bluemoon

In the interests of road safety I'm sure that most would agree that zig zags for zebra crossings or schools need to be painted on the street. If people are to know where to catch their bus (and board it safely) there need to be bus stops. Those making essential journies (and that's more difficult to catagorise but in my mind...) disabled people getting to the shops/services and those contributing to the economic success of an area (vehicles unloading goods into shops or customers collecting heavy goods. Well, they probably need to park nearby. If they're going to have a fair chance to park closeby it probably needs some signs to say that it is for loading or disabled people. So now the kerb parking space is reduced even more. So what to do with the remaining space? Do we just leave it as a free for all? Personally, I dont think that is in anyone's interests; the resident who circles for ages trying to find a space, the shopkeeper who cant get his deliveries (except when the lorry parks on the corner or blocks the bus lane) or the car driving customer who cant find a space and thinks "s*d it, I'm off to sainsburys car park." Whilst I'm never going to like being told what I can/cannot do, to me, a bit of rationalising isnt a bad thing. Talking to friends who lived in Hackney when they had a CPZ consultation: they didnt like the idea to start with but once it came in, that changed. They (and their visitors) genuinely could park easier, traffic went down, the road became quieter and safer (and not totally dominated by the car) and shops didnt close down. (BTW: I understand that the "unsaid reason" that the shopkeepers were anti- was cos they didnt like the thought of not being able to drive to work anymore and not because they had any real concern about business viability!) Also the presence of a traffic warden wasnt a menace but a figure of authority and safety (yes! imagine that!) esp. when they had kids. Their CPZ was put in on a trial basis so it could be evaluated over a year or so. Sounds fair enough to me!