I RECEIVED my hard copy of "Changes to travel and transportation in the city" at the weekend and was saddened and disappointed by its contents, but not surprised.

The questionnaire is biased towards those who walk or cycle (no questions for road haulage companies, delivery drivers, emergency services, taxi drivers, private car owners) and is simply an exercise in validating what Brighton and Hove City Council intends to do anyway.

As someone who has designed questionnaires and analysed their responses, some of the questions asked are ambiguous.

For example, "How satisfied are you with the facilities for cycling?". The response from a cyclist and a driver of any type of vehicle, private car to local tradesman, may be the same "very dissatisfied" but the meaning is very different. The cyclist wants more cycle lanes, the driver wants them removed.

I doubt the council’s analysis of the questionnaires will take this into account.

As to the idea of preventing right turns from and into Stapley Road and right turns into Olive Road, this is only to remove the congestion the council denies cycle lanes have created.

It will simply move the congestion to Boundary Road, where, because of the effect of the level crossing gates, vehicles are often unable to come out of the link road with queued-up traffic waiting to turn right blocking the one ahead lane, the link road itself suffering from heavy traffic as it is the approved route for HGVs to enter and leave Shoreham Port.

There will also be congestion at the Sackville Road junction, where again there is barely room for three vehicles to wait to turn right, so again the one straight ahead lane will be blocked.

What will be the route for HGVs wishing to deliver supplies to the Portland Road trading estates, or come to that the council's own refuse vehicles?

Over a year ago Mott MacDonald told the council the effect its "active travel plans" would have on pollution and congestion.

The council didn’t listen, as it won’t to the views expressed by respondents to the consultation, and  it is now having to carry out mitigating measures to a mess that is of its own making. 

Didn't the council ask Mott Mac Donald what the aggregate impact would be if all their schemes were implemented together?

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