Tree Species: Arbutus Menziessi

Oxford University Professor Emeritus of Plant Sciences Dr Barrie Juniper's selection of hardy evergreens suitable for growing in planters: ARBUTUS MENZIESSI.

Evergreen, blossoms in August, strawberries follow on. Strawberries are non-poisonous but not suitable for eating. Currently in situ in the car park of St Catherine's College (Barrie's college).

Tree Species: Photinia Serrulata

Oxford University Professor Emeritus of Plant Sciences Dr Barrie Juniper's selection of hardy evergreens suitable for growing in planters: PHOTINIA SERRULATA

Evergreen, some reddish leaves.

Plantlock Cycle Racks

Jeremy read about this form of cycle lock in the CTC magazine. It's a suggestion for the cycle rack at location number 14 on the proposal map v 10.3 posted on this blog and on the BCR bulletin board.


PLANTLOCK £135 (£117.40 + vat)

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND A VIDEO DEMO OF PLANTLOCK'S HARDINESS, VISIT http://frontyardcompany.co.uk/products/plantlock_work.html

"PlantLock frees up cluttered hallways and stairwells by offering a solid planter to lock your bike to. As well as providing safe and tidy bike storage, PlantLock transforms the front yard to a green space. (PlantLock can also be used in back gardens, balconies, communal gardens and other maintained public places.)
PlantLock constitutes an "immovable object" to lock bicycles to, weighing 75+kg when planted up.

"PlantLock accommodates most bicycle types on the market. Bicycle frame and both wheels can be secured to the bar with the owner’s existing locks – ideally two quality locks of different types, as recommended by SoldSecure. PlantLock requires minimum maintenance, being made from robust, durable materials. The locking bar is made from boron steel, case-hardened and tempered, to achieve robustness beyond most commercially available bicycle locks. Each PlantLock accommodates 2 bicycles, and is available in a range of subtle colours.

"PlantLock planting: PlantLock is suitable for growing a wide range of flowering plants, hardy shrubs, fragrant herbs, and alternatively, low maintenance, drought tolerant planting. PlantLock is best positioned in a well lit location, in open view from inside and outside the house, avoiding blind spots and shadows from trees and other visual obstructions. 
For permanent fixture, PlantLock can be attached to the ground, using fixing holes.

Budget

Here's the budget as of 4 February 2010, the one that our grant from the North Area Committee was based on, and the one we need to stick to this year.

Tracking exercise

The on-street features included in the BCR/SUSTRANS DIY Streets Pilot Scheme were sited bearing several criteria in mind: resident preference, traffic-calming effectiveness, vehicular access to front gardens, and the result of 'tracking' software run by Sustrans. In effect, a computer-generated dustcart and fire engine are sent down the street to see if they pass through the parked cars, cycle racks, and tree planters. There is a very wide margin of error here, but the design needed to pass this test before going on to the Council for approval. Here are some of the images from the tracking exercise:

Any Questions on the DIY Streets Consultation?

Anthony Kirkwood from Oxfordshire County Council has just sent out the requisite consultation documents to everyone on BCR today. Your response is due back to him by 12 FEBRUARY. PLEASE, if you support this long-awaited and hard-earned opportunity, ensure Anthony hears from you. If you still have queries and concerns that you dont have satisfactory answers to, please contact a member of the BCRA management committee, as it is more than likely your concern or suggestion has been considered at either one of the all-street or committee meetings, and much work done to ensure the proposal reflects it where possible. This post will hopefully attract a good deal of chatter up until the filing deadline, so please make use of it. Thanks!

New Streetlights

Now that most of the lights are installed and running, you might want the details of the person to give your feedback to:

Cliff Sadler
Southern Electric Contracting Ltd
1 Woodstock Road
Yarnton, Kidlington
Oxford OXON OX5 1PR
Tel No. 01865 845866
cliff.sadler@sec.eu.com

Also, to Jean Fooks who helped change the spec of these lights from the normal 'peachy' spec to pure white: jean.fooks@oxfordshire.gov.uk

It would be terrific if individual residents who are pleased with the white light and the repositioned poles could write directly to Cliff Sadler so Cliff and the crews 'feel the love'.

Comments I've heard so far have been very positive, although a few people have felt a lowering of the intensity of the lights might be preferable. If you do have a suggestion for improvement, perhaps it might be best to wait until the DIY Streets Scheme is in place and we can see how the whole thing works together.

The team leader working on the street said it really does make a big difference to his department to hear good feedback, since all they tend to get is complaints. Please use this blog for a discussion on the new streetlights rather than posting them directly to committee members so that everyone can read them, including Southern Electric and Oxfordshire County Council.

Here's one of the old lamps going down:

"Smiley" gets a lift...

...and is slowly laid to rest




Goodbye to an old friend (but we wont miss the evil orange glow).


Bottom photo is the far less charming but effective and white-lighting Philips Iridium.

