more the benefit from traffic calming. Since New Norfolk has a proud history of hooning up and down High and Burnett Sts, I think traffic calming this is a good thing, to be applauded, explained and promoted by our civic leaders, not condemned because everybody else does.
One final point - traffic calming devices take many forms. Road humps annoy people (they get the hump?!), so widening the median strip and narrowing the road to one lane persuades drivers to slow down and drive more carefully, so the whole point of the devices is to make them large and to get in the way!
It would be useful and constructive if Council could provide statistics on traffic accident rates before and after the changes. Hopefully when you get elected you will do that for us :-)
Regards,
Graham Chapman
Its all very well to attempt to stop hooning but there are more efficient ways of going about it - like lobbying for more police presence. As a shop owner on Burnett St I have found the pots do nothing to stop people speeding from George St down to High St even though they know there is a roundabout at which they have to stop. The council placed 2 pots outside my building, one of which made it virtually impossible for delivery trucks to get into the shop next doors' driveway, resulting in it being removed all together. The other one impedes our view when trying to leave our premises resulting in us having to make a rather mad dash into the street with the hope that nothing is coming. I have also noticed that since the boxes were installed it has led to an increase in the amount of delivery trucks having to park OVER MY DRIVEWAY - stopping us either entering or leaving our own premises. Get rid of them totally they are ugly, dangerous & unneccesary.
ReplyDeleteMegan, there are so many people agree with you and we nearly fell off our chairs at the meet the candidates forum - which was really good by the way - when a current councillor and candidate for mayor said he would have them removed to the side of the road and what, take up car parking spaces? There's certainly not enough room on the footpaths - hope he doesn't get in, not on our vote he won't!
ReplyDeleteJ