96 people responded to our traffic survey. Thank you all. Of those, 89 live in the roads where we want to understand the issues that concern our residents and find solutions (these are Kitchener Road, Hobson Road, Manilla Road, Fashoda Road and Cecil Road). The results give us a good idea of the problems that concern the community and show that there isn't a simple answer. Read on to find the results of the survey and the next steps we plan to take.
What Issues Concerned You
The most significant issues you raised were traffic speed, irresponsible driving, traffic volume, parking and illegal left and right turns. Nearly 100% of you who replied thought speed, volume and irresponsible driving were issues. 92% of you thought parking was a problem and 85% thought illegal left and right turns were. Any solutions we propose must tackle as many of these as possible and if they can't be tackled, we can't make them worse.
They must also take into account that a majority of you have concerns with pedestrian facilities, cycle facilities and street furniture. We can't make these worse.
When do these issues occur?
The issues that relate to poor driving behaviours (speeding, illegal turning and irresponsible driving) are perceived as happening all the time. Parking is a mainly a night time problem and the traffic volume issues are mainly during rush hours.
Suggestions to solve problems
We asked you if you had any suggestions to solve the problems. As a number of you suggested more that one, we totalled the number of times a solution was mentioned. For the moving traffic problems there were two leading suggestions; close junctions so there is no through route (40% of you mentioned this) and speed bumps (38%). Greater enforcement was mentioned by 22% of you with all the other suggestions mentioned by less than 10%. There isn't a suggestion put forward by a majority and as such there isn't enough confidence to say that either option would be acceptable to the community as a whole.
For parking issues, only 18% of you suggested a solution, with parking permits being the preferred option (13%).
What happens next?
To make a recommendation we can take forward, we will:
Discuss the finding with the Council's Highways Team and Transport for West Midlands.
Starting with the with the most favoured suggestions, we will with their, and your help:
Agree the good points and bad points
Where there are bad points, see if there are ways these can be overcome e.g. combining with another suggested solution.
Agree which of the problems you raised they will tackle.
Find out an idea of the costs involved and whether there is a way to fund them.
See if they are feasible e.g. are they aligned with our Council's policies?
Hold a vote/survey to agree which is the solution most favoured by the community and that the majority of the community would rather implement it than do nothing.