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Speed bumps which stretch across the entire carriageway vary in size, construction, annoyance, damage they cause to motorcars and approach speeds required to minimise the detrimental effect they cause to drivers, passengers and vehicles. Sometimes the approach speed has to be reduced from 30 mph (as allowed by law) to less than 18 mph. There are several types of council created carriageway obstacles including cushions, tables and the notorious full carriageway width lumps of tarmac inexpertly dumped on the road and left in situ as a permanent reminder of the council's inability to provide a proper, professional and good standard of highways design, construction and maintenance. (a) Why does the council's Highways Department permit full carriageway width bumps on bus routes despite it being contrary to the Highways Department's own standards as assured by senior Highways Department officials? (b) Why does the council's Highways Department continually fail to ensure all full carriageway width bumps are uniform in construction? (c) Why does the council's Highways Department fail to carry out accurate measurement of constructed full carriageway width bumps to ensure they comply with the regulations? (d) How many measurement surveys have been carried out by the Highways Department itself, and not by contractors or employees of the council's privatised Highways Department responsibilities, on full carriageway width humps since 1 January 2000? (e) What were the results of (d)? (f) What machinery or apparatus were used in (d)? (a) I am unsure where the Councillor is referring to when he describes full-carriageway tarmac traffic calming. However, full and comprehensive consultation (which includes the emergency services and the bus companies) is always under-taken before proceeding with any traffic-calming scheme. Any full width humps that may still exist on bus routes are historic and are now being reviewed and, where appropriate, being changed to remove discomfort for buses. Cippenham traffic calming provides a good example where, through negotiations, a number of measures were either removed or toned down following bus company concerns regarding service impact. (b) Profile of ramps can vary however DfT lay down criteria and tolerances and as far as I am aware these have been met. (c) If the Councillor points out the particular locations where he perceives traffic calming to require amendment, and actual measures which he believes will help minimize the height and scale of older traffic calming schemes, officers will be happy to take a look. (d) As they met the criteria at the time of construction, no subsequent checks would have been made to older schemes, apart from the Borough wide review of traffic calming scheme effectiveness currently in progress. (e) N/A (f) N/A |