Did you comment on the consultation about the taxi rank on St Andrew’s Street this month?

I did. I was pleased to see the County Council has stepped back from the original plan to take the taxi rank away – a proposal that dismayed many people, including older people and those with disabilities.

The new plan proposes to keep the taxi rank in St Andrew’s Street, but to create an extra one on Drummer Street – see previous post. The idea is that a maximum of six taxis wait in St Andrew’s Street and taxis filter through from Drummer Street as space becomes available.

While I support the principle, I was sceptical about the taxis sticking to the limit, as they disregard it at present (see picture).

The County Council has now written back with some comments about how they are going to see that things improve:

Thank you for your comments on the traffic-flow improvements for St Andrew’s Street and sorry that it took us so long to get back to you.

We are aware that enforcing the no-queuing-onto-the-road rule is a major contributor to the success of this scheme. Police and traffic wardens will enforce the restrictions in the first instance. We are also looking to incorporate systems within the proposed detector equipment and variable message signs to monitor taxis in St Andrew’s Street. We will be working with taxi drivers and the City Council, who issues the taxi licences, to agree an operational protocol for use of the taxi ranks and to consider further enforcement possibilities.

Regarding alerting taxi drivers to waiting passengers, we are currently looking into this and are also talking to the suppliers of the variable message signs. So far, we haven’t found any viable solutions. However, with the new system in place taxis will be required to drive to the St Andrew’s St rank via Drummer St. Therefore any St Andrew’s St bound-taxis would be able to pick up waiting passengers from Drummer St.

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