Apart from the fact that the biggest problems are illegal parking and invariably lengthy queues approaching the junction with Old Shoreham Road, this is another small-scale, piecemeal scheme that is largely cosmetic, adding little to the quality of life for residents or the attractiveness of the city to visitors.
The main bus route along the road is the 27, which is also nominally a park-and-ride service. In other words, the one that visitors to the city are encouraged to use. What sort of welcome of a Saturday morning is a 10-minute hold-up southbound, even alongside the delights of Dyke Road Park and BHASVIC?
The survey ends with a page asking for personal details about the respondent. It begins with this rubric:
The reason why we ask you these questions is so we can:
- Make our council services open to everyone in the city,
- Treat everyone fairly and appropriately when they use our services,
- In consultations, make sure that we have views from all across the city.
IF this is so, then, in the words of Mr Bumble, the law is a ass—a idiot.
What difference does gender (male/female/other/prefer not to say) make to using the road? The next question is 'Do you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth?' A serious issue in some contexts but in a traffic survey? Do ethnicity, gender orientation and religion/belief affect motoring, cycling or pedestrianship? The only relevant issues are age and infirmity, perhaps whether the respondent is a carer and, in this unique case in Brighton, membership of the armed forces. (There is a TA base along this stretch of the road.)
If the survey results reveal that no gypsy, transgender person, Jain or pagan has responded, will that invalidate the survey? No, it won't. Nor would it if everyone ticked the 'prefer not to say' option for every question. So why ask in the first place?
Of course, the real matter of equality is between pedestrians, cyclists, public transport and motorists. To which we shall return.
TTFN
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