Taunton Area Cycling Campaign have launched a petition to keep East Street closed to vehicular traffic.

Sign the petition here…

Also if you want to keep East Street for shoppers, pedestrians and cyclists come and join members of Taunton Area Cycling Campaign and Taunton Transition Town in East Street Thursday May 6th at 7.00 pm. Meet outside the Market House.

*** UPDATE ***

Please note that Taunton Area Cycling Campaign are cancelling the Keep East Street pedestrianised event on Thursday.

The council have reassured us that in the short term East Street will be kept pedestrianised. Thanks to everyone who said they would come along… you can stand down… but please support the campaign by adding your name to the petition to show just now popular the no car street is.

So why sign the petition?

The pedestrianisation of East Street as brought many benefits to citizens of Taunton especially through the pandemic. It has allowed for social distancing and kept us all safe in these times of Covid.

East Street without cars has created a pleasant and safe environment for all, including those people with mobility issues who previously struggled to negotiate the parked cars and dense traffic. SWT’s consultation on the project received approximately 2000 responses, with a significant majority in support.

There are also wider environmental concerns. We all know that we are in a climate crisis, one of the best recommended actions we can do as individuals is to walk, cycle or take the bus more and leave the car at home. We would appeal to people to consider these options, and many others, if at all possible in order to reduce the traffic going through the centre of Taunton. This would have huge benefits for the residents of both roads affected as traffic pollution is known to cause asthma and cancers, whereas cycling and walking have great benefits to our own health.

In addition, increasing road space available to traffic will only increase the traffic using it – many studies show that traffic simply increases to fill the space available to it.. Increasing road space now, is simply increasing the amount of traffic able to use the road, which will increase pollution and greenhouse gas emissions now and for the future. Check out this article: Reducing Roads Can Cause Traffic to Evaporate – https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/reducing-roads-can-cause-traffic-to-evaporate/ .

The value of spending from increased footfall is often underestimated. See https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/media/3890/pedestrian-pound-2018.pdf There are many examples of public realm improvements increasing footfall and spending in retail centres.

So please, we Taunton Transition Town along with Taunton Area Cycling Campaign appeal to David Fothergil of SCC and Mike Rigby of SWT to keep East Street closed to vehicular traffic for the sake of our local economy and our children’s futures!