| Topic: | Road closures | |
| Posted by: | Peter Evans | |
| Date/Time: | 16/06/20 03:23:00 |
| Less of the 'rat-running', please! All available roads are legitimate ways of getting from one place to another until the authorities decide that they aren't! If a lot of the undesirable traffic is being created by SatNav users, then local authorities should be allowed to register a 'road closure' or an inaccessible residential area on the SatNav algorithms without actually installing any closure in the ground. These new short term experimental initiatives to improve facilities for walking and cycling are supposed to be cheap and cheerful and quick to put in. Installing sophisticated and unproven ANPR systems doesn't seem to fit that remit in the same way as a temporary barrier and some bollards. In a French town we used to visit a lot, road closures outside schools were operated by volunteer parents in hi-vis jackets who put up a temporary barrier across the road on either side of the school and took it down again a few minutes later when all the children had safely come or gone. Everyone waited patently, including local residents whose children benefitted most, or people planned their journey to avoid it. It seems perverse and over complicated to programme ANPR cameras to allow selected residents to continue driving through, as I gather Hounslow is planning to do. |