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Most village cyclists have to struggle with fast rural traffic and a lack of cycle lanes – but not the inhabitants of Swavesey, Cambridgeshire.
Not content with already having a smooth, fast tarmac route to North Cambridge alongside the guided busway, they’re set to get a second cycle path as part of the £1.5bn A14 upgrade.
The A14 Non-Motorised User Campaign has been lobbying for a route for cyclists, pedestrians and horse-riders to be included as part of the massive rebuild. The group, which includes Cambridge Cycling Campaign, CTC and Sustrans, says that most major road upgrades have resulted in a worse deal for everyone apart from the motorist. They want to see a parallel route to the A14 road, and safe bridge crossings at key points.
Plans published in April include an entirely separate track from Girton, at the northwest edge of Cambridge, out to the junction at Dry Drayton. From there, a roadside path would be provided alongside the ‘local access road’. However, the Cambridge News suggests a higher-quality path could be provided all the way to Swavesey. A Highways Agency spokeswoman told the newspaper:
“The proposals include a non-motorised road user route as part of the proposed improvements. It is envisaged that it will be of a similar standard to that associated with the guided busway. The project team is actively discussing the scheme footprint design with NMU groups and the proposed improvement scheme is currently going through a public consultation.”
The plans also include cycle bridges at Bar Hill and Swavesey. The new path would link up with the improvements to cycle paths on Huntingdon Road in Cambridge, set to be approved by the County Council.
On the day of the European elections, the Telegraph concludes that UKIP is the “anti-cycling party”. Its 2010 manifesto, Chris Harvey concludes, was written in the “traditional language used by people who hate cyclists” – all talk of red-light jumping, road courtesy and liability insurance. Its recent record is no better, with its MEPs voting against safer lorry design in the European Parliament. He concludes: “For cyclists, the implication is clear: don’t vote for these people.”
The ‘Boris bikes’, London’s city cycle hire, could soon become part of the Oyster card scheme.
Transport for London is considering the possibility of adding bikes to the ubiquitous payment card, already used for most Tube and bus journeys within London. It believes that integrating cycle hire into Oyster could boost the largely static hire figures.
In a market research questionnaire issued this month, TfL says:
“In the future, you may be able to use your Oyster card and contactless payment card on Barclays Cycle Hire. By simply tapping your card on a reader next to the bike you would be able to pay and unlock the bike.”
The change would be an about-turn for TfL. In 2011, Mayor Boris Johnson stated “The Oyster system is highly complex, and the likely costs of implementing this means the [cycle hire] scheme does not accept Oyster cards and is unlikely to do so.”
However, with the increasing popularity of contactless credit and debit cards, TfL is currently rethinking its approach to Oyster – which is now more than 10 years old.
Any move to Oyster would need to take account of the deposit required for hiring a Boris bike. Currently, hirers are required to supply credit/debit card details in case the bike is stolen, damaged or simply returned late.
A mouth-watering photo tour courtesy of Gizmodo. Most of these are in the Netherlands. None are in Britain.
Watch out London – Liverpool is coming after your title as Britain’s booming bike city. A new cycle strategy, agreed by the City Council this week, aims for 10% of trips within the city to be made by bike by 2025.
In contrast to the city’s previous cycling plans, the new vision focuses on “cycling for commuting and short trips” rather than purely recreation and sport. The latter is seen as a quick win – getting at least 10% of locals cycling once a week by 2017, if just for enjoyment.
Liverpool’s Mayor, Joe Anderson, was one of the first politicians to sign up to the Times’ Cities Fit For Cycling manifesto.
The strategy admits that Liverpool’s cycle routes are not up to scratch. It takes the common approach of 20mph speed limits on back streets, and segregated cycleways on faster roads. It says:
“While investment has been made into the cycle network, much more is needed to ensure routes are continuous and are connecting to key trip generators, such as areas of regeneration, investment and employment. Many people will not start cycling unless vehicles are slowed and they can be physically separated from traffic on busier roads with speeds higher than 20mph. Safe crossings across busy junctions are required to connect 20mph areas. Links to and through the city centre are a vital part of this network. It must be the objective to make all of our roads safe for cycling, or to provide parallel routes where this is not possible.”
However, the document is light on detail as to how this will be achieved. Though published this month, it was initially drawn up for consultation last autumn, and therefore misses the new infrastructure guidance published recently by CTC, Sustrans, and Cyclenation.
The Liverpool strategy also restates the ‘hierarchy of provision’ that has been widely criticised by cycle campaigners. Supposedly a list of options to encourage cycling, the controversial hierarchy only proposes dedicated cycleways and paths as a last resort after “traffic volume reduction” and “reallocation of carriageway space”. Mark Treasure, chair of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, called this approach “woefully vague, even downright confusing”.
Councillor Tim Moore, Liverpool’s cabinet member for transport and climate change, summarised the strategy:
“This is a very important strategy which supports the Mayoral pledge of making Liverpool a cleaner and greener city. We want Liverpool to be the fastest growing city for cycling in the country with it becoming a popular, mainstream way of travelling.
“Already we have a record number of people using bikes, and the recent launch of the Citybike hire scheme will increase that figure significantly but we want to build on that by investing in our cycling infrastructure and encouraging more people to use bikes regularly. The strategy sets out very ambitious targets but they can be achieved and Liverpool will be a greener, safer and healthier city.”
You can read the strategy as a PDF on the liverpool.gov.uk site.
Made in the Cotswolds. Published by Éditions Système D Ltd.
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