Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

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mjr
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Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by mjr »

Those of you who are unhappy that the Highways Agency response to the Cameron government's direction to cater for cycling is to ban cycles from the proposed new A14 and adjacent A1 may like to register on http://infrastructure.planningportal.go ... nt-scheme/ before 12 March.

http://infrastructure.planningportal.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/TR010018/2.%20Post-Submission/Application%20Documents/Environmental%20Statement/A14%206.1%20ES%20Chapter%2015.pdf wrote:In order to contribute to improved safety, journey time reliability and capacity on the strategic highway network, the Highways Agency proposes to place restrictions on the A1 and A14 trunk road ...

The proposed restrictions would prohibit pedestrians, cyclists, equestrians and horse drawn vehicles from using the trunk road in these locations. The proposed restrictions have been put forward where there would be suitable alternative routes for these types of road user. ... new NMU [Non Motorised User - a strange phrase meaning "people"] route parallel ... existing A14 ... and new local access road ... NMU route parallel

On the basis that very few NMU currently use the A14 and that the Huntingdon southern bypass does not currently exist as a route for NMU, together with the availability of alternative routes more suitable for NMU (i.e. less hostile than the trunk road traffic conditions), the effect of the proposed traffic regulation orders on NMU is considered to be neutral.

In other words, most cyclists have been scared off the A14 by failing to protect them, so they'll deal with the remainder by banning them, plus they'll extend that to the adjacent bits of A1! Meanwhile, in the absence of any design standards for cycleways, I fear what the "new NMU route"s will be like.

Then, for the icing on the cake:
...de-trunking would introduce opportunities for NMU in the future by Cambridge City Council, although any such plans for improvements for NMU or public transport are not part of the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme.

In other words, the existing cycle-hostile A14, which is claimed to be a suitable alternative route, isn't going to have anything done to it before they dump it on Cambridge City Council (huh? Isn't Cambridgeshire County Council the highway authority?) and it becomes their problem.

Have I missed something or should the area's MPs - including Julian Huppert chair of All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group - be horribly embarrassed by how their Highways Agency treats cycling in one of England's highest-cycling areas?

If you walk or cycle in this area, you've until 12 March to register your cycling group or yourself as an interested party and make an initial representation. Please let others know.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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drossall
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by drossall »

I remember racing on the A1 west of Huntingdon...

The question is whether there's an alternative route for cyclists. North of Huntingdon on the A1, the old road is pretty much there. South, it's not quite so clear cut, but the road from St Neots through Huntingdon is OK. The line of the A1 around Huntingdon misses major population centres, so there's not so much reason for cyclists to follow it.

I'm not so sure about the A14. You seem to have to go a long way north or south to find an alternative route from Cambridge to Huntingdon. I suppose there's the track alongside the guided bus-way?

The Highways Agency have not always assessed the needs of cyclists well. They've just upgraded the A11 from Mildenhall to Thetford. It seems totally to have escaped them that there is no other reasonable route for bikes on that stretch, unlike others. To be fair, bikes are not banned on the new road, but I wouldn't want to ride one there. You'd hope that a strategic roads agency could spot the lack of a strategic road, but there you are.
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by gaz »

By coincidence I was looking through a 2010 Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) document for the 2009 changes to the A2/A282/M25 junction in Kent.

Time dims the memory but IIRC immediately before the project the A2 was already an eight lane 70mph pseudo-motorway and the A2/A282/M25 junction had no facilities to accomodate NMUs. To my knowledge cyclists have always been prohibited from the A282 although the document suggests otherwise.

The POPE contains some interesting comments regarding NMUs.

6.9 A Pedestrian and Cyclist Report was prepared at OPR stage (May 2004). This states that the junction was unsuitable for use by cyclists and pedestrians in both its then existing form and that proposed in the scheme.

6.10 Use of the A2 by pedestrians was described as minimal or non-existent due to the lack of infrastructure and was only likely to occur as a result of vehicle breakdown or accident. The nature of the road meant that equestrian users did not use the route.

6.11 Cyclists were permitted on the A2 and A282, although the study identified a number of conflict zones at the junction. The National Cycle network passes through J1b and Dartford town centre. Consultation with the Kent CC Cycling Officer confirmed that no cycling provision was required for this scheme.

6.12 The report concluded by recommending that:
Pedestrians, cyclists and equestrians be prohibited by a Traffic Regulation Order from using or crossing the A2 between the Bean junction and the Dartford Heath junction and from the A282 south of J1b. Appropriate signage would be provided;

An alternative route for cyclists be signposted between the A2 at Bean and the Dartford Heath junction via the National Cycle Route 1 where appropriate; and no mitigation measures were required for other vulnerable users.


If any TRO has been raised I can find no trace of it. There are certainly no prohibition signs. There is an off slip for cyclists at the junction before Bean but this was in place before the scheme was implemented. Having followed that off slip there is no signing to join NCN1 or any other cycle route.

Having scared the NMU's away the scheme can be signed off as "cycle-proof", why waste any more money formalising it?

My first thoughts about the A14 plan mirror those of mjr. The road has already been "cycle-proofed" by making the environment so hostile that nobody cycles there. They now want to make it even more hostile.

