Campaigners calling for more segregated cycle lanes in Brighton and Hove are looking to highlight the impact of pavement parking on road safety.
Brighton Active Transport plans to put its case to councillors on Friday (18 December), calling for wide safe pavements across the city.
The group has five minutes to speak in a deputation to a special meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee.
The virtual committee meeting is due to discuss five “active travel” schemes including new cycle lanes along the A270 Old Shoreham Road and A259 Kingsway.
Both proposals would extend the existing cycle lanes to the Portslade and Southwick boundary.
The other schemes involve a new cycle lane in Madeira Drive and the permanent upgrading of the temporary A23 cycle lane as well as changes to make Western Road more friendly for pedestrians and cyclists.
Councillors are expected to discuss how the council consults the public on spending more than £2 million of government money.
The deputation, led by Angela Devas, hopes to highlight issues with pavement parking and clutter which they believe makes it harder for people who re on foot or in a wheelchair.
Ms Devas said: “We want safe, direct routes for everyone who uses pavements and rides bicycles.
“Children, disabled people, elderly people, people with buggies and prams account for a large percentage of those who will benefit, as well as the city as a whole.
“For pavement users, we want to clear the clutter, removing all of the unnecessary objects that obstruct easy walking along the footway.
“The menace of pavement parking must be taken seriously because it’s dangerous and damaging.
“Brighton Active Travel has already responded to the government’s national consultation on pavement parking.
“Wider pavements will not only accommodate more users but also reduce the time people need to cross a road safely.”
She said that once people felt safe on the streets, they would be more likely to walk or cycle, adding: “Children who once played out will benefit when rat runs are plugged.
“A coherent and viable network of direct, safe and segregated cycling lanes will make all parts of the city – and beyond – accessible by bicycle.
“The more people who find active travel to be safe and attractive, the fewer will travel by car, freeing the roads for others, reducing congestion, increasing safety and making the city a better place for everybody.”
Tackling pavement parking is a long-running issue locally.
Since the start of December, problems have been reported to have increased in Moulsecoomb after the introduction of the Coombe Road controlled parking zone.
People living in Southall Avenue have taken to social media, sharing pictures of cars parked on verges and blocking footpaths.
Labour councillor Daniel Yates, who represents the area, said: “Selfish pavement parking creates a hazard for road and pavement users alike.
“It is on the increase unfortunately across the city and across my ward of Moulsecoomb and Bevendean.
“As a council, we need stronger powers to be able to enforce the protection of our pavements and ensure that all residents can move safely around the city.”
During the general election campaign a year ago, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, said that he was frustrated at the lack of progress on a bill outlawing car parking on pavements, saying that it had taken more than four years.
The special Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee meeting is due to start at 2pm on Friday and is scheduled to be webcast on the council website.
“The menace of pavement parking must be taken seriously because it’s dangerous and damaging.”
Well, how about dealing with the equally dangerous menace of cycling on pavements, while they are at it? Oh, I’m forgetting, of course, cyclists can do no wrong when it comes to our present council.
I think they can deal with pavement cycling with the new cycle lanes.
If one supposes people who cycle on the pavement do so because they don’t feel safe or able to cycle on the road amongst motor vehicles, then the cycle lanes should provide a place for these people segregated from people walking on the pavement and motor traffic on the road.
The Merc in the picture is parked in town on the pavement next to a double yellow line and is clearly dangerous and flouting the law. No sympathy there, the car should be towed.
Problems in Moulsecoomb & Bevendean are most likely down to the lack of available parking for the number of cars. A situation that is only going to get worse with the increase in population density. That’s why alternative transport needs to be provided through quality bus services and cycle routes etc and people need to embrace it.
“Problems in Moulsecoomb & Bevendean are most likely down to the lack of available parking for the number of cars.”
As noted in the article, the parking chaos is caused by the Coombe Road parking scheme kicking all of the commuter’s cars out there. No more free car parking from Bear Road to Natal Road now. But all of Brighton’s workers still need to park somewhere – so now it is Moulsecoomb and Bevendean who suffer.
Joke is I live inside the new parking scheme and now our streets are comically empty from cars.
As to the Merc in the photo – that should get a ticket as it is next to a double yellow line. Someone should tip off a warden.
Why is the number plate of the illegally-parked automobile whited out?
She said that once people felt safe on the streets, they would be more likely to walk or cycle, adding: “Children who once played out will benefit when rat runs are plugged….
This bit here….
Utter waffle.
since the farce that is their Valley Gardens Project began our once quiet residential street has become a nightmare of a rat run as people avoid the chaos that has ensued because of the council’s incompetence.
On putting the comments of many of the street’s residents to our local councilors we were met with the sort of attitude that basically said ‘We couldn’t give a stuff’. Not even a ‘We’ll look into it’. Npe. Nada. Absolutely zero s**ts given.
Hopeless. Hapless. Not fit for purpose.
Not sure why cycle lanes and pavement parking are being lumped together here, they are totally separate issues, (dispite what Brighton Active Transport claim). Pavement parking needs to stop and needs to be enforceable, it simply is not acceptable.
There’s some sleight of hand here.
All too often we find several separate issues are conflated into one – usually by lobbying groups.
Do we want cars parked on pavements? No. That’s straight forward enough. Fine them, get the traffic wardens out
Why are cars parked on pavements? Usually because the car owners are lazy, but also where there are no loading bays. (Do we still want loading bays outside shops and other businesses – yes where possible we do. Those bays are already overseen by traffic wardens.)
In residential areas, cars are parked on pavements and on grass verges because there is not enough parking space for the numbers of cars owned in that area. It is true that the only solution to this latter problem is make public transport work better for those areas. However, if there’s not enough room for parked cars in the area it’s also unlikely there’s room for a new cycle lane.
Do we also want to see more people using bikes and other self-propelled forms of transport? Yes we do.
Do we like cycle lanes? Yes we do, because they make cycling more safe and, in theory, they encourage bike use.
But where will these cycle lanes and cycle routes go? And that is where the problem lies.
The best cycle routes are those which take bikes away from all other road traffic. In city centres, the only way to create a cycle route is often to close road space in favour of cyclists – and at that point it’s important to consider the wider needs of all.
We still need cross city roads and free-running bus routes and so sacrificing road space on key routes like the A259 in favour of a duplicated cycle lane is not the answer.
It’s one thing to think about going for a lovely bike ride with your family, and another to be a commuter in a car trying to get to work along a congested road when you have no other way of getting there.
It’s important to understand there are several sides to traffic flow arguments, and all need to be considered.
If you look at the road clutter and chaos the current administration have added to Madeira Drive and to the seafront road from the Palace Pier roundabout to Hove, we can only hope they won’t make the same mistakes again.
As a cyclist, I can also recommend the existing south coast cycle route which will take you from Brighton to Worthing – without any need to join the A259.
Widening pavements in Western Road? Is this like what they did in North Street? Where they widened the pavements, removed the bus stops, forced buses to stop in the road… and created one of the most polluted streets in the country. And there isn’t even any cars to blame on that road.
Traffic wardens can’t enforce pavement parking, it’s only the police that can ticket offenders. One option in the government’s proposed change in legislation would give wardens the power to do it – this is what’s happening in Wales.