Details here https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/local-authority-parking
Closes 14th Feburary
Details here https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/local-authority-parking
Closes 14th Feburary
Important to respond to this one as it is the result of Eric Pickles' much derided musings last year that people should be able to park wherever and whenever they like. At the time I thought he was just going for some cheap "end the war on the motorist" publicity and nothing would come of it - but it looks like he's serious about making it difficult to enforce parking restrictions.
Not sure if this is a consultation - UK Road building
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/campaigns/roads-to-nowhere/2014-roads-policy-alert
Consultation opens according to road.cc http://road.cc/content/news/110399-consultation-opens-leeds-bradford-sup...
Let's hope it's better than the London ones
Cut and pasted from pdf press release:
Sustrans press release
For immediate release
BATH AND NORTH EAST SOMERSET COMMUNITIES INVITED TO SHAPE THE FUTURE OF CYCLING
Using an innovative new website and a series of public events local residents will be able to share their ideas for new and improved cycling infrastructure. These ideas will help build the future of cycling in Bath and North East Somerset.
This work comes as part of a Sustrans project to design a new ‘Strategic Cycle Network for Bath and North East Somerset’ which the council have committed to invest significant future funding into developing. This recommendation will form part of the council’s ‘Transport Strategy and shape their vision for cycling’.
The website allows users to suggest their ideas for brand new or improved cycle routes over a map of Bath and North East Somerset.
Ian Barrett, South West Regional Director for Sustrans commented:
“I’m delighted to have this opportunity to work closely with the communities in Bath and North East Somerset and our partners at B&NES Council.’
“This project will ensure that we can reflect the demand for high quality cycle routes throughout the area and will create an ambitious vision for a network that will give more people the option to walk and cycle for every day trips.”
Users are invited to highlight specific points on the map that they feel should be improved or draw extended routes, all of which can be annotated to provide detailed suggestions.
Cllr Nigel Roberts, Bath and North East Somerset Council Cycling Champion added:
“Cycling represents a significant part of the Council's transport strategy, this audit is an important way of getting the views of cyclists and those who would like to cycle but currently don't.”
Sustrans will also host a series of public drop-in events through February to give people an opportunity to share their ideas in person.
These events will run from 1PM till 8PM on the following dates:
17th February Brunswick Room at the Guildhall, Bath.
20th February Millenium Hall, Chew Magna.
24th February Hollies Council Chamber, Radstock
28th February Royal British Legion, Keynsham
The new interactive website is online at http://www.sustrans.org.uk/banescycling.
ENDS
For more information contact: Press Office 0207 7807 231 E-mail: press@sustrans.org.uk
Notes to editors
Sustrans is the charity that’s enabling people to travel by foot, bike or public transport for more of the journeys we make every day. It’s time we all began making smarter travel choices. Make your move and support Sustrans today. www.sustrans.org.uk
"This work comes as part of a Sustrans project to design a new ‘Strategic Cycle Network for Bath and North East Somerset’ which the council have committed to invest significant future funding into developing. This recommendation will form part of the council’s ‘Transport Strategy and shape their vision for cycling’."
wish Sustrans would do the same for the Gloucester, Cheltenham, Tewkesbury, Ashchurch, Bishop's Cleeve "connurbation" in Gloucestershire...
We could really do with some proper cycling infrastructure linking all those places up instead of cruddy narrow painted lines (if you are lucky) on 50 mph and National speed limit roads...
The tragedy is that all those places are close together and easily cycled (all within 11 miles at the most), but the infrastructure is so pathetic on those fast roads.
WGC Consultation (requires easy registration) No mention of safe cycling provision.
The proposal fails to address access from the east side of town and does nothing to improve safety on the fast gyratory road system adjacent the north of the site.
Beware of the loaded questions. Non residents can contribute. Ends March 10th
http://consult.welhat.gov.uk/portal/planning_policy/wgc_town_centre_north_spd/wgc_tcn_spd
Consultation on improvements around Kings Cross, London.
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/streets/kingscross
Very disappointing! Closes on 24th March.
More details on Cyclescape.
Some interesting stuff here http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/trumpington-road the dual network in action?
Cambridge Cycling Campaign has responded to the consultation and it is available at http://www.camcycle.org.uk/blog/2014/06/25/trumpington-road-consultation/
We favoured option 2.
Option 1 is favoured by the officers, and they seemed to throw 2 in at the last moment, in case 1 wasn't feasible. So we'll see if they pay any attention.