Since, in their view, there are no cyclists to cater for on this route I can't imagine very much effort will be made on providing alternative farcilities.
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drossall
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by drossall »

The general route to the north in that area is pretty important strategically, in my view. However, I've already commented on where there do and do not seem to be alternatives.
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by wildnorthlands »

drossall wrote: I suppose there's the track alongside the guided bus-way?


When I tried to use it it was flooded and of course the guided buses don't take bikes :x
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Guy951
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by Guy951 »

drossall wrote:The line of the A1 around Huntingdon misses major population centres...

Which is why a cycle path beside the A1 would be useful for cyclists who actually want to get somewhere, rather than being routed through every town between point A and point B, or having to meander through the lanes (as I have to at present - Home to rellies in W Yorks via the A1 would be 132 relatively flat miles. Around 10-11 hours, allowing for weather. Actual route taken is 150 extremely hilly miles at around 12.5-15 (tiring) hours).

Which makes
drossall wrote:...so there's not so much reason for cyclists to follow it.
dependent on the reason for your journey.
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drossall
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by drossall »

Yes, I broadly agree. I've followed the A5 from North Hertfordshire to Staffordshire, and there isn't much alternative if you're covering distance rather than touring. Similarly, I've already complained in this thread about the A11 around Thetford, which is similar.

With the A1, I've found that, even for covering distance, what amounts to the old road via Huntingdon is OK.

In general, cyclists originate at population centres and may go there to refuel or whatever. Going round isn't inherently an advantage in the way that it is in a car, especially if it's a longer distance. Cyclists will quite often, I think, slip off a bypass and go through town rather than around. However, it does depend what the traffic conditions are like in the population centre.
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Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by Mark1978 »

Normally I would indeed prefer to go through town than use a bypass but only because the bypass is hostile to cycling. If there is a good qualify cycling route (of which in the UK we have few/none) then I would be happy to stick on it.

I've been a while of the opinion that decent cycle lanes alongside primary routes should be compulsory.
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by Pete Owens »

This illustrates the problem of building motorways-in-all-but-name rather than proper motorways. The issue is not the sections covered by the proposed ban (which from what I can make out are brand new by-passes on new alignments - so cyclists can still use the old roads), but the sections where the new road has simply obliterated the old road. Cycling cannot be banned on those sections due to the destruction of the original route - though the Highways Agency self evidently consder their own design unsuitable for all the traffic the road needs to carry.

Building cycle paths alongside by-passes is pointless whichever way you look at it. Utility cycle jouneys are by necessity short, so will tend to radiate from the place being by-passed - and in any case the whole rationalle for motor traffic of saving time by taking a longer route at higher speed simply doesn't work for cyclists - if you need to get from one side of town to the other you take the direct route through the middle. If on the other hand you are catering for recreational cyclists the last place you would want to build a path is adjacent to a busy road.

The one merit of building cycle paths next to bypasses is that they are harmless. If we could shift the entire segregationist funding away from towns and redirect it to buildiing paths alongside motorways then this would spare most of us from the farcilities that are springing up all over the place.
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by Vorpal »

Actually, I think when they build a new road, it should be on a different, or slightly different route to the old one, then the old one prioritised for the use of cyclists and residential access.

The A120 from Braintree to the M11 is a good example of this. However, what they haven't done, and should do is reduce the speed limits on the old road and introduce speed cameras and/or traffic calming.

I asked ECC about that once upon a time, and they replied that it was 'still used by commuters' so the higher speed limits are 'necessary' :roll:
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mjr
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Re: Great North Road Cycling Ban Extended by the Back Door?

Post by mjr »

Essex CC look like the worst highway authority in the east, possibly excluding the Highways Agency, so no surprise there.

One inevitable problem with bypasses is that few remain bypasses for long, with new development springing up alongside the new road sooner or later. Usually, it's workplaces first, where I'd like people to be able to commute by cycling. If there isn't space for cycling along the pseudo-motorway bypass route, then some commuters get a choice between a short motor journey and a longer cycle towards the town centre, orbital for a bit and then back out - if it's possible at all. There's sometimes also a lesser benefit of connecting satellite villages directly but that doesn't seem relevant here.

In the A14 case, it looks like the worst of both worlds: no cycling along the new route and no remedial works on the replaced route. The guided busway track would be OK for Cambridge-St Ives if the flooding was reduced, but St Ives-Huntingdon has a choice of poisons: wiggling through places and then a mile or so of the overloaded A1123 or a choice of longer detours (some of which might be cut by the new A14). The replaced route could provide a better link there, but wouldn't in these plans.

Please can we avoid bashing the "segregationist" strawman? The bad highways officers who have that view aren't going to read this and I think we all agree other methods are better in town.
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Highways England

Post by millimole »

I have read (but, no, I can't remember where) that when the Highways Agency is replaced by Highways England (see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d326d838-c346 ... z3Vz48sLqF ) one of the options they are seriously considering is removing NMUs from large sections of their network - primarily major A roads.
I can't see what this will achieve from their perspective other than removing troublesome, disparate groups of users that they have to provide for in different ways.
I would welcome good quality parallel routes, but I can't see it ever happening!
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