BCRA Safety Audit Passed/Consultation

The BCR/Sustrans DIY Streets Proposal v 10.3 passed the Oxfordshire County Council's first safety audit in late September. The next step is to have an official consultation sent to all the residents. This consultation will also include the raised table across the end of the road on the Banbury Road end of BCR.

It is especially important for EVERYONE to return this consultation. If you are supportive or even marginally supportive of the plan, PLEASE make sure you return this consultation in a timely fashion. It is likely that residents who do not support the scheme will let their opinions be known, and without the positive voice, the council will not be given an accurate reading from BCR.

Yes, it does seem a bit absurd for a resident-led scheme to then go to consultation to the residents from the council, but this is the protocol. A successful outcome is by no means guaranteed in the end, as unfortunately, when it comes to making changes in Oxford, no matter how positive or carefully planned, it can take just a few vociferous 'no' voices to unravel the entire process.

Whatever you think of the DIY Streets scheme, please make it a point to discuss it with your neighbours, especially if you and your neighbours dont see eye-to-eye. The BCRA committee has worked countless hours to steer this process successfully, and hear from everyone, to the point where we were worried about 'consultation fatigue'. If you are still skeptical or concerned about the scheme, and dont find an answer to your concerns on this blog or on the Google Groups site linked to it where the meeting's minutes are stored, then please make an effort to speak with a member of the BCRA committee: Mark Hull (18), Graham Bray (44), Monika Prodhan (46), Ted Dewan (37), Shirley Clark (24), Jeremy Irwin-Singer (16), or Ed Pentz (39).

First Pics of Manchester DIY Street Installation

The residents of one of our 'sister' DIY Streets, in the Manchester area, is already installing their DIY features. In this case, the features include a 'totem pole' and a planter they've created. They were working with a community artist on this scheme. For more information, see www.sustrans.org.uk

Road paint 'patch test'

BCRA has been invited to do a small 'patch test' of the road paints in preparation for the larger test. This will be done within a parking bay mainly to test the appearance of the paint on the road surface and how well the colours work, not to test its resilience or the pattern in the roadway itself. This will happen in the next few weeks and BCRA committee will be conducting it. The test will consist of a range of hand-mixed tennis-court paint colours within the terra-cotta/ochre range that may or may not appear in the larger paint test.

Child-shaped bollards help slow traffic

Just to show creative the authorites are starting to become when it comes to traffic-caliming, I thought I'd post this item from 13 August. Child-shaped bollards that give the impression they are about to cross the road are the latest attempt by a council to slow drivers as they pass local schools.

The steel mannequins cost £350 each and have been placed outside Avenue Primary School in Leicester to help enforce a 20mph speed limit.

A spokesperson for the Environmental Transport Association (ETA) said: “Any measure that highlights the importance of slow speeds outside schools is welcome. The danger faced by children is highlighted by the fact that one of these bollards has already been knocked over.”

http://www.eta.co.uk/2009/08/13/child-shaped-bollards-help-slow-traffic

Straw Bale Trial and Street Party

Road painting in Brooklyn

A friend in New York alerted me to this item. It does seem that authorised DIY road painting is starting to blossom in cities across the US. It's been going on in Portland, Ocean City, and now Brooklyn. Given its ambitions for permanence, our proposed street pattern painting is just that much further evolved. I sort of like the idea of a street in Oxford being culturally 'ahead' of Brooklyn...

Paint the Pavement With Brooklyn Students, May 15, 2009

Students from the Community Roots Charter School will be out in the street from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., working on a new mural covering the street in front of their school, and volunteers are welcome to join in. The mural painting is the joint handiwork of DOT's Urban Art Program, Livable Streets Education, and local artists and teachers. Sound unusual? It is. We're told this may be the first time NYCDOT has ever approved a pavement painting project.

While DOT isn't calling the mural a street reclamation, the spirit is similar to Portland's "intersection repair" and Ocean City's "traffic safety quilt". Those projects created can't-miss patterns for drivers to slow down and look out for people. Let's hope that tomorrow's pavement painting is the first of many.

Road-paint test-pattern

Proposal 10.3 delivered May 2009

Click on the image to open up each page of a 4-page pdf of the detailed specifications for the DIY Streets proposal as submitted to Oxfordshire County Council.

Proposal 10.3 delivered May 2009

Here's the document showing the proposed placement of the road paint patterns as well as the other DIY features. A separate document details some of the specification for the different DIY features.

Please note that, although we have decided on a theme for the road paint pattern test, it is subject to tweaking by the Oxfordshire County Council with regard to highways regulations. The pattern exhibited here is a variation on the agreed-upon "Victorian Tile" theme, although it may not represent the final appearance of the road paint test.

Street Lighting

I'm trying to find out how strongly residents of BCR and greater Summertown feel about the design and functioning of our street lights.

The existing lantern design does a miserable job of throwing nasty yellow light into our first floor windows all over Summertown, and not a great job of lighting up the pavement. Replacement lanterns are on their way in the near future, and they'll undoubtedly do a better job lighting up the streets, especially as they're going to be casting white light instead of orange or yellow.

However, the new design appearing outside Oxford's conservation area is pretty ugly.

