Ashford Shared space: the monitoring process suggests that speeds are slowing

Recent monitoring indicates speeds are falling in the new Ashford shared space environment.
Comprehensive measurement and opinion gathering will follow over the next few months.
Systematic monitoring of pedestrian movement is still to take place. However, by casual observation pedestrians
are making extensive use of the ‘courtesy crossings’ and are regularly crossing across the centre of Elwick
Square on a desire line from the bridge to Bank Street. Video surveys are planned for later in the year. This will
be backed up by ‘opinion surveys’ of pedestrians to gain people’s views on the ‘shared space’ scheme.

Monitoring February 2009

Speed monitoring on Elwick Road
Average speed westbound – 21.3 mph
Average speed eastbound – 21.0 mph
(35 vehicles exceeded 45 mph in each direction)

Traffic flows
‘Base year’ traffic flows for am peak hour (2003 one-way westbound) were:
Elwick Road, Bank Street to Apsley Street – 1866
West Street, Godinton Road to Regents Place – 1553
This equates to around 10,000 vehicles per day
Predicted traffic flows for 2008 for am peak hour (two-way flow) were:
Elwick Road, Bank Street to Apsley Street – 729
West Street, Godinton Road to Regents Place – 770

Comprehensive traffic counts were taken in late February 2009. However, initial indications indicated a flow of around 5,000 per day in each direction on a weekday and 3,600 in each direction on a Sunday between Church Road and Bank Street. A flow of 10,000 vehicles per day equates to about 900 vehicles
(two-way flow) in each peak hour. This is around 10-15% above prediction.

Crashes
The advance works for the whole ring road project started in early 2007. In July 2007 the whole of the old
ring road was converted to two-way flow. The ‘shared space’ area (Bank Street, Elwick Road and West Street)
was fully open to two-way traffic flow in November 2008.

Pre-scheme 73 crashes were reported on the Ring Road
(1st January 2004 – 31st December 2006) – 3 year period – average: 24 crashes per year.
During construction works 26 crashes were reported (1st January 2007 – 30 June 2008) - one and a half year period – average: 17 crashes per year.
So far no reports have been received of any crashes in the new ‘shared space’ section.