Don we now our gay apparel. Fa la la la la, la la la la

Mayer Hillman, John Adams and John Whitelegg's One False Move: A Study of Children's Independent Mobility shows reductions in child road deaths and serious injuries have been achieved, in this country, not by rendering our streets and built environments safer for the un-carred but by effectively barring unaccompanied children from public spaces now surrendered to high volumes of fast moving motorised traffic. Much as rates of child death and serious injury from alligator wrestling have plummeted since social attitudes hardened to the sport: nobody disputes that 'gator wrestling remains highly dangerous, it's just that kids aren't licensed to participate any more.

Hillman et al published in 1990. Since the seventies the Dutch and Danes, in showing how public space can be configured safely to balance the needs of car users and the uncarred, have been catalysts of an impetus, that now has global reach, towards better designed built-environments that prioritise the pedestrian and the cyclist and the public transport user. 

So how has research and exemplary practice shaped Northumberland's 2013 initiative to promote child safety on the roads now the nights are drawing in? Any major infrastructural changes in the pipeline, or proposed extensions to areas of 20mph limits, any investment? Anything structural to tame motor traffic? Or even a campaign urging drivers to take additional care when visibility is poor, perhaps, to drive within the speed limit rather than treat it as a target speed, to drive at a speed enabling them to stop within the distance they can see to be clear, not to force pedestrians and cyclists onto the carriageway by parking on pavements/cycle tracks, not to be updating their Facebook page on a laptop open on the passenger seat when driving past school gates disgorging pupils into the gloaming? None of these things. It's the usual deck-the-soft-targets-in-reflectives solution. Rather than urging car users to volunteer the utmost care and attention to those they otherwise imperil, children – we all - must wrest attention from them with fluorescent clothing: our communities as construction sites. 

My untutored layman's understanding suggests one principle enshrined in Child Protection legislation is that the adult in any given interaction has responsibility for the child. Put the adult in a car and the polarity shifts, the responsibility is now the child's to militate the threat posed to her by the behaviour of the adult. Something's wrong here.

Bio-engineering may be the way forward. It's been done with puppies. Splicing genetic material from bio-luminescent marine creatures into the DNA of future generations will see glowing people co-existing safely with motorised traffic. There'd be an additional benefit to this genetic tweaking: when the lights go out with the impending end of the century-long cheap oil orgy, people will still be able to read after dark by the light of their own fluorescence.

This has depressed me. Let's finish with an up-beat song.

Watch and learn, Holland

From Dave Hembrow's exemplary blog, fairly representative images of Dutch kids dicing with death. The width, surfacing, and segregation from motor vehicles of the cycling infrastructure (even allotmenters are forbidden from driving and parking here. Yes, seriously!) are all well and good, but consider if you will the disturbing lack of helmets, garish hi-viz and even, in the case of the lad nearest, safety socks. The Dutch hate their young.

Northumberland Transport Planners have a much better grasp of how to keep children safe. Consider Morpeth's Blue Riband stretch of designated cycling infrastructure, the Whorral Bank cycle track.

 

You don't need me to tell you that no kids will be coming to grief on their bikes on this shared-use, bi-directional, cycling and pedestrian facility any time soon.

Bert wronged?

Bert's displeased, feels his identity is too thinly disguised, and that he's getting too rough a ride, on the pages of this blog. Possibly, or it may be that Bert's become habituated to the uncritical, soft-soap fluffings that pass for press coverage in the Morpeth Herald; that being deferentially stroked by the pre-warmed, fur-mittened hands of the Herald's stenographers has come to seem normal to him, no less than his due.

During their campaign, eager to demonstrate that their concerns were widespread and not exclusive to a raucous saloon bar of boomer-generation car-dependents with an overweening sense of entitlement, Lights Out! launched a “survey”. The Herald helped, of course, circulating copies of the questionnaire to their readership with the paper, while Lights Out!ers worked the high street, from stalls festooned with their banners, placards and insignia. Impossible to mistake them for reputable, neutral opinion pollsters; overtly a pressure group agitating.

