A chance to understand the work being done to look at traffic impacts, and to question the assumptions on which it is based.
One of the eight big ideas which came out of public input at the Festival of York Central was “People, not Cars”. There has been a huge amount of discussion about how York Central Partnership’s aim of encouraging sustainable transport and reducing car use can be made real in the masterplanning proposals, and this has included debate about segregated walking and cycling routes, parking provision and location, and connections with the existing road network.
A central question in this latter issue has been around Leeman Road tunnel and whether this should be open to general vehicular traffic or restricted largely to busses and taxis. This effectively makes the main spine road either a through route or an access-only route into York Central. The importance of this decision has been acknowledged by traffic engineers at Arup having been commissioned to carry out extensive traffic modelling, which has informed the current outline planning application.
Like all modelling, the predictions are built upon assumptions – about future trends, human behaviour, implementation of planning policy. These are technical issues but also ones where residents of the city may have their own views, based upon their own experience and expectations.
We have set up two public evening workshops to give people with an interest in transport and movement – or simply wanting to know the impacts on their part of the city – a chance to get involved.
The first, at 6:00pm – 8:00pm on Friday 14th September in the Clementhorpe Room at Priory Street Centre, is a chance to look at the current traffic modelling in more detail with guidance from Professor Tony May, and to jointly develop understanding and questions about this, and propose alternative future scenarios for investigation.
Please book your free ticket using Eventbrite here.
The second, at 6:00pm – 8:00pm on Thursday 20th September in the Penn Room at Friargate meeting house, will be for the transport engineers at Arup to report back on findings from the alternatives and to discuss the implications and possible next steps which they suggest. Professor Tony May will again assist with interpretation.