Narrowing Crescent Road
We the undersigned petition Brighton & Hove Council to narrow and white-line Crescent Road, Round Hill where there is a dangerous junction with Prince's Crescent.
Prince's Crescent and Wakefield Road form a rat run used by drivers to avoid the traffic lights at the bottom of Ditchling Road. Traffic speeds through these two streets despite the 20mph limit.
The Crescent Road/Prince's Crescent junction is very wide, with adverse camber and no white line painting. It is dangerous for pedestrians to cross with their backs to the fast-moving traffic. Cars coming from the Wakefield Road direction and turning right into Crescent Road usually turn on to the wrong side of the road. This adds to the difficulty for pedestrians deciding when it is safe to cross. Narrowing and line painting (and/or using a different road material to highlight pedestrian priority) would force drivers to reduce speed and drive on the correct side of the road.
This is in line with the council's objectives of encouraging sustainable travel such as walking, rather than allowing cars that may speed and rat run to dominate.
There is a precedent for this at the once very wide junction of Stanford Avenue/Cleveland Road where the residents petitioned successfully and have now reclaimed the space from cars and established a community garden. Many other junctions have different material such as lines of bricks laid, to emphasise the meeting of vehicles and pedestrians.
If the council agrees to narrow Crescent Road, we would like to consider making a small raised bed area for planting, in tandem with other areas of "greening" that we are currently investigating, thus enhancing our area by making it safer and more pedestrian-friendly.
This ePetition ran from 20/07/2019 to 07/10/2019 and has now finished.
147 people signed this ePetition.
Council response
Response provided at the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee meeting on the 8th October 2019:
"The Council receives a large number of requests to alter road layouts to address safety concerns across the City. To manage this demand within the available budget of the High-Risk Sites programme there is a need to prioritise requests so that we can ensure that those locations with the highest risk are addressed first.
We have checked the collision data for Crescent Road and there have been no collisions within the last 3 years. Based on this information we are not able to divert what is limited funding away from other projects that already have an established safety risk in order to physically build out the kerb line at this location.
However, officers have discussed some alternative options and it is possible that we could fund additional white lining in the form of give-way markings and visually narrowing at the junction using hatch markings. Officers would be happy to meet with you to discuss this further".