Work to remove road markings, signs, bollards and traffic islands began in a Bath street this week, as the unitary authority became the latest to trial a psychological approach to traffic calming.
Bath & North East Somerset's shift towards creating a ‘shared space’ in Julian Road – part of a rat-run behind the city’s landmark Royal Crescent – follows a long campaign by local residents.
Eighteen months ago, the council endorsed urban designer Ben Hamilton-Baillie’s conceptual design for ‘a series of linked spaces’ along the road (Surveyor, 28 October 2004), but this has been cut down to a 150m-long section near an infants school, in what locals hope will be a first phase.
The carriageway will be narrowed, footways widened, and green imprints laid at junctions and crossing points. Priority will be removed at a three-way junction, creating ‘driver confusion’ designed to reduce speeds, said Nick Jeanes, traffic and safety team leader.
At around £45,000, the environmental improvement scheme will cost less than one-fifth of the original plan. Jeanes said he hoped in future to extend it westwards to cover a major crossroads with a poor accident record.
The Parkside Community Safety Action Group welcomed the start to works, but spokesman Justin Braithwaite feared ‘the much-reduced first phase could give shared space a bad name, in the event it doesn’t work’. Apart from its scale, his concerns included the limited changes to the eastern approach, and the quality of surfacing materials.
Hamilton-Baillie said it was encouraging to see B&NES ‘beginning to adopt some of the ideas of shared space’. Similar ideas were emerging in villages around Bath, he added.