letter to the Standard, 30/6/09
Sep. 27th, 2017 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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colchesterfoeStandard Letters.
Let's get the terminology right as well as the right solution to the High Street! A Carfree High Street, not 'pedestrianised' or 'trafficfree'.
Dear Editor,
Let's get the terminology right as well as the right solution to the High Street please! The Standard article last week title suggested 'a traffic-free town centre' and said 'a project to partially pedestrianise Colchester High Street is being actively investigated'. We hope not!
Cllr Lyn Barton was quoted "We are actively looking at pedestrianisation of High Street" but that taxis and buses "would be allowed in to let the transport system work". Indeed we would certainly hope so! That isn't pedestrianisation, that is a 'Carfree High Street'.
She said "Nothing has been done for 20 years". That is nonsense. A traffic survey showed 95% of cars using the High Street were just making a short cut from one side of the town to the other. The Carfree High Street was planned. A survey showed 52% of Colchester residents supported a Carfree High Street.
It was narrowed to one lane a decade ago to limit the traffic using the High Street, ready for banning private cars using it. This gave pedestrians priority and safe crossings. We have been campaigning for the 'Carfree High Street' to be completed ever since.
Taxi-driver Kim Naish said "We are just proposing to close off High Street .. There is really no need for traffic to go down the High Street". Pardon? I hope he doesn't mean that! Traffic includes buses which have to use the High Street, whereas private cars do not.
Cllr Naish said "Chelmsford and Ipswich have got pedestrianised high streets and shopping centres". But their topography is different from ours, and they have both got central bus stations with all bus routes running through and into the middle of their towns.
Colchester is quite different from the other two towns. We are on a steep hill, bounded by Cowdray Avenue, the river, our Castle Park and two polluting dual carriageways for car traffic and lorries, which cut through close to the heart of the town like modern castle walls.
Colchester has had a daytime pedestrianised town centre for many years from Culver Street to Eld Lane, Trinity Street and Sir Isaacs Walk, with private shopping centres at Lion Walk and Culver Square.
We are also surrounded by far more large villages and towns as well as huge council estates which need bus access into the town centre from all directions, bringing people in to work, to shop, to schools and colleges and - traders, don't forget - spend their money!
I know people who rely solely on their cars, have never caught a bus and don't come into the town at all - it is a revelation to them what is in the High Street! But more people are using the buses now, which will cut traffic, pollution and, vitally, climate change gases.
Essex transport department reported that instead of Essex traffic rising by 2% annually it dropped over the last couple of years and bus use has increased by 10 per cent. Peak hour traffic into Colchester town centre has dropped too. Now is the time for change.
Yours sincerely,
Paula Whitney, Co-ordinator,
Colchester Friends of the Earth,
4 Shears Crescent, West Mersea.
Let's get the terminology right as well as the right solution to the High Street! A Carfree High Street, not 'pedestrianised' or 'trafficfree'.
Dear Editor,
Let's get the terminology right as well as the right solution to the High Street please! The Standard article last week title suggested 'a traffic-free town centre' and said 'a project to partially pedestrianise Colchester High Street is being actively investigated'. We hope not!
Cllr Lyn Barton was quoted "We are actively looking at pedestrianisation of High Street" but that taxis and buses "would be allowed in to let the transport system work". Indeed we would certainly hope so! That isn't pedestrianisation, that is a 'Carfree High Street'.
She said "Nothing has been done for 20 years". That is nonsense. A traffic survey showed 95% of cars using the High Street were just making a short cut from one side of the town to the other. The Carfree High Street was planned. A survey showed 52% of Colchester residents supported a Carfree High Street.
It was narrowed to one lane a decade ago to limit the traffic using the High Street, ready for banning private cars using it. This gave pedestrians priority and safe crossings. We have been campaigning for the 'Carfree High Street' to be completed ever since.
Taxi-driver Kim Naish said "We are just proposing to close off High Street .. There is really no need for traffic to go down the High Street". Pardon? I hope he doesn't mean that! Traffic includes buses which have to use the High Street, whereas private cars do not.
Cllr Naish said "Chelmsford and Ipswich have got pedestrianised high streets and shopping centres". But their topography is different from ours, and they have both got central bus stations with all bus routes running through and into the middle of their towns.
Colchester is quite different from the other two towns. We are on a steep hill, bounded by Cowdray Avenue, the river, our Castle Park and two polluting dual carriageways for car traffic and lorries, which cut through close to the heart of the town like modern castle walls.
Colchester has had a daytime pedestrianised town centre for many years from Culver Street to Eld Lane, Trinity Street and Sir Isaacs Walk, with private shopping centres at Lion Walk and Culver Square.
We are also surrounded by far more large villages and towns as well as huge council estates which need bus access into the town centre from all directions, bringing people in to work, to shop, to schools and colleges and - traders, don't forget - spend their money!
I know people who rely solely on their cars, have never caught a bus and don't come into the town at all - it is a revelation to them what is in the High Street! But more people are using the buses now, which will cut traffic, pollution and, vitally, climate change gases.
Essex transport department reported that instead of Essex traffic rising by 2% annually it dropped over the last couple of years and bus use has increased by 10 per cent. Peak hour traffic into Colchester town centre has dropped too. Now is the time for change.
Yours sincerely,
Paula Whitney, Co-ordinator,
Colchester Friends of the Earth,
4 Shears Crescent, West Mersea.
