Stone town centre is one of the worst in the UK for pedestrians and cyclists – so says a national campaign group that is campaigning for urban spaces to be reclaimed from the motorist.
David Dansky from London is behind the ‘Drive To Work Day’ campaign, which is this year being held on 11th December in London, Sheffield, Brighton and any other places that want to get involved. It’s an ironic campaign with a serious message – our towns and cities are totally geared around the car.
David – who works in the cycling industry – spent time in Stone recently on business. And he wasn’t impressed. So much so that he wrote a lengthy blog on the Drive To Work Day website bemoaning the town’s reliance on the car. You can read David’s article HERE – it’s a thought-provoking piece.
David told A Little Bit of Stone: “Stone is a lovely town that is spoiled by being so easy to drive around. I work a lot all around the UK and it’s one of the strangest places for walking or cycling that I’ve seen and seems to have been designed to make driving through it as easy as possible.
“The town centre is lovely but is choked and cut off by the ring road. It’s got a feeling of a race track, with barriers and fences keeping pedestrians in pens so the traffic can zip through. When I was there, cars were driving down the pedestrianised High Street and the lovely flower displays around the town also seemed to be displayed so they could be seen predominantly by motorists passing through.
“I’m an advocate for places being for people, not cars. The UK is unique in western Europe at not designing spaces for cyclists and pedestrians and our campaign is trying to change that. As well as making it as easy as possible for people to walk and cycle around their towns and cities, we have to make it harder for people to drive.
“Spaces can become more attractive, healthy and community-focused when they’re not so easy to drive around. There are lots of examples – even in London, like Hackney – of urban spaces that have been rethought and re-engineered to make them better for cyclists and pedestrians.
“I would like to see the barriers removed in Stone and for spaces to be opened up. The barriers keep pedestrians in pens and, although they are theoretically about keeping people safe, all they do is encourage motorists to drive faster.
“Parking charges should also be more expensive and the High Street should be truly pedestrianised – Market Square was used as a car park when I was there.”
People reacted angrily to David’s opinions over on the Little Bit of Stone Facebook page. Click ‘comments’ in the box below to have a look at what they have been saying…
What do you think? Is Stone a bad place for pedestrians and cyclists? Leave a reply below, email news@alittlebitofstone.com or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter
5 comments
PeterC
Silly inaccurate article eg most pubs and restaurants have car parks, don’t think so !. Maybe his campaign site is short of ‘hits’ hence the need to provoke
Kris Grainger
I respect what David is saying, but Stone has already seen the high street pedestrianised, and lovely it is too, but there needs to be car access to get to the shops, especially if we’re going to continue to rely on supermarkets rather than shops in the high street. In an ideal world we’d all love to be able to walk everywhere, but you try telling some pensioner with a bad back that they have to carry their 4 pints of milk back from town instead of getting into their car.
In these days of supermarkets and the decline of the milkman, it’s just not realistic. also I think the barriers are there for protection, to protect the pedestrians from the cars. It is the cars who are penned in, not the people.
Everyone’s first reaction is always to punish the motorist; tax on fuel, road tax, congestion charges; but it’t the lack of adequate public transport that generates the need for cars. If you want to give the streets back to the people then fine, but instead of increasing prices for motorists and driving them out of the towns, how about a cheap and reliable tram system. Don’t make motorists pay by increasing their prices and limiting their movement, some of us need a car to visit distant relatives, instead make cheaper alternatives for those who don’t need a car.
Pedestrianisation does, I agree, lead to lovely towns where you can walk around. Unfortunately they are all empty as everyone drives and goes to out of town shopping centres where they are car friendly and can park for free and close to the shops.
Wondering about the cause of the decline of the high street for shopping? Pedestrianisation!
James Lowe
I would first of all like to say that having read the article attached I find Mr David Dansky’s article probably the shoddiest, most disrespectful piece of journalism I have ever read. Quite frankly he can stay in London and away from our perfectly nice little town!
As someone who admits they do not live in the town he clearly has no understanding of our town, its demographic and have made all of their conclusions on weak biased evidence. If he was a lawyer his case would just have been laughed out of court! Shall we start with Stone’s demographic. Like I said I am a teenager (One of many who uses our very safe pavements to walk to school EVERY single day) who has not access to a car and will walk pretty much everywhere.
It is a pretty open fact that most of the rest of Stone is of an older demograpic. Many of our residents are either commuters or elderly. Commuters live in our town because it has great connections out to the motorway and towards Uttoxeter and Stoke. At this point I will point out some of the most blindingly ignorant assertions in his article. Firstly that people come off the motorway and drive through stone to stoke. NO If you come off the motorway you go up the A34 and would never set foot on the ring road. A lot of traffic does pass through town to go up the Longton Road (A520) hence we have a requirement for a safe usable system for many people passing through the town. Back to the demographic shall I now mention the elderly. Many of these people are highly active but it must be said some will need the use of car transport to get into town as a half an hour walk from some of the furthest reaches can be hard work for those who are ill of health.
The town square is never normally parked upon especially during the week and it is clear he has not taken time to gauge the actual usage. If he cared to visit the high street in the week I’m sure he would find it quite a hub of activity during the day!
What I perhaps find the most ridiculous is that he quotes local articles one of which doesn’t appear to be in Stone and I find no evidence that these are linked to the town centre!
Also may I suggest the picture of the damaged groud upon our public space is probably due to vehicles using it during one of our many highly successful community events. During our recent Food Festival we operated a park and ride out at Aston Marina keeping traffic out of the town! He clearly have no idea about any of this.
Now I’m not trying to say the town is perfect. Some of the lighting signals are timed very badly both obstructing traffic flow and pedestrians. If he is so desperate to help please I suggest he direct inquiries to Stafford Borough Council on this matter!
By attacking our town it appears to insinuate residents choose to drive all the time. Please could I see the questionnaire of scientific evidence of this or if not I’d suggest the removal of this article from the internet!
Remove the safety barriers surrounding our town centre and I will seriously reconsider if I feel safe walking to school every morning. I have never taken to commenting on an article like this before but I am truly angered and appalled by it!
Kris Grainger
Well said James!
Daryl Hallows
sorry David Dansky from London but this is rubbish! London was designed to have big roads and streets for people to either walk, drive or cycle to and from the places they need to be. Stone is the opposite of London and was originally built for wagons and carriages and not designed for Big cars and lots of traffic, however lots of traffic drive through stone due to the amount of motor vehicles that exist on the roads today
1. the barriers or “fences” as you call them, were put in place to PROTECT pedestrians including the elderly and the young from the tidal wave of traffic that flows through stone and if i remember correctly, were also put in place to stop motor vehicles driving through/down the high street. the same also goes for the ring road that dirrects traffic away from the high street.
2. Parking charges are already expensive enough without raising them higher to ridiculous amounts of money.
3. Stone is a Community town unlike London or stoke on trent, that are city’s build up of surround towns (stoke on trent by default), which means that, the people of Stone look out for each other. irrespective of who you are or where you come from or if your rich or poor.
I, personally, would like to see more pedestrian friendly areas myself, but one has to cater for all the uses of stone regardless of the method of transport they wish to use. I suggest that you keep you London-istic view and apply it areas that 1. Have the space for such development and 2. the need for it, and leave stone well enough alone!