Have you ever, on spotting a chugger in hi-viz tabard, pursued him or her, perhaps crossing a street to do so, waiting until he/she finished pitching to his/her current mark, in order to say “I just want you to know that I am resolutely indifferent to the fate of the Sumatran Woolly Rhino; so chug on that, pal!”? Me neither. I mention it because there was no mechanism in place for recording numbers of people declining to be part of this self-selected claque. Nor was there a mechanism in place to prevent claqueurs filling in multiple questionnaires over the months this was happening. I witnessed a woman, hands full of shopping bags, half turned to go, giving verbal responses over her shoulder to, er.. Bill who was filling in the form for her. I tuned in at the question - and I paraphrase - “do you come to Morpeth less often now the universally detested lights are causing insufferable delays to hard shopping families?” “I do try to avoid that junction” was her nuanced, hedging reply. “We'll call that a 'Yes'” said Bill, ticking. It may be that my fleeting observation coincided with the sole instance of a respondent's answer being falsified, but that seems improbable.

Perhaps mistrustful of those they were trying to mobilise, fearful that if given free rein too many would express their objections with undiplomatic variants of “Oi Morpeth, get out of my way; can't you see I'm Driving here!?” the leadership helped shape responses with a vetted framework of pre-approved areas of potential concern. Pedestrian safety, street scene aesthetics, other road user safety and congestion. Worthy, considerate stuff. Of course, anyone really concerned about these issues would limit their personal car use within Morpeth to the essential minimum, but we'll let that slide for the moment.. 

Circa 2,000 questionnaires were filled. That represents about 4% of Morpeth and catchment's population, based on the old Castle Morpeth District Council boundaries. 

The Herald gave Councillor David Towns (Con) generous platform to trumpet this shabbiness as a “very comprehensive and statistically reliable” survey proving “95% of people dislike the lights”, without so much as arching an editorial eyebrow, let alone challenging him with “knock it off Towns, you insult us and our readership with this shameful bollocks.”

Robert Mugabe, who's never achieved better than 93% of the popular vote, is sending his electoral team over to learn from Lights Out!, while Father Patrick O'Shaughnessy has gone one better - a very comprehensive and statistically reliable survey of his congregation last Sunday proving that no fewer than 100% of people believe in God.

Why does this matter? Because Bert and Clarence, with the tireless support of the Herald, surfed this brackish wavelet of car user resentment to seats on the Town Council, and that's bad news for anyone hoping to see the town develop along less car-shafted lines in future. The Morpeth Neighbourhood Development Plan, currently in consultation, offers the usual blandishments about increasing active and sustainable personal transport modal share, much as did the last Morpeth Town Plan and every County Council Full Local Transport Plan in this new millennium. This can't be achieved without in some situations de-prioritising the narrow self-interest of the carred and, as we've seen, the carred will fight and fight dirty to defend the priority to which they've become accustomed.

So back to Bert's disquiet about this blog. It's true that Fiats Medea, Nero, Herod and Chronos haven't cropped up in our occasional chats. Nor have Fiats Mellitus, Infarction, Hypertension and Infanticide. They don't exist: I'm merely riffing. However we did exchange views on the trials of Josie, Bert opining that an able-bodied adult using a single-occupant car for a within-Morpeth commute of 1.3 miles was sensible, as it rains sometimes. I must apologise, then, for having overlooked the rubidium exoskeletons of Morpeth car users.

On a darker note, when the Herald begrudgingly added - as a footnote to a front page spread protesting the indignities suffered by drivers at the hands of “over-zealous” Parking Enforcement Officers - mention of the verbal assaults and death threats being dished out to PEOs, Bert was unable to condemn this pre-meditated thuggery (yes premeditated: police officers are largely immune to this sort of shit because empowered to visit uncomfortable consequences on the perpetrator; PEOs aren't; drivers know this and pick their targets), sided with the drivers and muttered about their deserving lee-way and leniency and periods of grace. No harm in being loyal to your constituents or knowing on which side your political bread is buttered I suppose, but I worry about this Faustian pact Bert's struck for advancement, and for his soul.

Appeasement

Reversals plural I said, last blog, because there's also this. 

Not enough that the town centre has been reamed out in the interests of through traffic, now car users are poised to externalise the full cost of their consumption of public space. No longer need they make even a token contribution in the form of a parking permit costing a fraction of the cost of provision. 

£713K is the figure given for the cost to the County Council of this perverse incentivising in Morpeth alone. County wide it's millions. I'm guessing that's worked out on the basis of annual cost of provision rather than the market value of all those acres of town centre land were they freed up for purposes other than storing idle machinery. (see earlier blog) 

Call me old-fashioned and out of touch, but in times of swingeing austerity doesn't it better become a Local Authority to maximise revenue from the monetisable assets it holds? 

