Save the St Mary Street road system

Call is made to shelve St Mary Street road system
A TORY councillor has called for the controversial traffic shake-up in Cardiff’s St Mary Street to be shelved until after the St David’s 2 development is complete.more

Lets control the petrol heads and give a voice to others like pedestrians, envoironmentalists, the elderly and disabled people.

City Hall protest - Elgan we came to support you!

A few turned out (see above) but I fear they were drowned out by the schools protests and insole court protest. In the end Elgan resigned rather than sit through an hours character assassination so the motion was withdrawn. Labour did raise the issue of reopening Wood St/St Mary's to private vehicles immediately following the vote a few months ago however. Senior Officers advise against it on safety grounds so that looks set to be the 'battle' for the next few months."

Improve cycling for commuters in Cardiff, keep Bute Park open later
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/butepark/

vote to support St Mary street Pedestranisation!!!

Well have you ever heard of a scheme to pedestranise not being successful? However the echo has a question- has st mary st pedestranisation been a sucess? YES

Give us a chance ....hardly finished yet!

ring to say YES 08716 930013
facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17842248648

Traffic trial’s cost is £580k – so far

Dec 10 2007 by Phillip Nifield, South Wales Echo

TAX-PAYERS have forked out almost £600,000 on the controversial trial traffic shake-up in Cardiff’s St Mary Street, it has been revealed.

Figures released by Cardiff council show that an initial £400,000 was initially spent on changes which led to the banning of private vehicles from the street in August.

Since October another £180,000 has been forked out to alter the two-way traffic system, which has included removing a concrete barrier in part of the street and giving more room to pedestrians.

If the part-pedestrian scheme is made permanent, the final £3.25m bill to transform the environment of the street will come from Welsh Assembly Government and council funds.

This will include putting trees, shrubs and seating in the street and extending pavements permanently, opening the way for street cafes.

The details of the bill were released just three days before Councillor Elgan Morgan, the Liberal Democrats’ executive member for transport, faces a no confidence motion from Labour over the handling of his portfolio, including the St Mary Street experiment.

Cardiff’s council executive is to be given a detailed report early in January on the St Mary Street scheme. This will include recommendations on whether to open the lower end of the street to restore the link between the city centre and Cardiff Bay.

John Adams, of Ashtons fishmonger’s in Cardiff Market, attacked the cost, declaring: “We all assumed that the experiment was going to be a simple low-cost one. The figure of £580,000 is nothing more than gross extravagance of ratepayers’ money.”

John Munton, deputy chairman of Cardiff East Neighbourhood Watch, said he was concerned about the amount of traffic congestion on the reduced lanes.

“My concern is that in the event of an emergency it could be difficult for an ambulance to get through St Mary Street.”

But support for the scheme came from Julie Eynon, of Canton, who said: “I love the changes in St Mary Street. There has been a big improvement in the street for pedestrians and it is easier to cross the road.”

Cardiff council said much of the money spent so far would not be abortive whether the scheme was made permanent or not. Much of the work, such as road signs, would be recycled.

A council spokeswoman added: “The St Mary Street and High Street improvement works are experimental and have required the council to seek the views of the public and key stakeholders on the various options for moving forward. Often these differ and as a result different areas of the scheme are altered as an experiment, to see if such changes could become features if the permanent scheme goes ahead.”

phillip.nifield@mediawales.co.uk

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Sign the petition to keep St Mary Street pedestrianised

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/631673943

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Get behind city trial!

Get behind this city traffic trial Sep 11 2007 by Our Correspondent, South Wales Echo

I AM concerned at the Echo campaigning for Cardiff's St Mary Street to be reopened for car traffic.

The people of Cardiff are quite capable of seeing that the change has made shopping in the city centre a more pleasant experience, increased safety for pedestrians and cyclists and reduced the extremely high levels of air pollution.

Once the pavement widening and other improvements are carried out this will improve things further.

I frequently walk down St Mary Street and have seen no sign that the
ban has succeeded in turning St Mary Street into a bus racing track,
as the article of September 3 alleges.

There is also little evidence that traffic levels increased in either Grangetown or Riverside when the ban came into force.

The Echo should thank the council for taking this sensible and popular step to make Cardiff a better city.

Chris Brown

Janet Street, Splott, Cardiff

St Mary's Street petition

A petition has been started re St Mary's street - please go to the link to sign

http://apps.facebook.com/petitions/view?pid=631673943

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/keep-st-marys-street-in-cardiff-pedestrianised

New Labour turn its back on a cleaner and greener Wales

Forgotten what it was like?

Re-open St Mary St now, says opposition
Story in the Echo Sep 1 2007 by David James, South Wales Echo THE leading opposition group on Cardiff council today demanded immediate changes to the “ill-thought-out” St Mary Street traffic ban. Cardiff council’s New Labour leader, John Sheppard, said the ban was “badly-timed, ill-thought-out and has been the subject of inadequate consultation”.