Our issue with option 1 is that a 2m bi-directional cycle path is not wide enough. However, I am pleased to see that they have at least put in some proper separation from pedestrians. Option 1 also facilitates a movement which helps only a minority of users, and takes road width from other journeys to do so.
Option 2, having been done last minute, is missing a metre (removal of car parking + existing lane is 3m, but only 2m is allocated to the new raised lane). We would like that used for the existing on-road northbound lane, which is currently very narrow and in the dooring zone. This would represent an improvement in on-road conditions for the main Trumpington to Cambridge city centre route, with a view that this whole corridor should be improved.
What it doesn't do is facilitate the Brooklands Ave to Bateman St movement that the council wants. However, moving the Bateman St crossing does help with crossing the road twice to do this.
A major project to change the roads in this area of Camden.
http://www.wearecamden.org/westendproject/
Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street (currently one-way in opposing directions) will be made two-way for all traffic, but with motor traffic excluded from TCR.
It's a bold scheme, and does represent an improvement for cycling, although I guess from an Embassy perspective we would have to question how genuinely inclusive it is. Proposals for Gower Street are just armadillos outside a 1.5m cycle lane on a road that will be pretty busy; for Tottenham Court Road it's sharing with buses (and possibly taxis) on what will be a very busy bus corridor, akin to Oxford Street. Not suitable for all, by any means.
Consultation closes Friday 18th July.
Consultation on the TCR Scheme is here https://consultations.wearecamden.org/culture-environment/wep/consultation
Comment from Cyclists in the City on the scheme http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/tottenham-court-road-we-su...
Here's the Camden Cycle Campaign's take on the scheme BTW http://www.camdencyclists.org.uk/newsitems/ccc/tottenham-court-road (It would be good to have a Streetmix of some of the cross sections to help understand what's being proposed...)
Of relevance to Scottish viewers - the Scottish government is piloting some 20mph limits on trunk roads through selected towns and villages - details here: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/road/safety/speed-management-towns-a...
There's no closing date as such. Worth supporting, although the individual schemes are pretty minor
The Biggar proposal is too short. It completely fails to deal with the area near my sister's house where crossing the road is difficult. The government's own diagrams show a slight collision exactly there. I even think the change up to 30mph just before might be quite dangerous. I've seen more impressive schemes in Hammersmith, in London. From a Conservative council.
Also, they can't spell Biggar correctly -Bigger?
Also in Biggar, the local council has recently rammed through a new primary school which involves a massive car park and a lack of outdoor space for no readily apparent reason.
Yeah, the Langholm one is pitifully short too.
Hi,
The bank (RBS) which owns one side of North Street in Brighton is funding a scheme to make the area more pleasant to be in, with the aim of attracting more shoppers and attracting retailers who won't go bust immediately and leave the shops empty.
They have engaged Urban Movement to draw up plans, which can be downloaded from http://www.brightonbusiness.co.uk/htm/ni20140606.524392.htm
There were some consultation workshops today, but there isn't going to be a wide public consultation before it goes to the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee of the council on July 1st. If it's agreed there, then there'll be a formal TRO consultation. They hope to start doing the work this autumn.
As the plans stand, there's no provision for cycling at all. This is a road which carries a huge volume of bus traffic, both ways, and where the shops have no rear access for loading. It's also the main route for emergency vehicles through town. It's not pleasant to cycle on at the moment and these proposals would make it marginally better by moving bus stops so that the buses don't have to stop directly opposite one another. But I don't think this proposal could be described as making a welcoming environment for cycling.
Does anyone have any ideas for things we could suggest?
Apologies for the short notice - only just twigged that this was on
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/streetdesign
Page has a link to a questionnaire as well as a chance to download the draft guidance. Not looked in any detail yet
Hmm. Shoot me down in flames, but having whizzed through this, it's actually not bad. No 'dual network' and an emphasis on separating cyclists from other road users as much as possible. I wonder if it's got any teeth?
Anyone else had a closer look who can comment?
It seems odd that they don't have the factsheets complete at this stage. It's really the fact sheet section that will have all the contentious stuff about how they propose to handle conflicts and junctions etc, along with proposed widths.
It is very interesting that they are specifying speed limits alongside their street types - those look about right to me, though they are actually better on 20mph than the recently announced 20mph proposals for Edinburgh.
The one factsheet they have put out on Pedestrian Areas appears to show a distinct lack of the stongest design features such as continuous pavements over side streets (rather it shows entry treatments).
Checked on this - factsheets will be a seperate consultation.
"A further consultation will start on the 14th July for the detailed design guidance fact sheets. This will run until the 31st August."
