The Rownhams services issue came to light earlier in the year when I, as many other people, was reporting local dangerous junctions to The Times for their "cyclesafe" campaign. At the location depicted above I discovered on "Crash Map" a little cluster of markers each representing an injured cyclist attended to by police. Initially I was confused: I occasionally choose to cycle Rownhams Lane because it has a reasonable quality pavement-style cycle path. Really fairly safe: I'd let my kids use it. Why so many accidents reported in one place? This is not a busy urban interchange -- satellite images show a T-junction with an access road leading to a small car park and delivery bay. There should only be a tiny volume of traffic that is not a significant hazard to anyone. I was particularly concerned that two injuries were to children who, it would appear from the dates and times of the separate incidents, were cycling to school.
I then looked at "FixMyStreet" - a service where local people can publicise and report problems to their local councils. Several other users of the Rownhams Lane cyclepath had reported and commented on a perennial issue: illegal through traffic using the motorway service area to access and egress the M27. On a subsequent car journey a cry of "need a wee" brought us to the very same service area where I noticed a lot of traffic exiting the motorway via the access road.
If there had been no illegal through traffic using the motorway service area then the volume of turning traffic would have been tiny and the recorded cycle injuries most likely would not have occurred. A little background reading brought further information: Roadchef operates the motorway service area under license from the Highways Agency and has an obligation to prevent illicit through traffic.
If there had been no illegal through traffic using the motorway service area then the volume of turning traffic would have been tiny and the recorded cycle injuries most likely would not have occurred. A little background reading brought further information: Roadchef operates the motorway service area under license from the Highways Agency and has an obligation to prevent illicit through traffic.
It is unusual that there is an obvious and easy way to eliminate an injury black spot. To discover that the traffic hazard is down to continuing failure by a large company to meet its obligations makes this a cause worth chasing.
A few emails later and I discovered multiple other individuals were several steps ahead of me and had reported this problem to the local councils and to Roadchef. Apparently the local parish council was also concerned about ratrunning traffic. I learnt there was a history of vandalism by "local youths" to the automatic barriers intended to prevent through traffic.
To my mind, blaming vandals is rather like blaming the rain, or leaves on the line. It would not be acceptable for me to protest a MOT failure because vandals smashed my car's rear lights. It would be even less acceptable to drive off claiming that there is no point replacing the lights because they'd only be attacked again.
I heard that the parish council had been meeting with local Roadchef staff to discuss the issue. At risk of becoming cynical and disrespecting those involved, I imagined the councillors being invited for free Costa coffee and cake and a convivial chat with reassurances that something will eventually be done.
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| What cyclists had in mind (photo source) |
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| What HCC gave them: = = = = and triangle |
I've already spent too long pursuing this issue so am going to take a back seat and let the appropriate people get on with their jobs now that they've had a "heads up". Right now there is huge interest in cycle safety largely thanks to The Times. Indeed Chris Boardman was on BBC TV and radio this morning speaking on this exact issue. Compared against our European neighbours, the UK has an appalling record both in terms of inactivity-related bad health and the safety of people getting around by foot or on a bicycle. Mainstream journalists might see a headline along the lines of "Roadchef vs injured children". And if I can observe non-stop illegal traffic weaving its way through a disembarking coach party of elderly people at the service area, so can a newspaper or consumer-rights TV camera crew.
"Cyclestrian" is obviously a pen name: I'm an anonymous Hampshire resident. I want my family and others to be able to feel safe on great infrastructure as they get around locally by bike and on foot. I also drive a car and I even sometimes buy coffee at this very same Roadchef franchise.
It seems to me all Roadchef need to do is replace the barrier with an automated raising bollard which could stand up to "local youths" vandalism attempts. Although, perhaps the extra through-flow is good for business...
ReplyDeleteI think the vandalism was to the keypad access control unit. It would only take a [...redacted...] to render it inoperable. Raising bollard would still need some form of control unit. I have my suspicions that the vandals weren't local pedestrians but motorists missing their short cut. Better solution might be number-plate recognition or RFID contactless keys.
DeleteWas there not a "Captain Gatso" who went around vandalising speed cameras, who smehow was never caught? He seemed to have gone on holiday, though perhaps that was just while various county councils had suspended their cameras, which suspensions now seem to be progressively ending as said councils realise that accidents have greatly increased as a result.
ReplyDeleteWe seem to have a similar problem, on a rather different scale, around here with those "local youths". A BOAT (byway open to all traffic) on Hindhead Common was closed for a period of some months to allow it to recover from the serous damage being done by the off-roaders who were chewing it up. A set of fairly beefy galvanised steel gates were erected by the National Trust across the entrances, but somehow they seemed to suffer sserious collisions which bent them all out of shape and lo and behold, the 4x4s were back, despite the clearly displayed prohibition orders posted nearby.
The unauthorised use of the route, like the Rownhams rat-run, might be a misdemeanor, as the Yanks would say, but the damage to the access controls is a felony.
Could someone suggest to Roadchef/HA that they instal a good solid steel barrier, with a good solid brass padlock? You can buy padlocks with multiple duplicate keys. You can even buy them with type of keys which can only be duplicated at the manufacturers with an authorisation password. The keys cost about a tenner each. There can't be that many people who would need one.