For perspective, £713K a year would sustain circa ten small branch libraries. How might Senrug's laudable objectives be furthered by an annual £713K? £713K invested intelligently in Morpeth's transport infrastructure year on year would effect an explosion in active and sustainable transport modal share. But none of this is of concern to Ken Brown, who we should thank for his candour in not giving a damn, if nothing else.

Still, it's an ill wind, and my disquiet may be mollified by venal personal gain. The daily commute back and forth into Morpeth must qualify me for a chunk of this personal transport subsidy. It's unthinkable – given the avowed policy commitments of Northumberland County Council and Morpeth Town Council to grow active and sustainable transport alternatives to the private car – that car user snouts will be the only ones allowed at this trough. How those of us who make our journeys other than by car will receive our hand out in lieu of free parking hasn't been announced. Having to present at the Town Hall with cycle clips or bus ticket would be a bit of a chore. In all likelihood a sub-group of the Town Council's Planning and Transport Committee is right now cross referencing DVLA database and Electoral Rolls to target car free households to which cheques will be posted for all driver age inhabitants. I promise to spend my share in Morpeth or, if you don't trust me, will cheerfully accept vouchers redeemable only in Morpeth shops.

One lesson to be taken from the recent coup in Morpeth is that you can't appease the car, any more than you can appease cancer. You can't negotiate terms with a malignant melanoma, offer it tenure there under your shirt, tapped into your blood supply and assured of free nutrients and oxygen, on condition it keeps the noise down and doesn't shorten your life. You'll wake up next morning to find it's been busy spinning like a Catherine wheel, sparking secondaries into your vital organs, into your blood and lymph and brain and bone, into your very marrow. Cut car users some slack, waive the requirement that they be preceded by a man walking with a red flag on condition they play nice, say, and you'll wake up to find one parking on your face, shouting at you to "lower your bloody cheekbones, can't you see I'm in a car here?" and demanding you subsidise him for the privilege.

Full of passionate intensity.

Grim news from the Morpeth salient of The War Against The Motorist. Reversals on all fronts. Here the political wing of the livid rump (and if "livid rump" puts you in mind of a baboon's arse that can't be helped) of car users that are 'Lights Out!' celebrate victory in the Skirmish of the Traffic Lights. Whether squatting to scent mark his territory with some pungent driver scat, or simply crumpling to the ground as his driver's paunch gets the better of his enfeebled driver's legs ("Hurry up and take the bloody photo, then lift me back into my car!"), someone should relieve that guy of the Champagne while he does it.

Would you buy a failed town centre transport infrastructure from these people? Tough, you just did, at eye-watering cost.

Phil Jones, the consultant brought in to conduct the “review”, has been a disappointment. Here's Phil sharing a breakfast TV sofa with Chris Boardman and sounding as credibly progressive about active-travel enabling infrastructure as one could wish:

Here Phil's brief – I have it from a trusted source – was to deliver a recommendation that the lights be removed, and to deliver it after the local elections. A charade or holding exercise, designed to limit damage to the electoral hopes of sitting County Councillors. The same source says Phil's been on £750 per day plus expenses to go through the motions - for what's it been; a year? - until called upon to announce the pre-determined recommendation. Whatever happened to reducing traffic speed and volumes, Phil?

You know, if told what to say and when to say it I dare say you or I could've done that job for a fraction of the fee.

Bert seizes power

We first met Bert in post 4, October last year, lamenting parking charges and traffic lights. Bert, and “Cars First!” co-religionist Lion Costume Man, have been elected to the Town Council. Despite the Morpeth Herald straining every sinew to get them there, Bert and Clarence polled fewer votes than the brace of Green candidates standing in the same ward. That there exist Greens in Morpeth will come as a shock to readers of the Herald, which may want to re-calibrate it's editorial position more accurately to reflect the concerns of the local populace. Actually, that's just me being snotty: it won't want to.

Bert works, or used to work – he may have retired recently – for FIAT as, if I remember it correctly, Technical Product Adviser. When asked what a Technical Product Adviser did he explained his role was helping people to an appreciation of what's great about FIAT cars. Marketing, then. Or Sales. Bert is car industry man.

So make a conversational overture with Bert on the subject of child safety on our streets, and Bert will likely enthuse about the integral child-seat anchor points and passenger airbags in the new FIAT Medea.

Try to move him onto the general health and well-being implications of diverse modes of personal transport and Bert will reference the two stage ventilation filters and hypo-allergenic bamboo fibre upholstery in the FIAT Herod.

