November 2022 – Alison Archer
Things have moved on apace – the intrepid Traffic Calming Working Party has been very busy since the last Update.
So, for Phase 1 and adhering to the guidelines set out in the Dorset Toolkit (mentioned in the last Update), we have been carrying out an audit of Aymestrey village. This includes, mapping the existing signs, road markings, paving materials, footpaths, kerb details etc. We have also been surveying traffic numbers and traffic speeds. We’ve stood by the side of the road (at various points throughout the village and at various times of the day), and literally counted the traffic going north and south. We also ‘gauged’ whether each vehicle was going unacceptably fast or not and recorded all this information on a table.
In order to achieve some speed data we’ve had to rely on ‘educated guesses’, rather than anything more scientific. However, at this stage, this is what the Dorset toolkit recommends as a fairly easy way of building up a ‘Speed Profile’ of the traffic through the village. The Speed Profile also allows us to quickly identify where the “hot spots’ are – which means not just areas of really speeding traffic, but also difficult and potentially dangerous areas to Aymestrey villagers (like the Bacon Lane exit/entrance).
Our pseudo-scientific approach had 3 categories of speed – 1. Ok, 2. Fast and 3. Bat Out of Hell. The results have not been that surprising. The ‘Bat Out of Hell’ category has had many participants.
Please be assured that we will also be adding scientifically gathered data via the SIDS to this. The problem with the SIDS is that people slow down when they see the display, so it’s not always a true reflection of traffic speeds. Also our SIDS are only in 2 spots. When you all get a chance to look at the ‘educated guesses’ data we’ve gathered I don’t think anyone will disagree with our findings.
All this information has been transferred to maps/diagrams that show the existing profile of the village in terms of signs, footpaths etc., and another that shows the speeds of the traffic along with the hotspots. We’ve also included observations we’ve had such as ‘Northbound traffic speeds up on the brow of the bridge’.
The next phase is research on traffic calming measures already deployed in other villages along with boiling all that information down into some form of proposals. I will keep you posted on progress.
If any of you would like to look at the Dorset document for yourself then please have a look here
Alison Archer
November 2022