New Esplanade road layout

[Suffererof1crankymofo]

There was money from the EU that they simply had to have!  You can bet that if such money hadn't been available, the SIC wouldn't have done these 'improvements'.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Suffererof1crankymofo

[menkeeeaneahi]

Okay, 2 per year isn’t a big number, but these are people injured, not just a bit of bent metalwork on a car. More accurately, the SIC report gave the numbers as 22 injury accidents in 14 years, so while that isn’t quite 2 per year, I cannot think of a word better than regular when it keeps repeating year after year after year.

 

More importantly, what is an acceptable number of people being injured for the Council to say fine, we will just ignore it? Out in other parts of Shetland it only needs to be “an accident waiting to happen” (i.e. no accidents have occurred) to bring on demands for million-pound road improvements.

 

how many of the 22 injury accidents in 14 years were the fault of a driver the fault of a pedestrian or the fault of the highway and associated facilities?

 

how will these current every other town thats anything have some so we need them too so called improvements assist in reducing the accident statistics - primarily on account of the only time anybody ever managed to go faster than these measures will slow traffic to could only manage it when there was nothing else to hit?

 

the stretch of road concerned almost certainly encompasses the highest ratio probably by some margin of traffic numbers/pedestrian numbers/pedestrian road crossers in shetland - iow its as congested as hell made doubly so by endless additions on silly little pointless kerbs and wavy pavements over the last 25 years a fact by default of which it is almost inevitably going to rank top of the accident table

 

there is an equal an opposite argument that it is an issue caused not by speed carelessness etc but one caused by sheer volume and rather than lessen it the slowing down any contributor is only going to exacerbate it and measures to speed up pass through times should be employed instead to decrease the volume involved at any given moment in time 

 

then the increasing of response times by emergency vehicles to incidents due to they having to negotiate these obstacles and in the case of ambulances the potential to exacerbate an onboard patients condition is a whole other debate in itself

 

as are the increases in pollution from vehicles taking longer to traverse the same distance and from more and harder acclelerations

 

Ian_H would you care to confirm that the opinions you have offered above are your personal ones only and not simply a case of echoing the party line regardless of your personal pov on account of current/previous professional involvement in the project

[Colin]

What gets me is that, despite widespread objection to the scheme, "they" still went ahead head with it.

 

I don't care how much money came from "outside" Shetland.  Just spending it "because they can" on an unnecessary scheme that no sensible person wanted is just "stupid".

[menkeeeaneahi]

^ havent you noticed that thats council policy across the board for senior employees

 

make up their minds ahead of time - trot out the same propaganda whenever an objection is raised regardless whether it comes from a member of the public or a councillor - and if that doesn't shut folk up just ignore/stonewall them and do it anyway

[Lerwick antiques]

It's been nothing but trouble since they started working on the esplanade and church road. I could not even get into my shop one day for the road works. They think this is supposed to make things better or help folk.

 

What are they making better for who?

 

Does not seem to be the general public or road users.

 

Also it has had and still having a damaging effect on trade for the shops on Commercial street. 

[Frances144]

Imho, it has seriously damaged trade.

[BigMouth]

The damage to trade is usually due to the laziness of people who can't be bothered to use a shop unless they can park outside. Ask some of the shop owners who are no longer in the street.

[Lerwick antiques]

Strange how my sales went down to next to nothing when they started the work at church road. How was customers supposed to get into my shop when I could not get in? The street was like a ghost town but slowly starting to get back to normal now that the road works are nearly all complete, but will be a good while before trade is back to normal.

[Keedle]

The damage to trade is usually due to the laziness of people who can't be bothered to use a shop unless they can park outside. Ask some of the shop owners who are no longer in the street.

Customers can't get parked any where near the shops due to the shopkeepers taking every available parking space for themselves. Before you start, not all disabilities are visual, some people are not able to walk up and down lanes from/to car parks. I personally wont be using the shops on the street due to the calming measures. I shudder to think what the bumps are doing to low floored busses let alone peoples cars.

[BigMouth]

I was referring to the able-bodied terminally lazy*, and not those that can't walk due to some disability. Those with a disabled badge would still be able to drive down the street and park where they wish.

 

I have noticed no difference on the buses since the new measures were put in place. It is just necessary to slow down to a sensible speed to go over them.

 

The street shopkeepers are damaging their own businesses if they park in the street. Perhaps someone needs to ring them up and point out that they would have dropped in to buy x, y and z but couldn't get parked, but noticed that the shopkeeper had.

 

* There can't be many of us that have not witnessed drivers posting letters at the post office from inside their cars, or using the cash points from the driver's seat. I remember seeing one driver driving up the lane at the side of the Bank of Scotland to use the ATM so that she didn't have to get out of her car.

[menkeeeaneahi]

What are they making better for who?

 

according to Wills frequent diatribes and spiels in support of getting humps it seemed the main goal was to stop an occacional boy racer gluffin an occasional timid tourist

[Lerwick antiques]

I personally don't know what the future holds for Commercial street. The road works has had a damaging effect on trade, but the road works are not the whole problem. There is a lot of other factors to blame for lack of footfall and trade.

 

Most small businesses including my shop are struggling to keep up the trade.

 

It will be a sad day once half of the places on Commercial street are empty.

 

So the council better think ahead of what will be to come as a street with empty shops will not look good, but by the looks of things, that could easily end up happening in the not so distant future.

Edited June 5, 2017 by Lerwick antiques

[Rasmie]

I can see the post office moving with the now poor vehicle access, They need somewhere  they can drive in their vans, .and how long will the bank branches  survive with most people banking online. I can see Da Street being left to restaurants and pubs.

[Lerwick antiques]

I agree Rasmie. Think the banks might last a bit longer as you can't put cash or cheques in to your account through internet banking, but just be a matter of time before cheques become a thing of the past and no many folk carry money nowadays.

 

Think the post office certainly needs a new location as you rightly said about the vans and problems getting parked near the door to post parcels.

 

The end is coming for Commercial street, probably do just as good somewhere like Bolts or out at Gremista, as that's where the town is heading. Even the School is moving away to the Staney hill.

 

Think the days of da street has been and gone.

[magnie ii]

the solution is surely a change in planning policy accept the reality that times are changing deal with the surplus of shops by allowing them to be changed into accomadation