Great Western Coffee Shop

Now It's Reading's turn to get a big new plan for transport, and a consultation on the released draft as a first step. I won't try to summarise it based on a quick skim - it's 172 pages big.

Within the links page (https://www.reading.gov.uk/transportstrategy) are a number of subplans on various modes, as well as the previous plan and a link to a future consultation. The full PDF document (https://democracy.reading.gov.uk/documents/s10695/Annex%20A%20-%20Reading%20Transport%20Strategy%202036%20-%20Draft%20for%20Consultation.pdf) doesn't seen to be accessible there (the BBC gave that link).

On what I've read so far I posted this on the Skyscrapercity forum.



"Of note referencing public transport:

-An orbital road to the north of the town is proposed.

-Futuristic sounding Fast Track Public Transport corridors, which appear to be skip stop buses running on routes away from where people live and key points around town.

-Quality Bus Corridors, most of which already exist. Improvements to these seem to be low priority.

-Third bloody bridge again, with public transport provision, which isn't that useful to public transport.

-More park and ride locations.

It is enormously lacking ambition. I get it, it's a difficult location to sort out, but it all appears to be public transport aimed at avoiding the traffic rather than actually replacing the traffic. Trams are mentioned a couple of times as a possibility to replace buses on the Fast Track Public Transport, so are Trackless trams (which is a way of mentioning trolleybuses without mentioning trolleybuses) which I think are best suited for the current townscape. It's encouraging that they have ideas but I can't help thinking they are simply throwing more internal combustion engine buses at a town centre already full of buses. They need to consider combining the Fast Track corridors planned with the already established routes, rather than replicating routes with non stop versions which cause confusion, it's a complicated bus network as it is. There seems to be a lot of focus on how people from the surrounding towns and villages get to the town centre rather than how those here move around the town. You can add bus lanes to all the big dual carriageways aiming for town but they have no direct benefit on those that live in the town as they avoid densely populated areas. It appears the council are certainly not looking to make those dual carriageways single carriageways.

I feel that, if you sort out movement around the urban area you will go a long way to relieve congestion. The best medium sized European towns and cities are easy to move about and this is the target that should be aimed for, a place to live without the car where everything is accessible.

The biggest plus point for me is 'Removal of vertical traffic calming measures' as only recently some speed humps have been introduced through the estate and the only vehicles they slow down are the buses. "

I wouldn't say I am a fan of speed bumps, but how else do you restrict speed and hence the consequences of accidents.

I had a scan through and it keeps going on about bike hire, but Reading doesn't have any. Mainly because they have to improve the cycling infrastructure before anybody is going to risk their neck.

The particular speed humps I'm referring to is the table type, fully across the road in Southcote estate. Cars continue at 25-30 mph meanwhile the bus has to drop to walking pace. There are speed humps in other areas of town that are wide enough for bus wheels to avoid but slow down cars. I think the council are talking about humps on bus routes rather than all roads here and that seems a sensible decision to me.

Ah, raised tables. Can anyone point me in the direction of clear explanation as to who has priority, pedestrians or road users. I have almost been caught out (i.e. hit) in both modes.