Detailed design consultation is out now http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/20089/roads_and_pavements/906/edinburgh...
Cycling environment bit: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/3577/cycle_environment-draft_...
Here's a biggy! http://wales.gov.uk/consultations/transport/active-travel-design-guidanc...
It looks quite good and even refers to the Crow Manual but I am not a specialist!
Deadline for this is 4th August BTW
This descibed a a first attempt and for the UK it really is a first! Initial skim through looks good but I can't understand the need to use examples of UK best practise when the real thing is not only so close but so well documented - it also refers to the Poyton shared space thing as a good example of a shred space thing - can i fefer them to AEARAB's response to it?
The Draft Bristol Cycling Strategy, available to download here.
At first glance, more promising than most (although that's not saying much).
Consultation open until the 11th of August.
Don't appear to be any questions per se: is there any organised response?
I grew up in Bristol and my family still lives there. Clarence Rd scheme, for instance, would help me cycle to my brother's place from train station, so would be happy to send individual response, but don't have much time.
My understanding is that Bristol have adopted the local campaign's proposed strategy - so presumably most of the responses from cyclists will be positive. Not seen much on the blogs about it.
I think most people are still digesting the LCDS ...
Couple of Cambridge Consultations at the moment, eerily similiar. I think there may be some kind of shared space zsar advising the council.
Tenison Road consultation http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/info/20051/transport_projects/469/cambridge_city_projects/4
3rd July to 11th August
In summary: a fantastically expensive local scheme, which ignores the elephant in the room that is Cambridge train station through-traffic. It cannot achieve it's aim, and is taking cash from other local improvements to do so.
Fen Road
http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/fenroad 21st Jul - 1st Sept
Area 3 Option D doesn't look too bad (have only skimmed so far). Other options seem to think that cyclists sharing space with trucks on a road with years of known serious speeding problems will improve things.
Chishold Trail / Chesterton Train station foot and cycle bridge
http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/info/20051/transport_projects/62/cambridge_science_park_station/2 by 28th July
Odd one this. Bridge is essential to Chisholm trail and access to new train station. This consultation mostly seems to be a bridge yes/no exercise: questions of colour and choice of functionally identical ramp options are irrelevant. Still important to respond to say yes bridge, as there is some local rumbling about damage to the Common.
Would advise anyone reponding to push for pedestrian/cycle separation, wide as possible bridge.
Double post. Seems to happen to me a lot on this forum.
http://www.norwich.gov.uk/YourCouncil/Consultations/CurrentConsultations... closes tomorrow (Wed 23 July). My comments (hope they're OK but I'm not going to get time to respond after this):
I lived in Norwich for years and still ride there occasionally to reach destinations for work and leisure. I have cycled for about 30 years but I do not enjoy riding in Tombland and Palace Street. They are on core desire lines for many journeys and rather awkward to avoid, so I welcome the general idea of improving this area.
However, I am disappointed that a narrow two-way cycleway with centre line is being proposed. This seems to be based on the discredited idea of dual provision: abandoning "experienced cyclists" to keep suffering the road (probably now with added "use the cycleway" abuse from motorists?) and a slower dangerous cycle track for everyone else. I utterly reject the implicit idea that "experienced cyclists" wouldn't use a decent cycleway if it was built and I urge you to show some ambition. I thought this was being funded by a grant with "Ambition" in its name?
As you know, a single 2.5m bidirectional track is too narrow to allow cycles to ride sociably side-by-side or overtake safely while passing oncoming cycles. A centre line is likely to become slippery when wet and riding on the right "salmon-style" makes it difficult for cycles to move safely to/from the all-traffic lanes if relative speeds/flows mean that would be a good move.
The best practice, illustrated on page 17 of Making Space For Cycling (available from www.MakingSpaceForCycling.org ) is for protected cycleways on each side of a road. There is definitely space for this on Tombland and if there was the will to reallocate space a little more on Palace Street, there would be room there too. In the current design, the biggest beneficiary seems to be pedestrian space (23% of space is reallocated to them) which seems a little odd for a project funded by a cycling grant when there is an obvious need for a bit more space for cycling than in these initial designs.
I think some attempt should be made to facilitate cycle access to/from Wensum Street and thereby to Anglia Square or to Colegate towards Marriott's Way. The FAQ calls this "the main route for both buses and cycles", so I'm surprised that turns to/from the cycleway are impossible in the proposed design.
