The Conservatives in Reading are promising that the council will be empowered to tackle inconsiderate parking on pavements and cycle paths if they retain control after the May elections. Labour previously insisted on a delay to the implementation of the scheme and another round of consultation and for all streets where there isn’t adequate off-street parking to be exempted. They defined ‘adaquate’ as meaning that “all households within the road having off-street parking for one or more vehicles – and the road is not wide enough to allow vehicles to park on either or both sides of the street without obstructing the road“. If that was the case the I guess a pavement parking ban wouldn’t be needed!
I certainly find it strange to see the Conservatives batting on behalf of the pedestrians an Labour opposing. They are also promising to a ‘London-style’ cycle hire scheme, more 20 mph speed zones where there is local support and for the removal of unnecessary traffic lights. Before you assume that removing traffic lights will always be bad for pedestrians, do check out this video. Very surprising results although not everyone was happy. In my town they removed a set of traffic lights with good results as well.
Pedestrian Liberation 
The council removed a great many of the traffic lights in Leighton Buzzard BUT they also added more Zebra crossings and reduced the speed limit to 20mph. This was after the response to the public consultation.
I forgot to mention that the conservatives are also promising more 20 mph speed zones where they have local support. I will now adjust the post to mention this.
Very interesting video. I’m coming round more and more to the idea of shared roads. I thought it a stupid, unworkable idea at first but it does appear to work. The attitude of far too many motorists is that the roads (including pavements) are there for their benefit only and any other users are secondary. Shared roads appear to offer an alternative and could be the way forward especially for residential roads.
In the meantime, if the roads and pavements are to be kept separate then local authorities need to bit the bullet and start hitting motorists in the wallet for being such selfish and inconsiderate people. The Labour position in Reading is mad and legitamises illegal, inconsiderate behaviour.
Just how many times does it have to be said, if the road is not wide enough to allow other vehicles to pass when vehicles are parked in it, then those vehicles have no right to park in that road.
I wouldn’t say the roads in Leighton Buzzard are shared. Just try cycling on them. However, the cars do usually stop at Zebras. Whilst there are speed bunmps it is the Zebra crossings that actually slow the traffic down
And vehicles parked correctly on the road. I’m always having this argument with people who want traffic to slow down in residential streets and then park on the pavement. If there are more vehicles parked on the road, the road is narrower and traffic slows down. No need for money to be spent on speed bumps, chicanes etc.
What you’re seeing is the novelty factor of traffic lights being turned off for a short period and no-one knowing quite what they ought to do. However, try it for longer and you simply see “might is right” return to the roads. Traffic lights were invented for very good reasons.
Here in the Netherlands, there are quite a few “shared spaces”. Initially this seemed to work, but now they are quite unpleasant, and so far as I’m aware there are no new ones planned.
Shared Spaces are not popular, and the problems caused by them spread far beyond the borders of the shared spaces themselves: Drivers and cyclists alike try to find routes which don’t go through the shared space area, causing rat-running in a country which normally doesn’t have that problem. The only incident of road rage I’ve experienced in four years of living here happened on a street which has been made into a rat-run by a shared space. That it should happen here was no surprise as it’s actually the only place that I ever go where this could have happened.
Why don’t people in Britain pick up on the things that work in the Netherlands, instead of this ?