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Anyone who tries to drive though Keighley frequently knows we have a congestion problem.
We Lib Dems want that problem to be tackled.
The problem is how to go about it. The closest thing we have to a professional is a guy
who has driven wagons across most of the country, from Penzance to Inverness. That gives
him a lot of practical experience of different traffic management systems around the UK, but
it doesn't make him a traffic planning professional.
The question is, do we propose a specific solution - subject to improvement by the professionals -
or do we just make the 'right noises'?
If we try to suggest a possible solution, open to whatever improvements the real professionals
can come up with (a one-way loop, similar to the Leeds Loop) there will be problems. For
the first thing, Leeds is as popular with Bradford as Bradford is with Keighley ... in other
words, it isn't!
If Leeds does something, Bradford doesn't want to.
The next issue is that all 'solutions' (ways to reduce the problems for most drivers) do add
problems for a few, maybe an important few, like police, ambulance and fire service vehicles.
How do we balance the day to day needs of ordinary drivers with those far more urgent needs of
people who've had a heart attack, or whose house is on fire?
We believe that a solution that benefits most drivers, most of the time, will also benefit most
people who need those emergency services. We believe that a traffic management system that
works better than now for ordinary motorists will also benefit most people who need 999
support. In every case there will be a few who are disadvantaged, but, "the greatest
good of the greatest number" still seems the best criterion. The current situation,
where both the average motorist and the emergency services suffer alike, just isn't good enough.
The other apparent conflict is between drivers and pedestrians. In fact, that isn't a big
issue. At the moment, the traffic lights for each junction and pelican crossing work
independently of each other. In consequence, when one set turns green, the next set often
turns red. With modern technology, they could be controlled centrally so that while
pedestrians get a regular opportuniy to cross, when one set of lights turns green, drivers can
be confident that the following ones will be green too.
(Actually, it seems that at least some of the technology is already in place. At the first
Traffic Advisory Panel meeting held by the Town Council, a senior Fire Service officer said that
the service can turn all the lights in the town centre in their favour, which means that central
control is already available, but it is only being used in emergencies.)
Of course, we can simply avoid details; merely challenge the authorities to come up with
something better than the current, inadequate situation.
The trouble with that is that it lays us wide open to a reply that, "We have looked at all the
options, but none of them work!"
We have heard that before...
We believe that Keighley needs a complete one-way loop road, so that all sections of it can do
without central pedestrian reservations, allowing two, or for most of the loop, three, sometimes
four, lanes of traffic. We believe that rat runs across the middle of the loop should be
closed to minimise the traffic needing to join the loop from the middle of town (think about
delays at both ends of Cavendish Street). We believe that, given the above, every important
junction with the loop road can be re-planned so that traffic entering or leaving the loop can
do so without having to cross the main loop traffic flow. We believe that co-ordinating
all the traffic lights around the loop can allow pedestrians to cross it, without throttling the
traffic flow as happens now.
We applaud the measures taken by the Town Council to solicit input from anyone affected: not
just the emergency services, but also the bus companies and private motorists.
We just want them to be adventurous enough to go far enough to back something that will
actually work.
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