The Conservative controlled County Council Highway Department are looking to introduce single yellow lines at two locations on London Road. They are doing this ostensibly to remove some traffic flow pinch points caused by large lorries and buses that have to slow down to get past the parked cars.

Slow and stop-start traffic causes a great deal more air pollution than free flowing traffic so it could be argued that the proposed new yellow lines are a good thing. However increasing traffic flow will cause the average traffic speed to increase which will do nothing to increase the very low levels of walking and cycling in the city. From a safety point of view who wants to encourage more large articulated lorries to go faster through our city streets?

My biggest concern is that even if the flow of traffic is increased the apparent benefits will not last long. When you increase road capacity it makes it easier to drive and this tends to increase the number of journeys that are then made on these new roads so filling the capacity that has been created. The increased number of cars then leads to more congestion and we end up in the same place as we started except we have more car journeys, just as much congestion and for those poor souls without off-road parking an absolute nightmare for local residents trying to park their car.

The Green way is to take steps to reduce demand on the roads by investing in good public transport, investing in walking and cycling with better footpaths and cycle paths. We need to be far better at creating communities that have shops, schools, places of work that are built into new housing developments so that the need for cars is reduced. Living Over The Shop – getting more dwellings above our city centre shops and perhaps converting some of the empty shops to homes could create valuable homes with all the city centre amenities meaning that car ownership and car journeys are reduced compared to houses built on the edge of our city.

Next May we will have local elections. Thankfully we live in a democracy – if you agree with me and Tom Piotrowski please vote for us this coming May.

I’ll need all the help I can get to be re-elected to council next May. If you can help please email me: LouisJosephStephen@gmail.com