Engage him on the subject of anthropogenic climate change and he'll open with the industry leading sensor controlled air-con and humidifier systems fitted as standard to ensure comfortable climate stabilty at all times for occupants of the FIAT Nero.

Quell a rising wave of queasy despair long enough to seek Bert's opinion on the decline in independent child mobility over the last forty years and Bert will agree that it's shocking, which is why the FIAT Chronos has the most generous rear-seat legroom in its class, such that the lankiest of kids can wriggle a bit – within the necessary constraints of their seat belts, naturally – on their short journeys to and from school.

Bert doesn't get it. Will he ever get it? Probably not, but you never know; there may be a Damascene moment in the pipeline for him. He may be stationary on the St George's roundabout one afternoon and, in a thunderclap of illumination, realise that a carriageway radius the width of three cars on a single-lane town centre mini-roundabout is an absurd mis-allocation of public space. He may be making good speed up the Whorral Bank one day when the succession of vehicles Prosting past him in the drag-strip lane jolt him into questioning whether three lanes here are strictly necessary for cars, whether the 'hammer it' lane might better be given over to creating a cycle track to design standard, such that the narrow pavement currently masquerading as a shared use cycling/pedestrian facility might revert to being for the exclusive use of pedestrians. One winter morning, nosing through town after fresh snowfall, speed reduced and tracking carefully in the grooves carved by preceding traffic, Bert - courtesy a frosty satori - may notice the broad skirts of pristine snow between the collective passenger side wheel rut and the pavement edge. Space that could, were traffic always calmed by, say, an enforced 20mph limit in the town, comfortably accommodate continuous and useful cycling infrastructure.

But let's not hold our breath.

A marathon, not a sprint

Perhaps best read, if you've nothing better to do, from the bottom up. This cycle track's only been in situ for circa 18 years, so give it time.

From: NTMHTo: Project Planning Manager Sustainable TransportCC: Senior Transport Projects Engineer Sustainable Transport; Assistant Engineer Sustainable Transport; Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator; Northumbria PoliceSent: Friday 23^rd August 2013Subject: Re: Civil Parking Enforcement Query

Thanks Project Planning Manager, Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator, gents, but failing to find reference anywhere in the literature, guidelines or statutes to "advisory cycle tracks", and confused as to how the stretch of infrastructure we're discussing could be signed in the way it is without having been converted from a footway into a cycle track by authentic legal process, I asked the CTC:

1) To meet the definition in DfT Local Transport Note 1/12, September 2012: Shared Use Routes for Pedestrians and Cyclists, “10.5 Cycle Track: A way constituting or comprised in a highway, being a way over which the public have the following but no other, rights of way, that is to say, a right of way on pedal cycles (other than pedal cycles which are motor vehicles within the meaning of the Road Traffic Act 1988) with or without a right of way on foot [section 329(1) Highways Act 1980]...”, and consequently to enjoy the protection of the Road Traffic Act 1988: “21 Prohibition of driving or parking on cycle tracks. (1) Subject to the provisions of this section, any person who, without lawful authority, drives or parks a [F1mechanically propelled] vehicle wholly or partly on a cycle track is guilty of an offence...”, MUST a shared use cycle track converted from a footway adjacent to a carriageway be subject to a Traffic Regulation Order? 2) What is the legal status of such a shared use facility in the absence of a TRO?3) What distinguishes a nominal cycle track lacking TRO from a footway/pavement?4) Is there such a thing as an "advisory cycle track"?