I guess that riders may be meant to use the pedestrian crossings to leave the cycleway to turn down Wensum Street, which seems likely to surprise both walkers and motorists and therefore be an avoidable safety hazard. Riders not familiar with the area will probably not realise the turn into Wensum Street is impossible until beyond the courtesy crossings and bump down the kerb near the new T junction, which is a riskier movement. This would be remedied by the solutions described in Making Space for Cycling.
Cycles making the right turn into Palace Road should be protected primarily by a west-side cycleway continuing on the same level over a smooth-radius perpendicular crossing of the mouth of Wensum Street with priority, possibly combined with a pedestrian courtesy crossing, while riders continuing down Wensum Street are merged onto the all-traffic lane. Of course, in the interests of keeping traffic flowing, people should be allowed to ride salmon-style on the right around the corner if they wish and an opportunity to cross Tombland further south presents itself.
I agree with the cycleway being at an intermediate height but some drawings show frequent "rumble strips" of cobbles across the cycleway, while the rest of the surface seems to be some sort of small-block paving. Unless the aim is to deter most people from using the cycleway as some sort of "look, we built it and they still won't use it" demonstration, the cycleway should be a suitably-coloured Hot Rolled Asphalt 55/10, Asphalt Concrete 10 or something similarly smooth.
The bollards shown in some drawings appear too high to be positioned that close to the cycleway and would be a pedal-strike crash hazard. They should be moved further away or an alternative protection that can't hit pedals used.
The southern end of the cycleway appears to terminate on a shared-use surface at a corner of a non-perpendicular T-junction, with cycles needing to look through about 240-degrees simultaneously to see whether they need to give way to walkers or motors. That would be a dangerous junction layout. The cycleway should merge/demerge to/from the all-traffic lanes as an advisory cycle lane, with markings directing motors to give way.
There seems to be an error in the "What the area could look like" sheet where the "Cycle track" percentage is not included in the "Traffic movement" percentage. I hope you would agree that cycleway riders are vital to keeping traffic moving around Norwich and present them as such in future.
I hope that you will incorporate these comments to produce something a bit more ambitious and more useful to all cyclists.
The first of the new 'Quietways', in Southwark.
Details here - http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200431/street_improvements/3571/quietway_2
Not especially inspiring, and could certainly do with removal of some of the things that make it needlessly difficult, like an excess of humps, and some narrow barriers that are being retained.
Closes in stages, but the earliest deadline is 25th August.
This looks very dry and technical:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/technical-consultation-on-pl...
It's talking about giving communities more say on planning but as John Dales has pointed out there's a sting in the tail under 'maximum parking standards'. This is basically asking if the government should remove Local Authorities' ability to set maximums for parking spaces for new developments. So much for giving communities more say!
Show your support for these segregated cycle lanes through central London. Big businesses are fighting against them. If the cycling groups don't rally their support, TfL may lose the roadspace for cyclists battle
North-South: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/northsouth
East-West: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/eastwest
A whole series of consultations for Stockport town centre. (Beware: They are all quite depressing.)
If the embassy is able to put together a response (please, please, please!!!) it would be wonderful. Closing deadline is 17th October 2014.
http://www.stockport.gov.uk/services/business/keyregenerationprojects/to...
701: Puffin crossing converted to Toucan crossing, with a short bit of shared-use pavement.
702: Puffin crossing converted to Toucan crossing, with a short bit of shared-use pavement.
703: A new 3m central reservation, converting a road which is currently very hostile to cycling to a dual carriageway also hostile to cycling. Described as a measure to "enhance cycle provision"(!)
704: Some new 20mph limits.
402: Multi-stage Toucan crossings galore, between bits of shared use pavement. ASLs retained.
201: Puffin crossing converted to Toucan crossing, with a short bit of shared-use pavement.
202: ASLs everwhere; multi-stage crossings; A Toucan crossing with a bit of shared-use pavement; A one-way street converted to two-way with a strange cycle lane crossover bit at the Booth Lane / Mercian Way junction.
203: Shared cycle/foot path - could be ok, but there aren't many details given.
204: Toucan crossing converted to multi-stage, with a bit of shared-use pavement. Long central median added, wasting lots of space.
205: A fairly large 20 mph zone.
901: Some new lighting in the park.
902: Shared-use pavements, retaining existing ASLs.
903: Widened roundabout exit for buses (but will also make it easier to drive through more quickly.) New toucan crossing and shared use pavements.
904: New Toucan crossing with some bits of shared-use pavement.
905: Footway narrowed to make space for an extra lane.
101: Entry to roundabout widened to add an extra lane.
...I'm still working through the rest of it, but it's not good so far...
Camden consulting on extending the Royal College Street scheme across Camden Road, up towards Kentish Town.
