Kelso Traffic

Alarm bells are ringing round Kelso at the council's plans for better 'traffic management' in the town centre. The main idea is to make lots of street one-way and prevent the use of the Square for through traffic.

The rationale is that up to 30% of journeys are 'rat runs' and other unnecessary journeys.

But it's hard to think of any journey from points outside Kelso that would be quicker using the town centre rather than the bypass and bridge.

Meanwhile it's now well known that interference in traffic flow tends to make things worse rather than better - witness the disastrous changes in Edinburgh recently. One-way streets in particular casue speeds to go up and caution to be thrown to the winds.

Indeed the new trend across Europe is for traffic controls to be removed rather than imposed, following the example of Makkinga in Holland. There they have foud that courtesy and caution in drivers is encouraged by the removal of signage, and accidents have gone down.

Kelso is doing just fine without much signage. And its pretty streets are mercifully free of 'street furniture'. Sure, it could probably do with a couple of zebras to help pedestrians cross (and these would slow things down thus deterring through traffic further), but that's about it.

Let us hope that the urge that 'something must be done' is resisted at council level in favour of cautious, minimalist measures.

Was it Reagan that said "Don't just do something, stand there!"?