to which they replied, within half a working day

"Thanks for your email.The definition of a ‘Cycle Track’ includes at least two different legal structures:a) a cycle track created under the Cycle Tracks Act 1984 from a public footpath (that is to say, a path with a right of way on foot only, away from the carriageway). This process is difficult and seldom used because of technical niceties it is probably not worth worrying about. The process is explained in the following briefing: (http://www.ctc.org.uk/sites/default/files/file_public/bridleways-byways-cycle-tracksbrf.pdf)
b) shared use footways, usually created from existing footways (paths for pedestrians by the side of the road) using Sections 65 and 66 of the Highways Act 1980: (https://www.ctc.org.uk/sites/default/files/file_public/public-footpathsbrf.pdf)Neither of these processes uses Traffic Regulation Orders. You are right that, whereas people may legally park on a footway, they are not permitted to park on a cycle track – so if residents (outside London) are unhappy with pavement parking, they should get their pavements converted to shared use footways – but they’ll still need the police to enforce them!However, TROs are required in order to restrict traffic on highways, and are therefore necessary to create a mandatory cycle lane, they are also necessary to make one-way streets etc. The Government recently announced that it is prepared to relax this requirement, which should greatly reduce the cost of developing better infrastructure for cyclists.I’m not sure what you mean by a “nominal” cycle track; a shared use footway (the things that plague the country) has normally been converted using the s65/66 process described above. If it has the blue signs to diagrams 956 or 957 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/3113/images/uksi_20023113_en_102) [it does, both varieties] then it will have been converted or created using those processes.There is no such thing as an “advisory cycle track” in the way that you can have an advisory cycle lane on the carriageway. You could, I suppose have a permissive bridleway across private land, but if it is a highway (ie, carriageway, adjacent footway, or right-of-way away from the carriageway) then the rules are clear.CTC has in the past pushed for greater simplicity for the process of creating cycle tracks, though we also want to make sure that footways converted under the Highways Act are created up to a proper standard of design, with widths, surface quality, sightlines, curve radii and crossings suitable for cyclists to use – these are very different from the requirements of pedestrians."

I was also pointed to this from the same DfT Local Transport Note 1/12, September 2012, Shared Use Routes for Pedestrians and Cyclists: "10.24 Public consultation is not a mandatory requirement. By virtue of the Road Traffic Act 1988, it is generally an offence to use a motor vehicle on a cycle track. A Traffic Regulation Order is therefore not required to control such use..."

So please may we move on to how Council and partners Northumbria Police will ensure that right of way on it is exclusive to pedestrians and cyclists? And please may we do this without referring to "obstruction"? "Obstruction" may be a relevant consideration when assessing the appropriation by car users of footways/pavements, but here the offence is driving or parking a motorised vehicle, wholly or partly, on a cycle track.Unless.. the Council never went though the process of s66/65 of the Highways Act to remove the footway and replace it (technically, not literally) with a cycle track, which would be shocking - placing cyclists in legal jeopardy by erecting signs and road markings to indicate use when no such use has legally been given.

Thanks

NTMH

From: Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator

To: NTMH
Cc: Project Planning Manager Sustainable Transport; Senior Transport Projects Engineer Sustainable Transport; Assistant Engineer Sustainable Transport

Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 11:59
Subject: FW: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Hi NTMH,

I have spoken to Project Planning Manager Sustainable Transport and he has informed me that what I stated below is correct.

Thanks

Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator

From: Assistant Engineer Sustainable Transport
Sent: 15 August 2013 11:29
To: Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator
Cc: Senior Transport Projects Engineer Sustainable Transport
Subject: RE: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator,

I think what you have written is correct but I suggest you ask Project Planning Manager Sustainable Transport just to check that it is ok.

Assistant Engineer Sustainable Transport.

From: Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator
Sent: 15 August 2013 11:21
To: Senior Transport Projects Engineer Sustainable Transport; Assistant Engineer Sustainable Transport
Cc: NTMH

Subject: FW: Civil Parking Enforcement query 

Please see correspondences below.

It I my understanding that as the cycle track in question is an advisory cycle track as it has no TRO on it. Regardless of what the DFT state as a cycle track, it cannot be classed or enforced as a cycle track without a TRO. This therefor is not a Cycle track defined by the DfT definition. As stated before As there is no TRO on the area in question any enforcement should be carried out by the police for obstruction.

I am unaware of any cycle track within the county that do have a TRO on them.

Can you confirm?

Thanks

Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator

From: NTMH
Sent: 14 August 2013 23:40
To: Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator
Subject: Re: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator

thanks for getting back to me, but I don't see an answer or answers to my query of 11th July. You've re-stated Parking Services response, March 5th, to my initial contact of March 2nd: "no TRO, not our responsibility, take it to the police". I heard that the first time.

But 11th July, below, I inquired into the status of this sliver of infrastructure. Is it a Cycle Track as defined by the given DfT definition, a space where there is no right of way for motorised vehicles, a prohibition enshrined in the Road Traffic Act 1988: "any person who, without lawful authority, drives or parks a [mechanically propelled] vehicle wholly or partly on a cycle track is guilty of an offence."? Or was it merely signed as such without the proper procedure being followed? Is it a kosher Cycle Track?

And are there any other shavings of public space in Morpeth that meet the legal definition of a Cycle Track?

