No doubt some traffic planners are congratulating themselves but this is seriously insane.
(French website, but the video doesn't need translation!)
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
School run, American style
(14 posts)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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Worth translating for a bit of context...
"Unionville Elementary School in Monroe, North Carolina has a problem. It is in a very eccentric rural areas. 700 children go to this school every morning. And some live more than 20 km from the school. Parents are forced to take their car to drop off their children at school. But the influx morning car causes traffic jams. The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) conducted a test to try improve traffic flow. They asked the parents not to park in the parking lot and forced them to drop their children to school. For the occasion, there were two ways to get to the entrance of the school. The parking lot was used to form an S with car lines in one direction. But as you can see in the video, the result was a failure. They eventually abandoned the idea."
Posted 8 years ago # -
The advantage they have in the continental USA is that the drone from which the video was filmed probably wasn't equipped with rockets or bombs.
Posted 8 years ago # -
If only they'd put some footpaths (sidewalks) in beside those roads.
The less bone-idle would have been able to drop-off further out and walk the last few hundred metres in, thereby avoiding the queues.
Posted 8 years ago # -
We may laugh but this is pretty much what Edinburgh Airport drop-off point looks like. I imagine the new Edinburgh Waverley taxi pick-up point will look similar too once it's operational.
Posted 8 years ago # -
And now Welsh style. Facepalm on so many levels.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@IWRATS Is that an official Sustrans route?
Posted 8 years ago # -
@dougal
No mate, that's the Bodmin Vision.
Posted 8 years ago # -
We have a similar issue around us and I have a lot of sympathy with parents who don't want their kids walking 2 or 3 miles on unsuitable routes (e.g. along busy B-roads with no footpath). Most of them would be happy to have them cycle as long as it's off the road. Maybe if the councils had to pay for transport unless the route was judged suitable for an accompanied 5-year-old or unaccompanied 12-year-old (the metric by which Sustrans NCN routes are supposed to be judged) then the balance might tip in favour of building paths. Three miles on foot takes up to an hour - that's a huge chunk out of a parent's day if they can't use a bike
Posted 8 years ago # -
£3.50 a day is somewhat excessive though, a smallish modern car would cost a third of that even on a short run like that.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Three miles on foot takes up to an hour
Indeed, so it's four hours out of each school day for a farmer, which is unreasonable. A child who can't get to school on their own, which is unreasonable. Our state paying petrol money to a private individual, which is unreasonable. The state asking a young girl to plough through mud in the dark, which is unreasonable.
Back in the day she could have walked along the lanes, but not now because we gave them over to motor traffic.
Posted 8 years ago # -
The lady who lives down the road from us (who has lived on the same farm all her 80+ years) remembers cycling into Dumfries (7 miles) to the Academy rain or shine (and back again, which is considerably uphill on presumably a bike with minimal gears). If it was icy they walked approximately 2 miles to get a bus. But much much less traffic then - she tells me she wouldn't do it now, and doesn't even like driving it.
Kids here who are eligible for transport and not on a bus route would get a taxi rather than the parent being directly subsidised. I assume that way the run can be potentially shared
Posted 8 years ago # -
@steveo. Yes, it's 20% more than the HMRC approved business mileage rate, and therefore I assume more than the council would be paying for their own staff to drive around.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Unionville is a fast-growing suburban town in Union County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 8,117 at the 2010 census.
There were 1,670 households out of which 44.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them.
By American standards its per capita and median incomes are slightly above average. By North Carolina standards it's top 1/3.
Posted 8 years ago #
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