Obviously accidents are in no-one's interests but I felt I should clear a few things up about the campaign:
ReplyDeleteFirstly, the services are under no real obligation (other than being a friendly neighbour) to block off the road. The road is about 20 years older than the Highways Agency, so the only way such an obligation could be enforced would be if a new development was proposed (the recent addition of the McDonald's having been a good opportunity) which it was feared would make the problem worse.
Ironically, one rule which the Highways Agency have retrospectively applied is that the services are not allowed to create additional motorway traffic - so anyone whose job involves visiting the services must come through the barrier.
Secondly, the idea of giving way to the cycle path was never going to work because it is quite unprecedented in the UK. It's a great idea but motorists don't know how to use it and councils don't know how to design it. Accidents will ensue.
Curiously the rat-running at Rownhams is minor compared to just about every other service station in the country. This is mainly because the exit doesn't really serve anywhere that can't be better accessed via the M271. So the only people who will use it illegitimately are local residents - who presumably are the very people whose children cycle to school here. Assuming you are local, the very people you are fighting are your neighbours.
Johnathan:
ReplyDeleteRoadchef do have an obligation to stop traffic entering the motorway via the rear access road. The Highways Agency have confirmed this. Additionally there is the issue of negligence through creating extra traffic that is a danger to service area users and people on Rownhams Lane.
At rush hour, rat running is not minor, and it's not entirely local. If you want to drive, for example, from Romsey to Portsmouth, you will often have to queue to join at junction 3. Hit some back roads, residential streets and the rear access road gets you onto the M27 a few minutes faster. There are a few other local areas that are well served by "junction 3A", especially at times of peak traffic.
To add to the above comment: cyclepath users are not local either. Many commuters travel between Romsey and Southampton, for example. Leisure cyclists take this route heading out of the city to the Wiltshire plains or the South Downs (look at Strava). Johnathan's probably right though that child commuters are local.
ReplyDeleteTo you point, you could argue that the services ARE creating additional motorway traffic due to those joining and leaving the M27 via the access road that might otherwise have used another route.
You seem reasonably knowledgeable, Johnathan: do you know why Toadchef can't just semi-permanently obstruct this access? Is there an actual, legal requirement to provide emergency vehicle access?
On the issue of cyclepath priority: it is reasonably new to the UK but now that Boris Johnson has committed to "go Dutch", we will see a lot more of this style of infrastructure in our towns and cities. With the right engineering: pavement levels, signs and markings - the priority can be adequately communicated even to the doziest of British drivers.
Fair points. It might not be as local as I made out but it certainly doesn't have as many lorries looking to avoid queues as the ones on the M6 and M25.
ReplyDeleteIf the Highways Agency think they have already obliged Roadchef to shut the road off, they're wrong - they don't have the policies in place. I wasn't going to have a 'battle of policy knowledge', but in short any service station built before 1992 has its design and activies regulated by the local planning system. At the time (early 1970s I believe), goodwill and consideration were the norm, and the exit issue was never even considered - and unless I am mistaken, that has never been rectified.
Even if they had policy on their side, the only authority they have is to remove the 'proper' exit to the services - and in other places they have already said they wouldn't be prepared to do that.
An example of where policy is on their side, is that in circa 1992 the land changed hands and a regulation was put in place that any works traffic (deliveries, etc) must come and leave by the side road. Again, if this rule was being broken, they have next to know authority to do anything about it. There's no reason why they can't permanently disconnect the side roads from the main car park (indeed, this is how the Highways Agency instruct new services to be designed), but there's no motive for Roadchef to do this.
If there were to be an investigation in to an incident, the fact that Roadchef closed the road off may be considered as a factor with a view to pursueing them for neglicance. Unlikely, but theoretically possible.
(I am formally connected with none of the authorities here but have worked with all of them.)
As for the scale of the problem, you'll have to take my word for it as a high mileage driver: there are much, much busier ones out there - there's one on the M2 where so many people use the 'illegal' exit that it was remarked to give it priority over the 'legal exit'.
This is another issue all together, but going Dutch will never work in London because it's too tight and busy to do the job properly - just look at the flop that was the cyclehighway things. It's possible to do this here, you just need someone with the political backbone to withstand the short-term costs and death rise.
Best of luck with your campaign, but I think we all know that after some success things will queitly go back to how they are (c.f. every other service station, where local residents have the same fight).
Forgot to say, if you really want to dig in to it, I'm sure in around 2002 Roadchef wanted to build a motel on the grass at the back of the northern building. Test Valley council (I believe it's them) said this can only happen if they agreed to regulate the use of the side road (which would have plugged straight in to it): they went on to list exactly who could use which entrance and exit.
ReplyDeleteThe project didn't go ahead, so Roadchef have got out of that agreement as well.
Perhaps the Highways Agency can fix the barrier to military standards and then send Roadchef the bill.
ReplyDeleteThe council have agreed to remove the give-way lines they painted on the cycle-path. I challenged them to explain to me why they had painted them there. They had absolutely nothing recorded as to why they were put down.
ReplyDeleteThe have also offered "if it is possible" to add a STOP line to the service road to prevent vehicles encroaching on the cycle lane without stopping first to ensure it's clear.
Hopefully this will alleviate the problem slightly.
I dont see the problem causes of accidents are a number of things not what road people are using no different to someone parking on double yellows and dont tell me any of you dont do anything wrong !!
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