If this is more Highways Design's area, please forward me on, copying me in so I know where it's gone.

Thanks again

NTMH

From: Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator
To: NTMH
Sent: Tuesday, 13 August 2013, 10:14
Subject: RE: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Hi NTMH,

My apologies for not getting back to you. I did not here from back from the other department before I went on Holiday.

I have now spoken to them and I have been informed that there is no Traffic Regulation Order on the road or on the cycle track to enable us to enforce on that section of highway. The cycle track would need a TRO on it to allow the CEO’s to enforce the area. As this is the case it would fall to the police to enforce the path for obstruction.

If you need any further information please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thanks

Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator

From: NTMH
Sent: 12 August 2013 23:06
To: Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator
Subject: Re: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Hello Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator,

not wishing to appear impatient, are we any nearer clarification?

Just so's you know, I don't stake out the allotments obsessively taking telephoto pictures from a camouflaged hide. These are camera phone snaps taken, when I can be bothered, on my commute in and out of town. It would be helpful to know whether I'm seeing routine, un-addressed infractions of road traffic law, or whether this margin of highway has been wrongly signed.

Thanks

NTMH

From: Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator

To: NTMH
Sent: Friday, 26 July 2013, 11:38
Subject: RE: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Hi NTMH

Thanks for your comment. I am awaiting a response from another department on the matter and I will get back to you on Monday.

Thanks

Parking Maintenance Co-ordinator

From: NTMH
Sent: 25 July 2013 13:49
To: Parking Services CRM
Subject: Fw: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Hi,

a fortnight is probably outwith your response time target for an enquiry, so I'd very much appreciate a reply, even if only to say you don't know and have forwarded me to X in department Y, who will be better placed to deal with it..

Thanks

NTMH

From: NTMH
To: Parking Services

Sent: Thursday, 11 July 2013, 13:37
Subject: Re: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Hello again Parking Services,

perhaps while we wait for the Highways Design team to mull over its priorities and options you could clarify a couple of things for me?

First, does the Department for Transport's Local Transport Note 1/12, September 2012, Shared Use Routes for Pedestrians and Cyclists, section 10 Legal Issues, subsection 5:

10.5 Cycle Track: A way constituting or comprised in a highway, being a way over which the public have the following but no other, rights of way, that is to say, a right of way on pedal cycles (other than pedal cycles which are motor vehicles within the meaning of the Road Traffic Act 1988) with or without a right of way on foot [section 329(1) Highways Act 1980]. The words in round brackets were inserted by section 1 of the Cycle Tracks Act 1984. Cycle tracks might be created through conversion of a footway or footpath, or by constructing a new highway.

accurately describe or define the Whorral Bank cycle/pedestrian facility? 

Is this what it is, thus protected by the Road Traffic Act 1988: 

"21 Prohibition of driving or parking on cycle tracks.

(1)Subject to the provisions of this section, any person who, without lawful authority, drives or parks a [F1mechanically propelled] vehicle wholly or partly on a cycle track is guilty of an offence."

or is it an access road and car parking sited to convenience Tommy's Field allotmenters, as in the attached photos?

Second, putting the question of the status of the Whorral Bank facility to one side, is there any other infrastructure anywhere in Morpeth that meets the above DfT definition of a Cycle Track?

Thanks

NTMH

From: Parking Services
To: NTMH
Sent: Tuesday, 5 March 2013, 10:00
Subject: FW: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Dear NTMH

Thank you for your email below with regards to parking on the designated cycling/pedestrian footpath.

Unfortunately, you are correct in your assumption that this cannot be enforced by our Civil Enforcement Officers because no traffic regulation order is in place on that road ie) single/double yellow lines. However, I will forward your email to our Highways Design team to make them aware of your issues as they are responsible for where single/double yellow lines are placed.

Kind Regards

Parking Services

Sustainable Transport

From: NTMH
Sent: 02 March 2013 19:26
To: Council Helpline Portal
Subject: Civil Parking Enforcement query

Hi,

cycling home yesterday evening on the Whorral Bank cycle path, where it passes the Tommy's Field allotments opposite the new NHS development, I encountered a 'Police Warning' sign on the allotments fence. Fantastic, was my first thought: finally the police are acting to curb the persistent illegal driving/parking on this designated cycling/pedestrian facility by motorised allotmenters too lazy to use the plentiful legal parking close by. But the sign was actually a warning to illegally parked motorists to secure their valuables and lock their car. Is this really an official 'Police Warning' sign?

