TRAFFIC IN
THE TOWN CENTRE
There seems to have been a subtle shift in Shrewsbury
Green Thinking recently, which I think is dangerous and smacks of political
opportunism. There used to be no doubt
about Green and F.O.E support for the removal of through traffic from the town
centre. Now, as I understand it, this
stance has shifted, because of the threat of the North West Relief Road. This latter is linked by the TIF study to
town centre congestion, so the town centre’s problems are being downplayed by
Greens, in order to concentrate on the fight against the NWRR.
This is disappointing. The problems are not going to go away. SABC’s TIF study group came up with the idea
of making St Mary’s St and Town Walls “urban clearways”, in order to pedestrianise
the High St! I hope my exclamation mark needs no
explanation. When the Wyle Cop up route
was closed recently for roadworks, 900 vehicles were counted in one hour on one
afternoon on Town Walls. My figures for
traffic on Wyle Cop were challenged at the FOE meeting at the Shirehall –
however this recent count suggests that they were about right. Assuming two thirds of the 900 would have
ascended Wyle Cop, that makes 600 vehicles ASCENDING in one hour, let alone the
number DESCENDING – quite probably as many.
This is simply far too much traffic for a
medieval street network, thick with listed buildings. What makes it worse is that many of these
vehicles are bringing no benefit to the town centre and all of them are
damaging it. Traffic which simply travels
from the English Bridge to the Welsh Bridge,
or from the Station to the English
Bridge is polluting,
damaging and endangering the town centre and its inhabitants for no good
reason. Literally it has no business in
the town centre. It could be easily
removed, by implementing the 3 Point Plan, which essentially transforms the
three main entrances to the town centre into gyratories, offering parking and
bus halts.
Now that the whole of the Town Centre is an
Air Quality Management Area, there is a new urgency to implementing this plan. Any half-baked alternative like the SABC one
above, merely robs Peter to pay Paul, as was amply demonstrated when Wyle Cop
was temporarily closed. There are many
details to be resolved, particularly involving bus services and parking on the
east side of town. However the principle
is surely right and now urgent. The town
centre is eminently walkable by most people (of course there should be
assistance for those who need it) – it covers an area roughly the same as the Telford
Shopping Centre. Furthermore its whole
future depends on increasing its attractiveness as a historic, regional centre
for tourists and shoppers. This can’t
happen unless the traffic is drastically reduced.
Andrew Bannerman, November 2007
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