Mitcham's Corner Development Framework SPD

I note that one of the bullet points, which I strongly support, calls for improved buses and pedestrian links to bus stops. Yet I see nothing in the document about how this is to be implemented.

At present all buses using Mitchams Corner serve Victoria Avenue. It would be best if there were a pair of bus stops there, but the street is probably too narrow for this. Based on the existing gyratory system (and therefore, I hope, able to be introduced within a shorter timeframe),
O would recommend moving the bus stop on Chesterton Road within the gyratory further east so that buses can pull out to turn right; and adding a new bus stop on the gyratory between Milton Road and Chesterton Road east. In both cases there seems to be ample room. One or other of these stops, which should be linked by a pedestrian friendly route, could and should be used by every bus serving the area including the X5 Cambridge-Oxford and guided buses, with the sole exception of inbound buses on the Citi 2.

I do not object to the proposals as such, but would like to see clarification of the proposals for buses (as I have referred to elsewhere) and pedestrian movements before supporting the scheme. For pedestrians my own preferences are to have zebra rather than signalled crossings; where crossings are signalled for pedestrians the lights should be green for them whenever traffic is stopped; pedestrians should have right of way over traffic turning into the relevant road; and no guard rails.

This objective would be a lot easier to achieve if the volume of vehicle traffic could be reduced, and therefore the ideas in the document should be combined with strong demand management measures targeted at private cars.

This is a policy that needs to be adopted throughout the city and even in some of the surrounding villages, as it could help to underpin a much better public transport network than we now have. There may need to be "contracts" to ensure that people who sign up to living carfree can be assured that their services will stay; in the stretch of Chesterton Road to the west, changes a few years ago reduced the frequency of buses from 15 per hour to just 3, and drastically cut the range of destinations served directly.