Similar type of proposals as original RCS scheme, with 'light segregation' in the form of armadillos. Some issues, I suspect, but an interesting approach to get across Camden Road.
https://consultations.wearecamden.org/culture-environment/royal-college-...
Consultation closes 3rd October 2014.
The 'upgrade' to CS2, which, with CS2x, should form a segregated route (of varying quality) all the way from Aldgate to Stratford.
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/cs2-upgrade
Should have been properly the first time, of course. Plenty of detail to quibble about, but a big step in the right direction.
Consultation closes 2nd November.
TfL "improvement" of pedestrian and cycle facilities at a roundabout in Richmond upon Thames.
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/streets/a316-manor-circus
The design fails on many levels, but criticising it on its own terms, the idea is to put in staggered toucans instead of the current straight-over zebras. The "pandas" that are in the offing as part of TSRDG 2015, may be a better solution for active travel. Indeed. some have already appeared
http://deceasedcanine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/panda-crossing.html
Consultation runs from 2 Oct 2014 to 30 Nov 2014
The entire purpose of the scheme is to reduce the delays to motors caused by pedestrians crossing at inconvenient times and places. The junction will be much worse for pedestrians (and pavement cyclists) as they they are replacing direct priority zebra crossings - which enable pedestrians to cross as and when they arrive - with staggered push a button and wait 5 minutes jobs - with bonus extra diversions away from the junction. If you read between the lines on the consultation document on the last section about impact on journey times it says it all.
I don't like he look of that parallel crossing in dead dog's blog (its not a panda - they were a Dixon of Dock Green era precurser to toucans: http://www.cbrd.co.uk/articles/pedestrian-crossings/pdf/panda.pdf). People understand the zebra stripes are where they expect crossing movements and how the rules work - having two parallel crossings working to different rules of priority is going to confuse things - Just make the zebra crossings wider.
The junction will actually be slightly improved for cyclists using the carriageway (particularly west bound) due to the removal of traffic lanes and railings. Though I think this is entirely unintentional on the part of the designers.
A bit last minute, but I've been asked to share Northamptonshire's consultation on transport strategy in three towns - Kettering, Corby and Wellingborough.
Not much concrete stuff in there on cycling - if anyone is local or interested, consultation closes on 27th October.
Suffolk County Council have released preliminary plans for reworking of the busiest junction in Sudbury, Suffolk.
The plans were put to an unelected body called the Sudbury Steering Group which, of course, has no cycling campaigners in it's make up and over the course of a two hour meeting deemed themselves capable and able to recommend two of the options as suitable to be taken to the next stage which is traffic modelling.
There is no public consultation on these plans as it is deemed too expensive to carry out, indeed only after I hassled the officials of the group were these plans published. You can see the plans http://www.babergh.gov.uk/assets/Uploads-BDC/Economy/Economic-Developmen...
Note that the low quality images in the pdfs show almost no cycling infrastructure at all and the text merely mentions shared paths and Advanced Stop Lines. The Suffolk County Council Cycling Strategy (sic) supposedly adheres to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/manual-for-streets which states that shared paths should be avoided where there are high levels of pedestrian movements, yet most of the paths on these junctions fail this criteria being very busy most of the day.
Sudbury has little in the way of existing cycling infrastructure and a traffic system which everyone agrees is broken. Furthermore a 2009 study revealed that the potential for modal shift in Sudbury is huge, 40% of peak hour car trips are less than 2km and 60% less than 5km. Their report concludes one major element of the solution to Sudburys traffic woes is modal shift.
But whilst SCC are delighted to spend £21 million in Ipswich improving junctions, adding cycling infrastructure (albeit apparantly substandard) they have stated there is no money to spend on similar improvements in Sudbury, and as the lack of consultation on this junction shows they wish to avoid a debate about it as well.
I have the support of local Green, Lib Dem and Labour politicians but the Tories rule the roost here.
So how do we get SCC and/or the unelected Steering Group to enable proper peer review of the plans and ensure that Sudbury gets high quality cycling Infrastructure and not just shared paths which by their own standards fail to meet standards? We will keep up the press and social media pressure but we really need a massive policy change by the County Council and they seem to happily ignore any criticism.
CS1 consultation ends on Sunday. I've blogged about it here:
http://hackneycyclist.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/cycle-superhighway-1.html
and Hackney People on bikes have put their response up here:
http://hackneypeopleonbikes.com/2015/03/05/cycle-superhighway-1-tfl-consultation/
with the consultation here:
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/cs1