Newcastle Upon Tyne is undergoing an experiment in how we use the roads. The city planners want us to abandon our cars and maybe ebikes are what they think that the solution is? These bollards are the ones responsible for sparking the biggest debate in the city for years. There are two sides to every argument of course. Some will be happy with the experiment and others will not. Somehow I wonder at the use of the word experiment .
This is the other side of the bollards , as they say. You will see that the middle one can be removed , if you have the key. I don’t know if the emergency services have a copy of the key but it could be that there will be a lot of work for a local locksmith if every vehicle using the area is to be provided with a copy.
Not sure how this is affecting the local cricket club. Access for disabled and elderly people must surely be a problem.
You would have thought that if they are serious , automatically retracting bollards are required.
Clearly there has been a lot of work put into changing things here. I was surprised to see that the sign has been professionally fitted and was not a student prank.
Yes , more bollards , well they are necessary if you are going to stop all the cars.
It was starting to remind me of Viggo Venn and his high viz shirts as I saw so many ” are you a fan? “
Apparently not everyone is a fan.
So this is what it is all about, creating quiet neighbourhoods for the affluent?
There were times when Jesmond Dene Road could be quite busy but not to an alarming degree. Looks to me as if people are avoiding the Dene because everything is just too much hassle getting there. Not really a benefit in my opinon.
This is how they achieved everything. You can go in but there is not much point because there is only one way out.
I find it difficult to believe that local businesses are not suffering because of all of this. You can see the idilic conditions for the locals but I doubt they find it so , when they are stuck in gridlocked traffic to get to work and school every day. Everything has a price and I suspect that the quietness does not compensate for having to sit for hours in seriously polluted streets. Electric Vehicles are not great for the environment , they just move some of the problems away from the immediate area.
Not sure how many of these will still be here at the end of the year.
So as everyone is inconvenienced by the experiment at least you can see that there are a few winners.I wonder what will happen when they have to do major road repairs on Osborne Road and Jesmond Road. Presumably they will do them at the same time ?