Obviously this new labour dinosaur has forgotten his New Labour Manifesto
where NEW Labour talk about "A cleaner and greener Wales, safe, green transport system, a green Wales.......In our first and second

terms Labour pioneered action to promote sustainability and to make our communities greener and cleaner. In a third term we will implement practical policies to tackle climate change and improve the local environment. We are determined to leave a clean, green and sustainable Wales for future generations and not a legacy of pollution and non-sustainable Development... We will promote new opportunities for walking and cycling and provide public transport alternatives to the car. Whoops John Sheppard Leader of the New Labour group on the council has forgotten where he is with policy altogether ..New labour policy on Cars: Road pricing is a key Labour policy, with plans to charge motorists according to how much and where they drive. The party is also looking into introducing the congestion charge in major towns and cities across the country. Is he sure he knows what party he is in?

I recall the WWF calling for .."Better leadership is needed to reduce Wales' impact on the world - A major report launched 10 March revealed that Welsh politicians need radical changes to reduce the impact of Wales' population on the world. A WWF survey demonstrates that increasingly people in Wales are becoming more environmentally aware and expect strong leadership from Governments to tackle the ongoing threats of climate change, waste mountains and traffic congestion," said Stuart Bond, Sustainable Development Officer for WWF Cymru."

People in Wales and in Cardiff want a cleaner more environmentally friendly city.

Cardiff Council said in its in depth report in 2004 that it had recognised that to ensure that the City does not become grid locked in the future it must start planning now. To this end the Executive in February published a green paper on Transport, followed in May by a white paper entitled “Getting Cardiff Moving”.(Report of the Environmental Scrutiny Committee 2004) Where was Cllr John Sheppard then if he was on the council from 1995 - not a cheep until today and now he gets cold feet - this is the worst sort of political opportunism!!

Julie Morgan New Labour MP said "The first step to achieving a debate based on sound evidence is to try and see through local pilot schemes how road pricing can tackle local congestion."

City centre retailers underestimate the number of their customers arriving by bus, walk and cycle and their spend profile and overestimate the number and effect of car borne customers.

A commission for integrated transport study revealed that public transport users do not spend significantly less than car users in city centre, particularly once income bias is eliminated. Therefore, any reduction of existing car shoppers should not result in significantly less retail spend. People travelling by bus, cycling and walking are more likely to support their city centre, visiting it more frequently than car users.

It is a myth that reducing traffic will harm the economy.

Research carried out by the German Institute for Urban Research6 indicates that a sustainable transport approach benefits trade in German towns. It says: "Retail trade in central city districts increases with policies that encourage environmentally friendly transport
Modes” Another German study showed there was no relationship between the amount of car parking provision and the amount of money people spent in shops.

SHEPPARD. John B.A. Dip. Educ. MBA.11, Hardwicke Court Llandaff CARDIFF CF5 2LB
Tel: 0292 553810 Fax: 02920553810 feedback: Contact the Councillor (No Email required)
Portfolio:
Serving the Llandaff Electoral Division, elected on 10 June 2004 John was first elected on 04 May 1995. The Llandaff electoral division has an electorate of 7270 (1 December 2005) and has 2 seats.

Ridiculous Rachael Wood wants cars, congestion and choking in St Mary street!

Website boosts support for road ban protest The Echo reports on a group that has formed on the internet to protest against the traffic ban in Cardiff’s St Mary Street. (katie.norman@wme.co.uk)

There are groups that are campaigning to save our planet, reduce congestion, reduce pollution, make out cities more liveable and childfriendly, disabled friendly, people friendly and generally much more pleasant places to walk, cycle, shop and eat. This may come as a surprise to some 140 people ..mindless dinosaurs are the words that comes to mind. Here we have people protesting to put MORE cars on the road - to INCREASE congestion - make life difficult for shoppers, pedestrians, disabled people, elderly, - Voting for more pollution??? At least there are only 140 morons in Cardiff so far.
It is a myth that businesses suffer because of a reduction in access to cars. Europe.....London would shut down if that were the case. In fact the opposite is true. Business will be better off with a pedestrianised street and better again especially when it is cleaned up. Cardiff is way behind the times.

The story goes on ...They ask members to: “Help us stop this madness of congesting the surrounding areas of Cardiff by joining this group and showing your support to reopen St Mary Street! Messages in support of their plight have been left by group members including Rachel Wood. Who is she? She said: “I support anyone and everyone that continues to ignore the ridiculous ban.” Ridiculous Rachael! Obviously environmental issues aren't her strong point.

