Discussions held to shape Darlington's transport plan (From The Northern Echo)

Discussions held to shape Darlington's transport plan

4:18pm Wednesday 25th November 2009

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RESIDENTS and campaign groups have put forward suggestions to improve Darlington's transport network.

Darlington Borough Council held one of its Talking Together meetings on Tuesday to discuss transport priorities for the borough.

Ideas from the meeting will help to form the town's third transport plan. The first two five-year plans have covered the period from 2001 to 2011.

At a question and answer session and workshops, participants were asked to help shape the next plan.

One of the transport plan's principal goals will be to reduce transport emission of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases to help combat climate change.

Richard Alty, the council's assistant chief executive of regeneration, said: "The council is very aware how significant climate change is as an issue. We are trying to help address that."

Ideas suggested to the council included turning off traffic lights, particularly pedestrian crossings, in the early hours of every morning and removing the lights at the throughabout at the end of the Eastern Transport Corridor.

One resident said: "We have 14 sets of traffic lights just coming down North Road. All those are kept on at night.

"Who wants them on at 1am? Who wants to sit there when there is no traffic?"

He said the plan to turn off the lights, unless activated if a pedestrian crossing button was pressed, could save electricity and costs for the council and cut carbon emissions from cars.

Another resident cited the fact that traffic flow at the throughabout was better when the lights were turned off last month.

Mr Alty said he would ask council officers for the opinion on both ideas.

However, he said it would unlikely to turn the lights off at the throughabout because they helped schoolchildren and other pedestrians and improved traffic flow onto the Eastern Transport Corridor.

He added: "We are looking at different options to improve the functioning of that junction. There will be more details in due course."

Other people at the meetings asked for more work to reduce congestion on Salters Lane, buses from the town centre and more parking enforcement.

Simon Holdsworth, the council's transport policy manager, said one of the success stories from the first assessments had been to reduce congestion by significantly increasing the number of cyclists in Darlington.

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