A while back I lobbied Northumbria Police to sanction the illegal driving/parking of Tommy's Field allotmenters. Some 'advice' was issued to the offenders. As one allotmenter told it, the police had advised that provided they parked higher up the grass verge, with no wheels on the surfaced path itself, all was fine. My sense was that the Police didn't really want to get involved, responsibility for parking law enforcement would soon be passing to the Council.

I've spoken to Council Parking Enforcement Officers who say that the absence of double yellow lines on the carriageway means it's not their responsibility.

So I'm sending this to both Council and Police in the hope that I won't be batted back and forth by two agencies not wanting the responsibility – if lines of responsibility aren't clear perhaps you could communicate with each other to get it straight? - because the Road Traffic Act 1988 seems crystal clear:

21 Prohibition of driving or parking on cycle tracks.

(1)Subject to the provisions of this section, any person who, without lawful authority, drives or parks a [F1mechanically propelled] vehicle wholly or partly on a cycle track is guilty of an offence.

What must cyclists and pedestrians do to prevent the illegal appropration of their scant legally designated spaces by scofflaw motorists?

Thanks

NTMH

Stop! Police!!

Almost - there's more scope for poetic licence here - an e-mail to the local police. Been prodding them about this, intermittently, for a couple of years.

PC Dean

the Whorral Bank cycle track is a flawed piece of infrastructure. It fails against design standards in ways I shan't bore you by enumerating. Suffice to say that any Dutch or Danish transport engineer proposing it in its current form would be laughed back to the drawing board. Or sacked. Only two things in its favour: it's a rare, if not the sole, legally designated/protected stretch of cycling infrastructure in Morpeth, and – though this is doubtless more by accident than design – it doesn't bring cyclists into proximity to parked cars, doesn't funnel them within range of car doors being opened in their path. All cycle training urges cyclists to steer clear of this 'door zone', as its known. Being 'doored' is perhaps second only to the left turning lorry as cause of death and injury to cyclists.

So it's a disappointment that illegal encroachment on this space by Tommy's Field allotmenters, creating a door zone hazard for passing cyclists, persists. With the onset of good weather, this offending is pretty much a daily occurrence. I attach some recent photos.

The affable bloke who features in one of them, who looks like he might have been grown on an allotment himself, said police had authorised his driving on the cycle track provided he came to rest high enough on the verge to keep all wheels off the tarmac. I've heard this same defence from allotmenters before, but the Road Traffic Act 1988, Section 21, is unequivocal: driving and/or parking a motorised vehicle on a cycle track is an offence.

I get that this is low priority stuff. But against the 'triviality' of the offence we might weigh the 'triviality' of the policing needed to resolve it. It isn't covert or complicated. This isn't terrorism, insider dealing or peaceful and law-abiding environmental protest. No officer need spend years in deep cover posing as an allotment holder; feigning interest in crop rotation, double digging, mulch and brassica varieties; fathering children by unsuspecting female allotmenters; all the while feeding registration numbers to his handler over furtive meetings in The Joiners. No oily private detective need provide transcripts of allotmenters' hacked mobile phone conversations. It doesn't need an armed response unit to shoot out the tyres of the offending vehicles before dragging the perps, screaming, out across their bonnets through shattered windscreens (though if you are minded to go the Bodie and Doyle route please give me a heads up so I can cycle along to watch). In fact it's hard to envisage an easier collar.

Passionate about active and sustainable personal transport alternatives to the car in the places where we live, I fail to see how as a society we might progress from this ludicrous irrationality

  to this sane alternative

while we tolerate this routine abuse and misappropriation by scofflaw car users of the scant few facilities that do currently exist for cycling 

 Yours ever...

A regular column beckons.

So then they published this precis of an earlier blog.

Sir,

were every car driven in Morpeth there to haul away purchases in quantities that could only be hauled away by car, all the shops in town would be sold out by noon every day. Morpeth retailers grown rich-as-Croesus on this daily tsunami of trade would be retiring to their yachts in the Bahamas in droves.

This isn't happening because not all car use blesses the town. Much of it is commuter traffic, personal transport journeys, 80% or so single occupant, one individual taking him/herself to work, parking up all day, then home without pausing to spread cash around. This car use brings congestion, noise, stench and hazard; devours space, overloads limited parking, hoovers up subsidy and costs the town. Better for Morpeth that these journeys be made differently.

