I'm thinking about possible solutions for a road, Woodgrange Drive, in Southend. In particular, this stretch of it, which is too narrow (at 11 or 12 metres) to include pavements, two-way driving and cycle tracks. Looking at the satelleite image or Google Street View, it can be seen that the rest of the road is wide enough for pavements, cycle tracks and road.
Narrowing the carriageway to one lane to provide cycleways alongside and permitting motor vehicles in one direction only or just removing all motor traffic with a permeability block at one end doesn't seem realistic as this is a main bus route. Without this bus route, people living or travelling to/from here would have to walk up to half a mile to reach bus services stopping on Southchurch Road or the seafront(Eastern Esplanade). Although, perhaps that isn't too much of a problem considering the constrained width here.
So my best idea right now is some kind of bus & cycle road; allowing buses and bikes in the main carriageway for this stretch. There are around 10 or 20 buses per hour passing through, so is this low enough for them to mix? What do Embassy members think? The obvious problem cycling here is of course the high number of private cars passing along the narrow two-way carriageway! At peak times, the road is congested enough to slow down to around 20mph.
In terms of implementation, all side-roads coming off the narrow stretch can be accessed via other back streets, so I see no need to keep them open. Each one would be blocked off with bollards to allow cycling, so the only car traffic on the narrow stretch would be to/from residents' driveways; i.e. very little. The stretch would have no entry signs with "except buses, cycles & access" each end, should be 20mph and have no centre-line, to avoid buses squeezing cycles trying to stay in their lane when overtaking.
There could be scope for bus-stop bypasses, by narrowing the main carriageway to 4~5 metres temporarily to create (from one side to the other): pavement, one way cycle track, bus stop island, carriageway, pavement. As the carriageway is narrowed, oncoming buses would have to give way and wait for a bus/passing vehicle to clear. Lack of protection from the bus in the middle of the road for oncoming cycles in the narrowed carriageway may be a subjective safety issue. This can just about be squeezed into an 11 metre width: http://www.streetmix.net/-/189106
Any thoughts?
Edit: I meant to include this link showing the narrow stretch in question: http://goo.gl/maps/6OXnz
