Every single one of us has a local councillor. Councillors are our means of instigating change in our own neighbourhoods, so when we tell them about our concerns they put them forward for further investigation. The Council has recently published a mammoth 155 pages of those concerns that were raised by people like you during the previous year.
Transport Projects have investigated Road Safety issues throughout Cardiff by carrying out a series of Area Studies. The investigations have taken into account new issues raised by Councillors and members of the Public, along with existing issues and areas of concern –via Cardiff Council – Transport Projects Investigations
What is striking about this report is just how many of the concerns are attributed to speed. Right across Cardiff, in all sorts of neighbourhoods people are concerned about speeding traffic and obstructive parking.
What is also quite striking is the somewhat callous attitude the council has towards these concerns. A decision to do nothing appears to be based on little more than body count. If nobody has been killed or seriously injured on a stretch of road yet, nothing will be done. Never mind that people aren’t prepared to wait until their child or relative becomes a KSI statistic, unless someone has left that street in an ambulance it’ll be deemed an “area of concern” at best.
However, there is one positive we can take from this, albeit a small one. The “smart bridge” linking Pellet Street with Tyndall Street currently leads you to a pavement, not a shared path. However, there is no dropped kerb to facilitate rejoining the road. This is apparently being looked at (ref 74221).
20 really is plenty
If the Council is serious about being a leading “liveable city” it really needs to start taking these concerns seriously. We know that funding is in short supply, but many of these concerns could be addressed quickly and cheaply with a blanket 20mph limit on all of Cardiff’s residential streets.
We all need to make sure councillors are aware of our concerns and our desires for our own neighbourhoods. You can find your councillor using the search tool on the council website. Most of them are on social media, particularly twitter, so it need not be an arduous process to get your thoughts across.
Nobody should be forced to put up with speeding cars outside their house. If there is a home that is near a road, that road should be 20mph. People shouldn’t have to fear going beyond their own doorstep, even if nobody has been killed or injured there yet.
As cyclists we also benefit by having the traffic move at something closer to our pace, rather than theirs.
It’s a bit of a no-brainer, isn’t it.
Cardiff By Bike 
If money-in-short-supply is the reason for the Council’s drawn out 20mph plans ( a few more wards by 2023), why don’t you point to 20splentyforus website, with the case for it being much cheaper (and faster) to establish a 20mph zone city-wide. Edinburgh is doing it, so why do Ramesh Patel and Chris Weaver choose the slow and expensive course of ward-by-ward zones? Could it be they are really only interested in cudos, not actually doing anything to rile the motorists? Certainly they show no sign of mounting a campaign to win the essential public support. Nor does your calling the 20mph choice a “no brainer”.
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