The Ranty Highwayman Profile picture
A highway engineer's adventures in time & space. The street is not too narrow, your imagination is too narrow. Runs @CityInfinityUK and writes for @highwaysmag
May 14 13 tweets 4 min read
This is a massive problem not just for London, but across the country. As well as historic structures, we've also the perfect storm of lots of bridges of a similar age and type being hit with 14 years of local authority defunding. Duncan-Smith is doesn't know what he's on about. Like much of modern life, people don't notice the infrastructure they use, but they sure notice it when thing go wrong. In my experience as a London borough bridge manager, we barely had the money to run a decent programme of inspections, let alone repairs - routine or otherwise
Feb 6, 2023 33 tweets 9 min read
Utterly bananas stuff from this feed which manages three mental health slurs in one tweet. Defenders of the status quo have no rational arguments left. A tweet with the poster's details removed which is quoting a photo in a government press release with the title "£200 million to improve walking and cycling"  The comment is "Retrogressing to a c1950s China transport system will "boost local economies"? Seriously!? These people are bat-poo bonkers & need immediate sectioning to protect the rational electorate. Only fruitcakes would vote for this bovine excrement fantasy." And here's rage from an old white man who hates the idea of kids getting to school under their own steam. Same tweet being quoted;  "All road users would prefer our badly pot holed dangerous third world roads to be made safer. That’s where the money needs spending. Virtue signalling to a fit young minority from an anti driver government seems to the priority again. @mrpotholeuk"
Aug 17, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
I'm not going to tweet out the warped front page from the Daily Mail, but I will say that the diatribe written by @David_Churchill and the comments by @grantshapps will lead to the abuse and injury of people just trying to get around cheaply and easily. You should be ashamed. "Cyclists" are an easy group to have a pop at because there are no (on the face of it) impacts on people with protected characteristics and so a group seen as fair game and it's a great distraction from the failed goverment. In reality, this will impact on people with protected
Aug 15, 2022 14 tweets 5 min read
Devil's food mixer.

Alt text: a faded orange portable concrete mixer turns sand, stones and cement. So, the timber on the trike was to make formwork for a concrete slab for a couple of sheds. I'm doing this by breaking it into three 1.5m x 1.5m squares. I'll cast a slab at each end and then cast the centre slab. This is called "hit and miss". Because it is so warm, I've a A timber square frame on th...
Jan 20, 2022 10 tweets 3 min read
I may have told this story before. This street has footway parking on both sides which gives 1 metre of walking space beyond the lines. But, if drivers obey the markings, you can't get a car up the middle. Because residents kept getting tickets, I was asked to look at it. 1/n My solution was to get rid of the parking on one side and put down double yellow lines. The side with footway parking would still be crap for walking, but the other side would be clear and you could get service vehicles down it - look what is at the end of the street 2/n
Jan 19, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
Further to the warped Euro-roundabout nonsense from earlier. I'm having a delve into the website set up labourseuroroundabout.com 1/n "These roundabouts have been trialled elsewhere in the country, resulting in driver confusion and collisions. Residents have called the roundabout a “killing zone”.

In fact, there's a single UK example like this in Cambridge which seems to be work OK therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2021/06/fabulo…

2/n
Jan 19, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
Honestly. I don't understand politics. You get elected because you shared (some pretty horrendous) positions; lasted a couple of years and then defect. Then these positions are acceptable to a party which (should be) is opposed to those positions. Is it just a numbers game?
Sep 26, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read
OK, it's probably a handful of idiots who are ignoring the "NO FUEL" signs at the petrol station, but LOL. There's normallly pretty much no traffic here on a Sunday morning. And so after picking up sausage rolls from Greggs, I headed back. #PumpWatch #ToryBrexitDisaster
Jun 21, 2021 55 tweets 10 min read
Virtually at the 2021 @CIHTUK virtual #SoRSA conference this afterno. Looking forward to dusting off my road safety hat.

*Society of Road Safety Auditors - SoRSA, a specialist branch of CIHT. TIL horses don't like changes in surface colour. It spooks them. Interesting video here
Oct 12, 2020 20 tweets 4 min read
OK then Worcester folks. I put in a FOI for the cycling ban in the town. They *didn't* undertake an Equality Impact Assessment (although they are not a legal requirement in England because the ConDems stopped them being so). My question and answer;

@BikeWorcester Image The actual decision background paper states the following. So if no EqIA was undertaken, then there should presumably be something written down which deals with the proposal being screened. I need to read everything and see if a further FOI is required. Image
Aug 10, 2020 12 tweets 2 min read
Ok then, opponents to LTNs. How will you reduce traffic on main roads. References to data or reports would be useful. What sort of capital costs are involved And what might a programme look like? OK, a few ideas. I think we have to start at the policy level.
1) Widespread controlled parking zones to create a future management framework.
2) Limiting the number of permits residents can obtain. My own borough lets you have as many as you like so demand outstrips kerbside
Aug 8, 2020 12 tweets 3 min read
That Ealing LTN discussion yesterday which showed an increase of 52% of trip length comparing the before & after driven journey lengths between each cell and a series of boundary road destinations. Notwithstanding the fact that it's a simplistic analysis, it's been bugging me 1/ I've run the numbers with another assumption that once someone has driven to the destination point (which are all short journeys) they may well actually be driving further and therefore, the percentage increase between the no LTN state and the post LTN state must reduce with 2/
Jul 16, 2020 7 tweets 2 min read
The study was in 1998 with a follow up review piece in 2002 nacto.org/wp-content/upl…

The study looked at dozens of sites across several countries. More recently, the Waltham Forest experience has reduced traffic overall, more people are walking and cycling plus modeled air quality assessments are showing improvements even on the main roads.

The problem we have here is the approach of the last 20+ years (if we're talking about the period since the study) has been to do very little to change the status quo. We have tried and failed to
Feb 16, 2020 10 tweets 2 min read
That's an hour of my life I won't get back. My former employer wants impose parking controls in my street. They advertised/ consulted on a proposal, apparently got it wrong so rather than starting again, they have switched to a different part of the legislation which in my opinion would be unlawful for the purpose that they have stated (hopefully I'm right). I think the issue is, there was outcry at the first idea and rather than taking their time, staff have bowed to political pressure for speed while not understanding the law. Of course, had I
Nov 9, 2019 17 tweets 5 min read
OK, I'll play. First, my credentials. Chartered civil engineer, member or fellow of several engineering institutions, accredited street works supervisor. 25 years in the construction industry, much of it around highways and until the summer, 10 years as a local authority liaison officer who had training in the role from the London Fire Brigade as well as training on multi-agency exercises with them as well as attending live incidents with them and other agencies.
Oct 27, 2019 12 tweets 4 min read
Ugly bastards. Quinces look like big gnarly pears. Inedible unless you cook them (or perhaps use them to flavour vodka!) They smell like a cross between and acidic apples and pineapple.
Aug 7, 2018 10 tweets 3 min read
So, these kids dashing across the road in Bromsgrove, near Birmingham:



1/
Pretty easy to find the location, it's here;

goo.gl/maps/Sz1z8JAYk…

Just look at the layout 2/