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Bumps are over the hill
• I LIVE in Monsell Road, Highbury, which has speed cushions along its entire length. They were installed many years ago to reduce a speeding problem on a road which is a rat-run between Brownswood Road and Holloway Road. At the time, they were an appropriate and effective solution but their time has come to an end.
Anecdotal evidence from residents will show that when large vehicles hit the speed cushions a shock wave can be felt in many homes on the street.
I am regularly woken in the morning when my bed shakes with the impact of these vehicles. The council engineers deny this is possible despite never having been to the street to witness what residents experience every day.
They quote experiments by the Department of Transport “proving” that cushions do not have this effect. Although the report in question says that if a vehicle does not cross the cushion in the correct fashion the shock wave can be amplified up to a factor of 70 times.
The engineers will also tell you that the speed cushions are designed for vehicles with wide wheel bases to straddle them without having to drive over the cushions. Sadly, no one has bothered to inform the drivers of this design feature.
Also, the cushions are too close to the parking bays for this to be practical, although the council engineers deny this too.
The council’s own data for Monsell Road indicate that more than 80 per cent of the traffic is exceeding the speed limit. A clear indication that, regardless of the other points above, the intention to calm traffic with speed cushions is an outright failure in Monsell Road.
We have been lucky enough to get some funding from Sustrans, a transport body, to investigate alternative traffic-calming measures through innovative street design.
If we are successful, perhaps Islington Council’s engineers will behave like real scientists and examine the evidence in person rather than dismissing their “customers” as no-nothing idiots and continuing to treat every street in Islington with the same outmoded and useless methods.
CHARLES DAY
Monsell Road, N4
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