ePetition details

Pedestrian Crossing requirement

We the undersigned petition the Council to Provide a public crossing area on Carr Street rd Spennymoor from the Burton Woods Estate over to Jubilee Park

The proposal is for a public crossing on Carr Street road from Burton Woods Estate to Jubilee Park.
This would enable people and children to cross the-is now very busy road road more safely, it would also help slow down the traffic.
Due to the growing number of residents on the estate there is a great need to make access to the local amenities as safe as possible.

This ePetition ran from 17/08/2023 to 28/09/2023 and has now finished.

11 people signed this ePetition.

Council response

All requests for formalised crossing such as zebra or signal controlled crossings are assessed against a national criteria devised by the Department for Transport (DfT), which takes into account various factors including traffic flow and the number of pedestrians crossing the road throughout the day, not just the busiest period. It is appreciated that residents have a desire for such facilities in the vicinity of their homes however research shows that putting a formal crossing in where this criteria is not met, can result in an increase in road traffic accidents as drivers become complacent and unaccustomed to being stopped at the crossing or simply ignore its existence. The guidance for assessment of Pedestrian Crossings Traffic Signs Manual Chapter 6 – Traffic Control can be found at the following link - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5df0e29fed915d15f42c4820/dft-traffic-signs-manual-chapter-6.pdf

In this case where national criteria could not be satisfied, this is partly because there is no overall “desire line” on what is a long section of road where pedestrians choose to cross where it is convenient for them, rather than at a specific location. It is for this reason that you typically see formalised crossing facilities in commercial town centres only where pedestrians have been “funnelled” to a particular crossing point. In addition, and importantly, the pedestrian and vehicular flows are significantly too low to achieve the necessary threshold criteria to justify a crossing. Observations made indicated that due to the traffic volumes, pedestrians generally did not have to wait to cross the road.

We have investigated the feasibility of providing a pedestrian refuge island however due to a combination of insufficient road width and the need to accommodate turning movements for side roads, accesses, and bus stops this could not be installed within the existing road layout. The location was assessed based on a recent visit as part of enquiries relating to works in the immediate area and traffic data available from our database.