Questions & Answers (V2 July 2020) 1. What is the Levenshulme Bee Network The Levenshulme Bee Network is the overarching name of the collective of people from the community, the council and expert support from partner organisations working towards making the ‘Our Active Neighbourhood’ vision a reality. It’s focus is releasing an ambitious plan to develop Levenshulme and parts of Burnage into Greater Manchester’s first fully filtered, active neighbourhood. A flagship scheme for Manchester. 2.What is ‘Our Active Neighbourhood’? The 'Our Active Neighbourhood' project is the bigger picture. It is the ambition of a neighbourhood that is easy and safe to get around for everyone and it recognises that getting around our community requires a lot more than modal filters, which is only one of the current project areas. To make our streets easy to move about we need to help deliver drop kerbs, introduce cycle parking, safe footpaths and crossings over busy roads even if we can also calm them. We are paying particular attention to specific journeys like the school trips that generate so many local trips that impact on air quality and quality of life and so have been working with schools to develop School Streets. Even after all of that, we need to increase opportunities for people to have a go on bikes, scooters and do more walking about locally with funding to support events; access to walking groups, bikes or activities to encourage people to get stuck in is also a key part of Our Active Neighbourhood. This is how we will encourage and activate more people to use our 'now' safer streets and keep on using them as we keep on helping to improve them. In the early sessions the group talked about 'starting with the crossings' and Manchester City Council have already scoped out some possible ​ ​ new crossings that have been identified by local people on Commonplace and shown in the vision map. When these are combined with other improvement works on the busy streets this would form a project element of the Active Neighbourhood. Over the coming months, the other elements of the Active Neighbourhood will be fleshed out using co-design events in readiness for the business case. TfGM really liked our bid and have encouraged us to go for the full Active Neighbourhood, the full package, including all the above will form the full business case to access the funding to go some way to realising the vision of safer, greener and healthier streets for all. 3. What are project aims of the Levenshulme Bee Network? The the overall aims are: ● The creation of an active neighbourhood based around a ten minute walk at its heart ● Reduction of car use for shorter trips and a modal shift to more sustainable and active travel ● Safer journeys to and from schools ● An increase in active modes of transport like walking and cycling ● a reduction in the impacts of significant severance of the A6 and railway The project aims align with the recommendations of the Made To Move report published by Transport for Greater Manchester, particularly that ​ ​ the design standard should provide the following: Walking A double buggy should be able to pass. Walking routes must: ● Link across difficult junctions ● Connect to local schools, shops and amenities ● Be well signposted with walking times (not distance) ● Improve links to transport interchanges ● Improve public spaces – pavements, side road crossings and places to rest Cycling: Should be safe for a competent 12 year old (Bikeability Level 2) Cycling routes should be a mixture of the following: ● Wide segregated cycle lanes on main roads ● Local cycling routes through communities ● Green routes that encourage slow cycling through residential streets 4. What is the Bee Network? The Bee Network is a vision for Greater Manchester to become the very first city region in the UK to have a fully joined up cycling and walking network; the most comprehensive in Britain covering 1,800 miles. It is Read more about the Bee Network (previously called Beelines), Greater Manchester’s Walking and Cycling Infrastructure proposal here. ​ 5.How did it start? Our local councillors from Levenshulme and Burnage (spearheaded by Councillor Dzidra Noor) held a public meeting with Martin Key from Transport For Greater Manchester (TfGM) at Arcadia Library in October 2018 looking at opportunities to engage with the Bee Network (then called Beelines) and develop the first version of a mapped network of routes using local knowledge. This was the original map prior to local people’s feedback. From that start it was agreed that a volunteer working group would meet regularly and that we would also work towards developing an active neighbourhood scheme to present to TfGM. Public meetings were held at Arcadia in November 2018, December 2018 and January 2019 (with over 100 people at those sessions). At those meetings the initial ideas were developed and the original Bee Network mapping for the area supplied by TfGM was revised using local knowledge. Ideas that helped inform the bid are available to view here ​ Using the skills around the table, the group put together a bid to the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Challenge Fund. The proposal subsequently gained successful programme entry and kick started the development of community-led proposals across Greater Manchester. The Filtered Neighbourhood Trial 6.What is a modal filter? A modal filter is a traffic management measure that stops vehicles passing but allows people travelling on foot and by bicycle through. Modal filters can be designed in many different ways from a simple row of bollards to more complex designs including seating, planting and play equipment. Here is a good example: 7. What is a filtered neighbourhood? A filtered neighbourhood describes an approach that creates low traffic, low speed neighbourhoods. On roads that aren’t the main roads, it creates barriers to cars whilst still allowing people walking or cycling to benefit from direct access. The aim is to remove traffic that is ‘rat-running’ through communities and to make short journeys attractive by other means rather than the car. People will still be able to get to their front doors, businesses or any key location in the area in the car but they may have to travel further than before. It aims to make a neighbourhood have increasingly low levels of motorised traffic as less people choose to travel through the area. These filters can often be attractive too, with tree planting and space to sit or play or they might just be a series of bollards. 8. What is meant by the “trial” of the filtered neighbourhood? The trial of the Levenshulme Filtered Neighbourhood design will involve the installation of a network of temporary modal filters across the scheme area and will be in place for a minimum of 6 months while the impact of the trial is monitored and evaluated. This will allow us (for a relatively low cost) to ‘test’ the design to see how it works in ‘real life’ and it also allows us to make changes to’ the design if required as all the interventions during the trial phase will be relatively easy to move. The public can comment on the interventions during the 6 month trial, any comment received will be taken to be responses to the consultation of the scheme. Issues which become apparent during the trial can be quickly resolved, with filters being moved, amended, or removed if necessary. The trial will be undertaken using an experimental traffic regulation order which means that we can make changes following your feedback ​ ​ and monitor the impact for the first 6 months before Manchester City Council decides if the filters will be implemented on a permanent basis. If significant changes are required during the 6 month period, a revised design would be submitted and have an additional 6 month ETRO period, which would be the legal consultation on the updated design. All feedback from residents and monitoring of traffic, pedestrian and cycling levels as well as air quality levels will be considered before any of the filters are installed permanently. 9. Can I still access my house by car? Yes, all properties will still be accessible by car. 10. What is a bus friendly modal filter or bus gate? Why do we need them? It is like a normal modal filter but is also designed to let buses through. Other motor traffic isn’t allowed and can’t use the road to cut through the area. All addresses in the area are still accessible by car, you just can’t drive straight through the area as easily as you used to be able to. For an example of what it could look like, see below The bus friendly filters proposed in Levenshulme are key design features. They will reduce local levels of motor traffic, improving road safety, air quality and bus journey times. The bus friendly modal filter would operate 24/7 as with the other modal filters. There are a number of examples across the country of these filters being used in residential areas. Here is a list of examples in other residential areas: ● https://rtstreets.commonplace.is/about ● Orford Road, Waltham Forest – google streetview ​ ​ ​ ● Wapping High Street, Tower Hamlets ​ ● Bedford Road, Aberdeen – google streetview and a nice picture ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ● Dubford Road, Aberdeen ​ ● Gunson Gate, Chelmsford – google streetview. ​ ​ ​ ● Basildon1, Basildon 2 and Basildon 3 ​ ​ ​ ​ ● Nyland Road, Colchester ​ 11. What will the modal filters look like in the filtered neighbourhood trial? Stage 1 At the very first stage of the trial we will use temporary traffic management equipment to form the filters. This will allow us to make small changes to filters if needed before the main trial filters are installed.