The Herald's front page from Oct 18^th, on your website, is illustrative. A Morpeth businesswoman scapegoats the usual patsies for the stressful misery of her car commute. That she lives – the electoral roll suggests – 1.3 miles from her place of work isn't disclosed. That's a 20 to 25 minute walk or a 5 to 10 minute cycle ride. Buses pass the end of her street, all stop at the bus station which is closer to her place of work than any legal parking. Her using a car for this journey, the stressful miserable option, can most kindly be described as 'irrational'.

What proportion of those who currently commute by single-occupant car to work in central Morpeth, from addresses in Morpeth, over readily walkable/cycleable distances or along routes well served by public transport, would need to leave the car at home and instead travel rationally for Morpeth to be cured at a stroke – starting tomorrow morning if you want it badly enough - of the congestion and parking problems that so agitate the car-user lobby? 

The heat and noise generated by the Morpeth car-user lobby obscure a simple truth that no politician dare whisper, let alone shout through a loud hailer in the market square. Car users are responsible for Morpeth's traffic problems.

 This may be painful to digest on first hearing, so to sweeten the pill here's a fun online clip:

  

best watched on a mobile device while congesting a stretch of road. 

Sincerely

And they only edited out the youtube link stuff and the contentious info that Josie's commute is 1.3 miles or a 20 to 25 minute walk.

And the following week there were remarkably few letters spectacularly missing the point by asserting the need to drive of double amputees living 40 miles out in the sticks in isolated small-holdings.

Waning enthusiasm

A few reasons why I haven't been blogging lately.

Firstly, a letter to the Morpeth Herald got published, which rather took the righteous wind from my indignant sails; the raison d'etre of this blog being that the Herald is a supine mouthpiece for vested car-centrism, censoring alternative views in pursuit of a fawning, car-favouring agenda. Letter's here:

Sir,
with calls for 'free' parking a regular feature of your front page it might be even-handed of you to remind your readership that it costs to provide car parking.

How much it costs is moot. The Department for Transport in their “Essential Guide to Travel Planning” page 17, estimates the national average annual cost to the provider of a single car parking space to be around £400: “A study of 21 organisations with travel plans showed that their average annual spend on maintaining each space was £400”.

A Northumberland specific figure is more elusive. The total cost to the Council of providing free parking to car commuting staff county wide, divided by the number of spaces this gift comprises, would give us a reasonable yardstick. But the Council doesn't keep count. Even in times of eviscerating austerity this perk goes unaudited.

North Tyneside General Hospital does keep count. Actual and projected costs of providing their circa 1100 space car park for the five years 2004-9 give the average annual cost for a single space of £505.

Accepting £400 as a working figure, the Council's parking permit - access to all municipal car parks county wide, valid for a year, cost £110 (£82.50 concessionary) or £2.12 (£1.59) per week - represents an annual subsidy to the private motorist end-user of car parking in Morpeth of £290. Not enough?

Alternatively, we might take the cost of renting a wedge of central Morpeth hard standing for purposes other than storing heavy machinery, as our marker. The space required to park a single car would cost you circa £7,500 a year if instead you wanted to stand a market stall on it. You can park a car in central Morpeth for 68 years for what the same space would cost a stall holder for a year. The heart of even the most kvetching motorist must be warmed by being able to rent £7.5K worth of resource for £110.

Calls for 'free' parking are disingenuous. What's being demanded is that private motoring receive public subsidy, that non car users (which includes conscientious car owners who leave the car at home for journeys that allow active and sustainable alternatives) subsidise the habitual motorist, either through their Council Tax, through increased business rates manifesting as higher prices at the tills, or through cuts in public services.

Yours

Secondly, the week after this got an airing on their letters page, several column inches were given to reporting a local politician (Labour this time) raging against parking charges as a tax on motorists. So there seems no point contending with this sort of willed idiocy.

Finally, I'm not sure I'm very good at this. Consider:

We must undermine motorists’ current monopolisation of road space. We must fundamentally challenge motorists’ sense of entitlement to that space. We must pursue a radical programme of civilising motorised traffic. And if/where we’re not as a society prepared to do those things, we must build separate space for cycling.

Now I might, with a following wind, after a good night's sleep and a few livening micro-doses of EPO, be capable of writing something similar. But though sincere and strongly felt it would be in some sense hollow, would rest on emotion. For the author Dave Horton, whose excellent blog I urge you to follow, it's a conclusion that follows patient research, rigorous academic process, assiduous reflection, and is all the more persuasive for it.