How do people feel about this? The current lantern design characteristic of Summertown streets may do a lousy job lighting them up, but their profile is at least a bit more palatable than the proposed replacement (Philips Iridium). I'm hoping that the council will change their mind and install lanterns that do a good job of lighting the streets as well as being decent objects of street furniture in their own right.

With all the work we're doing on BCR to settle on an elegant and popular design, it seems a shame to allow the street light design to let us down and subvert the overall design quality.

Below are photos of the existing Summertown lantern and a similar more attractive lantern recently installed in Soho. The third picture is the Philips Iridium due to appear all over Summertown.

Position of 'Victorian carpet' road patterning/paint

This map shows the positions of all the features, including the road patterning/paint, of the BCR DIY streets proposal as it will go to Sustrans and then onto the OCC. It will then be included in the package the OCC will chew on for awhile before coming back to us with comments/adjustments.

Bear in mind that the amount of road patterning/paint might call for funds beyond our budget, but I'm hoping we can keep them all so as to create an effective string of 'Victorian carpets'. However, if we have to take a few out, I'll have to consider another arrangement.

If this design removed a patterned area you were hoping to have in front of your home, please understand that this particular arrangement allowed for the best symmetry along the length of the street, as well as creating s series of regular-sized 'carpets'. Where possible, the carpets have been positioned to embrace the vertical features and therefore make more convincing 'rooms'.

Please offer comments on this if you like.

Click the map to open up a hi-resolution version of the map.

Victorian Tile 2-Diamond variations

Here are some variations on the Victorian Tile road paint pattern range voted on at the BCRA meeting of 9 May 2009. Some variations include features of the "Carpet" design with the "Victorian Tile" design range. If you'd like to comment on the various versions, please refer to them by letter in your comments.

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VERSION A
The original Victoria Tile-inspired design presented on 9 May 2009:


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VERSION B
Carpet straight edging, 9-tile ochre central diamonds:


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VERSION C
Carpet straight edging, 16-tile ochre central diamonds:


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VERSION D
Carpet straight double-tile edging, 16-tile ochre central diamonds:


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VERSION E
Carpet sawtooth edging, 16-tile ochre central diamonds:


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VERSION F
Carpet sawtooth edging, 16-tile ochre central diamonds, ochre corners:


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VERSION G
Diagonal ochre-bordered edging, 16-tile ochre central diamonds:


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VERSION H
Diagonal edging, 16-tile ochre central diamonds:

Getting the hump - or two

Remember the unexpected pavement works which introduced the two yellow bobbly pavement slopes at the Banbury Road end of Beech Croft Road?
Well, according to Summertown Councillor Jean Fooks, the workmen will be returning later this year, to create a "raised entry treatment" (an extended hump or 'table'). Apparently the new Banbury Road pavement down from Summertown was always supposed to include this unexpected, but very welcome 'table' across Beech Croft Road but there was some mix-up and the table was forgotten. A 'table' is a raised area across the entrance to BCR that maintains level pavement heights all the way, and necessarily slows cars down as they go up onto the table and then down again. However, Jean informs us that Beech Croft Road will be getting a "raised entry treatment" some time soon, at both the Banbury and Woodstock Road ends of BCR, and that Thorncliffe Road is included as well.
So generally very good news for this part of Summertown. You read it here first! ...

Painting the Streets as a Community Project

I've just been contacted by one of the people who have set up the website for a street-painting initiative in St Paul, Minnesota, inspired by a pilot project in Portland, Oregon. They have formalised the process of painting their own streets, with full acquiescence of the local authorities. They use ordinary domestic latex paints and maintain it all themselves by formal 10-year agreement with the local authorities.

Although the designs themselves are a far cry from what we've been bouncing around, their methods and experience could be extremely useful if we need or we choose to go down the community painting project route rather than the professional route. This site is a very thorough and useful resource, complete with sample agreements, notices, and a tried-and-tested procedure for getting good results, all of which could have been very useful in making the most of our first paint trial two years ago!

http://www.paintthepavement.org/

On-street residential cycle racks in Hackney

An existing on-street cycle parking place in Hackney. It does have build-outs to protect it, but at least there's something of a precedent in a UK residential street.

http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/parking/

Thermoplastic stencils

The stencil pattern in Providence RI is in fact a pattern done in a thermoplastic product.

The company (based in the US, but active around the world--including the UK, Spain, Canada, Australia, Israel) www.integratedpaving.com

Their products basically divide into two groups. "Streetprint" is more of an imitation brick and paving sprayed through a stencil, leaving the grey tarmac visible in the gaps where the rendering would be. "Duratherm" is in effect the opposite...a thermoplastic stencil that suggests colour 'rendering' and leaves the tarmac to show through, making 'bricks'of the tarmac.

Click links to see:
Standard Duratherm patterns

The project gallery, a mixture of Duratherm and Streetprint treatments

This product must be professionally applied using specialist machinery, so it's a fairly far cry from DIY, and pricier. However, it would certainly last a whole lot longer than any paint.