Town Council traffic topic

Wed 17 Nov 2021, 17:54 (last edited on Wed 17 Nov 2021, 17:59)

As a resident of Market Street, I would like to see two-way cycling permitted for three reasons.

First, it will help slow the car traffic on the street. There has been a long-standing issue with dangerous speeds on this street and the Town Council has several years of correspondence, particularly from residents at the western (Dyers Hill) end. People drive more slowly on narrow streets if they know they may encounter oncoming traffic – there is research to this end and anecdotally I’ve certainly found it to be true.

Second, people from both in and out of Charlbury do and will cycle the ‘wrong way’ up Market Street. In reality you aren’t going to prevent that short of a regular Thames Valley Police patrol, and much though I love TVP, that’s unlikely given that police sightings in central Charlbury are about as frequent as walruses on jetskis. They have bigger fish to fry (the police, that is, not the walruses).

The problem is that some people think that cycling on the pavement is a lesser crime than cycling the wrong way on the road. So they do ride on the pavement along Market Street. I would invite you to consider how that works on a sub-4ft pavement when your front door opens onto the pavement and you have a five-year old (or, a few years back, a kid in a buggy). It is terrifying. I have on occasion run after offenders to remonstrate, and even at one point put up DIY signs, but to no effect.

For the safety of my family, I would far rather cyclists were on the road rather than the pavement.

Third, maybe a detour via the churchyard is “no hardship” if you’re lucky enough to be a super-fit Lycra-clad whippet riding for pleasure on a carbon-fibre bike. I regularly cycle with said five-year old to and from school in Chadlington on a tandem, and we would very much like not to add another climb to the ride. Sustainable, healthy travel shouldn’t just be the preserve of “keen cyclists”, it should be accessible to all. 

(Incidentally, I recall similar predictions of doom, including by some posters to this thread, when cycling was first permitted through the churchyard a few years back. The very fact that there is an alternative route at all is because St Mary’s took a balanced, forward-thinking view.)

As for how it works practically, it’s the same as Park Street, or Fawler, or a thousand other places with narrow sections of road. You stop and wait your turn. As a pedestrian I look both ways before crossing a one-way street, as surely everyone does – there are wrong-way motorists on Market Street most days, as well as those on Brown’s Lane emerging from the Bull car park, and I wouldn’t want to take my chances!