Should Melbourne Grove be 20mph?

[RichJ]

I live on that stretch of Melbourne Grove. As the statistics bear out, the vast majority of drivers do travel at sensible speeds. It also a relatively busy road which makes speeding hard. However, it is nothing like as narrow or congested as the northern stretch of the road by the station and, at quieter times, the road can be quite clear. I have seen the occasional car traveling at what I would class as dangerous speeds.

I am not sure that these cars would be deterred by a 20mph speed limit (although it couldn?t hurt). What I think would help is some proper speed bumps. With the current ones with the gaps (the technical term escapes me!), it is very easy to just line up your wheels with the gaps and speed straight through.

Arguably you could make these points about any residential road, but MG clearly is a bit of rat run, offering a short cut from Grove Vale to the southern end of Lordship Lane, and therefore probably does warrant special treatment.

[a fish]

RichJ Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> What I think would help is some proper speed

> bumps. With the current ones with the gaps (the

> technical term escapes me!), it is very easy to

> just line up your wheels with the gaps and speed

> straight through.

>

They're called Speed Cushions. I spent a very tedious few months placing them for Kent County Council many years ago.

[jangle]

I'm a MG resident (southern section)and would support a 20mph limit and switching the speed cushions to full width speed humps. Large cars and vans can just straddle the cushions thus making them ineffective for reducing speed.

I raised this issue with the council some time ago and was told a residents survey / petition might be helpful....

[Loz]

They don't use speed cushions any more for that reason. They now fit sinusoidal speed humps which, if designed and installed properly (!) mean that passing over them at about the right speed is comfortable, but too fast and they give you a fair jolt.

The downside of speed humps is that cars tend to spew out far more emissions around them. So, you get less speed, but more air pollution.

[Penguin68]

The downside of speed humps...

An additional, and very significant downside is the damage caused by large commercial vehicles, which pass over them too fast and crash down, on the buildings (and road surfaces) adjacent. Even speed cushions have caused my front garden walls to become cracked and loose with the impact of bouncing skip carriers.

Commercial drivers, particularly of large vehciles which they do not own, are quite cavalier in the way that they treat the vehicles they drive over humps and cushions.

[Jkartel]

lets not waste money on 20mph signs on roads where the average speed is already below the current limit. Maybe fix the pavements and pot holes instead :)

[EGL]

Speed isn't a big issue on Melbourne in my opinion. I agree with what other posters have said: cars can't pick up much speed because they're always having to stop to let oncoming traffic through. which brings me to the more serious issue on Melbourne: the fact that it's a two-way street.

With cars parked all the way along, on both sides, two-way traffic is a nightmare. Almost always pretty busy, being the rat run that it is, and often totally snarled up. Forget 20mph. It should be one-way.

[Loz]

That would increase the average speed along there, which seems to be counter-productive to the current debate.

[EGL]

It would I suppose. I'd support a 20mph limit on top of making it one-way. I think speed restriction would only become relevant on Melbourne if the traffic were flowing freely. In the current circumstances, whilst I wouldn't oppose a speed restriction (mainly because 20mph is reasonable for any residential street like Melbourne), I think it'd make very little difference.

[singalto]

I live in a street with a 20 mph restriction. I often hear cars tearing down the road at speed and, in fact, my 15 month old cat was killed by a speeding motorist. The 20 mph zone makes no difference here.