Have they heard of for example of Friends of the Earth, Transport 2000, Living Streets, Greenpeace, Green Party to name a few... which have thousands of supporters and support the St Mary Street enlightened scheme

Cardiff council 'reply' to Cardiff Cycling Campaign post on air pollution

Not just cyclists are choking from the fumes!

Cardiff Council 'replies' on City Centre Polluted Air Posted on Monday, July 02 @ 23:43:08 BST by max.wallis Cardiff Cycling Campaign
Cardiff Council respond to the issues the Cycling Campaign raised over the Chartered Inst. of Physiotherapists' assessment of particulate pollution, viz:
# Cardiff is the third worst urban centre for PM10 in statistics for the first 3 months of the year
# routing cyclists down St Marys Street will subject them to higher air pollution
The Council put out the following Press Statement (reported in the Penarth Times)
"Cardiff Council is fully committed to supporting cycling and will continue to implement more facilities for cyclists. "The council believes that taking general traffic out of St Mary Street will certainly not make matters worse. Buses are becoming cleaner and Cardiff Bus has one of the youngest, and hence cleanest, fleets of buses. "Stationary and slow moving buses, unable to get through traffic or delayed by illegal parking, stay in the city centre for longer. The reduction of traffic in St Mary Street will help make bus use more attractive, reduce the number of slow moving or stationary buses in the city centre and will also be welcomed by many cyclists too."We pressed for proper answers and were informed in summary
# dust storms in Jordan, Egypt and the Sahara, agricultural fires in Ukraine and urban pollution from Europe
# the readings on North Road (Briardene) were much lower
# St Marys Street air quality is poor
# no assessment of cyclists’ exposure on St Marys Street, because they won’t spend much time there.
The full Council statement is as follows:
There are no plans to increase the number of buses using St Mary Street.
General traffic will however be removed. If traffic volumes are reduced and there is no increase in the number of buses, there is no reason to argue that this will result in increased diesel particulates. Further more buses will spend less time queuing so will be on that street for lesstime. Again, there is no reason for this to result in increased diesel particulates. There have been some regional and national particulate episodes whichaffected monitoring sites over the whole of South Wales and much widerafield in the UK during March 2007. These have skewed Cardiff's (andeveryone else's) readings upwards during the period in question. These episodes were of long-travelled material, i.e. not from local sources.The March 2007 episodes had the following features:a) Easterly air flows affecting the UK, air coming all the way fromRussia across central Europe.b) Increased particulate matter was recorded across most sites fromMarch 24th to April 2nd.c) Dust storms from Jordan and Egypt were seen on satellite imagesmoving north over the Mediterranean on March 21st, joining into theeastern air flow towards the UK.d) Widespread agricultural fires in Ukraine and western Russia were alsospotted by satellite on March 20th and will have been transported to theUK by the easterly air.e) The easterly air would also have picked up secondary nitrate andsulphate particulates formed from emissions across the industrial andpopulated areas of Europe. The conclusion is that the Saharan dust probably contributed to thefirst day or two of the incident, and later on it was the fires andsecondary particulate matter.The monitoring doesn't apportion sources or speciate the materialmeasured; is it therefore misleading to label the particulate matter as"diesel" or assume that it is traffic-derived. It is difficult to identifythe exact cause of each PM10 - whether from taxi, bus, train etc -although the press release attributes 25% of PM10s to transport, so it isagreed most are from other sources.It is also misleading to compare monitoring over a few months to anannual average standard. During the first few months of the yearmeasured concentrations will be higher than the annual average due to bothhigher emissions locally (e.g. from space heating, etc) and because ofatmospheric conditions.We have no detailed figures for the exposure to air pollution forspecific road user-groups. Exposure is a function of pollutantconcentration and the length of time that a person is exposed to it. It isnot possible estimate exposure for cyclists, or any other road user-group,given that no two road users follow the same route on their journeys.Exposure must therefore be directly measured and research studies arebeing carried out in London in this specific area of work. The air quality standards refer to pollutant concentrations in ambient airmeasured over a specific time-period. Cyclists will not, generally, spend a long enough period of time travelling down St Mary Street on their cycles to make direct comparison with the air quality standards in this single location valid. The air quality standard in force in the UK is 40 microgrammes per cubicmetre of air as an annual average. The annual mean measured at the CardiffCentre site in 2006 was 27 microgrammes per cubic metre. At Briardene Road Safety Centre on North Road, i.e. close to high volumes of traffic andtherefore more likely to be measuring traffic-derived pollution, the annual mean was just 21 microgrammes per cubic metre. However the Council fully acknowledges that air quality is poor on St MaryStreet, having declared an Air Quality Management Area for it, and hence the measures being taken to address it. The measures being taken will reduce concentrations of both PM10 and nitrogen dioxide.The Council's reviews and assessments of air quality are available on our website.
END of Council Statement