Proposed letter to Arrive alive (content will change before sending )

Essi Ahari
Manager, Arrive Alive
North Wales Casualty Reduction Partnership

25/05/2007

Refs: HUGH01049/01070361
SCFL26.2

Dear Essi,
I have received a copy of your letter to Carl Sargeant AM with regards my complaint (and speaking for other Chester Rd residents) about speeding traffic in Chester Road, Penyffordd.
My main concern is safety and road noise and keeping Chester Road as part of a village environment and not the preferred speeding route for 900,000 outsiders each year.

Hugh Jones (SRO) informed me that we now qualify because his monitor registered Chester Rd because we have an 85th percentile of 32 mph.
Vounog Hill, Penyffordd has an 85th percentile of 39 mph so I presume merits more attention
as do most the other sites mentioned on your web.
( http://www.arrivealive.org.uk/comconcern/)
Chester Road gets the rat run speeders from both Vounog and Corwen Rd.
Hugh placed his instrument in a good place to show the endemic speeding that goes on most mornings, lunchtimes and evenings in Penyffordd. Chester Rd.

There is however a corrupting factor which is the Penymynydd Rd exit into Chester Rd. Most vehicles that exit Penymynydd Rd into Chester Rd and travel towards Broughton will be in 2nd gear when passing the monitor. Our 85 percentile should be 40 plus. There are a large number of Penymynydd / Penyffordd households that use the Chester Rd as an exit to Broughton as Penymynydd Roundabout is a "no no" 8-30 - 9.00 am due to queues. The bottom line being we get all the speeders from the Vounog and Corwen Rd and scrape through on the qualifying figures because large amounts of residents from the Wellhouse Estate and the estate below
water the figures downwards..
Your qualifying system is highly unfair. Averages are useless. The number of vehicles breaking the speed limit their actual speed are the figures that matter. The watering down of the figures with below limit vehicle speeds and naming it as some really fancy technical term such as percentile is unfair to residents in villages.

Whilst still on percentiles. Trelawnyd and Chester Rd have the same percentile of 32mph. Chester Rd is a wide open road, Trelawnyd is narrow has a blind bend in the middle that has parked cars. Doing 60 mph plus on Chester Rd is easy, doing 50 mph in the middle of Trelawnyd verges on suicidal, yet they have the same figure.

The percentile figure shows no true grasp of the situation at all, the figure just obsfucates, just as that word does. :)

Each day we have approximately 2000 plus speeding cars through Chester Rd from 5.30 - 9.00 am, 12.00am - 2.00pm and the home rat run 16.00 18.30 pm with many hundreds of speeders in between and after. Chester Road Penyffordd is open season.
The pass through figures may double with UDP and Warren Hall to 2.1 million cars through Chester Rd within 5 years.

So far Arrive Alive have been to Chester Rd about 3 times. High profile with fluorescents, they have caught 2 stupid delivery people who must have been blind. My personal survey carried out between 7. 16 and 9.00 am on the morning of the meeting registered the following.
Results
Totals for Going Out of the village (Up Chester Rd) for 104 minutes (Wednesday 2nd May between 7.16 and 9.00am)
Perceived over 30 mph = 329 vehicles
Perceived under 30 mph = 93 vehicles
Total going out of village = 422
My figures are a good representation of the speeds on the day, I can estimate a cars speed by sight or road noise.

The meeting with Hugh, Charles Hughes (Head of Engineering) plus an asscociate and councillors was in hindsite a disappointment. It would have been better if the chairman of the meeting had had some scientific calming methods in front of him. I had the information but I'm just a little busy body for whom he has little time. He sits in his Cul de Sac, me I witness this daily insult on our village first hand

The Driver Awareness so far is of no use to the 400 odd vehicles that have been speeding through Chester from 5. 30 - 9.00 am or to the other 2000 speeding cars that pass through Chester Rd after they have left.
Nor I think will it be ever be an efficient use of your employees and the Police time
It does however look good in the paper. It is however just a token.

The rumble strips are a cheap token unless built to the height of the rumble strips on entry to Llandulas from Abergele.

A permanent Pro active sign for both directions in Chester Rd might help.

A raised platform outside the Post Office would help, a look at removing double yellows outside Post Office too.

Making outside the Post Office a long single lane would help (visit Cefn Mawr)

The total removal of lorries in the village except for access should be a necessity.

Making Penyffordd ONE WAY. Exits via Chester Rd, Corwen Rd, Hawarden Rd and Wrexham Rd. Entry via the middle of the By-Pass at Hawarden Rd. Through Traffic gone in an instant. Flint Town has a one way Trunk Rd, why not us?

These idiots only respond to 2 controls. Points on license and an inability of their vehicle to go faster than 30 mph without wrecking it.

In the end though the idiots speed through here 18 hours a day so the ultimate method of calming has to be mechanical road calming.

Raised Platforms are recognised as The Standard for Traffic Calming.
Most other Counties excepting Flintshire have adopted 20 mph compulsory zones, why not us in Flintshire. Chester Rd is on the school route for Children, OAP's and the horse route.

Your last comment hopes to reassure me (Through Carl Sargeant) that steps are being taken to address the issue of speeding traffic in Chester Road, Penyffordd. Sadly you have not even scratched the surface.
Penyffordd rushes on into the 21 st century ignorant that Chester Road is the second by pass for Penyffordd. A Rat Run for Airbus, Raytheon employees and workers in the Chester Area. Looking forward to 1.5 million unwelcome visitors a year. I leave you with the following. Flintshire County Council is neglecting this village entirely under the provisions of Local Government Act 2000 with regards to our environment. We have 2000 daily speeders through Penyffordd.

Note Discuss Arrivalive Road signs and Northop
Note Discuss Number of vans
Note Discuss Arrive Alive Finances
Discuss Human Rights
Discuss Terrace Lane

Your sincerely

Colin


Colin Hughes

tresmegistes@gmail.com

http://penyffordd-district.blogspot.com/




ps I would wish for a copy of the 5 day traffic data that was collected prior to the meeting which Hugh Jones attended at The Institute.