Embassy response to Frideswide Square Consultation

 

Frideswide Square

The Cycling Embassy of Great Britain strongly objects to Oxfordshire County Council's proposals for Frideswide Square

Appropriate, inclusive design for cycling, along a road like this one, should involve dedicated cycle provsion, separated both from the carriageway and from footways. However, this scheme expects people either to cycle in the carriageway - not a realistic or enticing prospect for the vast majority of the population on a road carrying well over ten thousand vehicles a day, including many buses - or, more likely, to cycle on busy footways shared with pedestrians, as suggested in the scheme visualisations.

This is plainly bad design, needlessly putting people walking and cycling into conflict, when the two modes could easily be separated, making both walking and cycling more attractive.

There is a large amount of space available here that could be put to much better use. A scheme fit for future growth in cycling (to say nothing of existing demand, to and from the railway station) has to involve wide cycle tracks, separated from the footways by shallow, chamfered kerbing. These cycle tracks should pass behind the bus stops in the square, with clear crossing points for people accessing the bus waiting islands. This 'bypass' design - common in contintental Europe, and increasingly employed in new schemes in Britain - should be standard practice for a scheme like this one.

We also note that cycling is simply ignored as a mode of transport at the roundabouts that form the junctions in this scheme, with no obvious passage through them for people already cycling on the footways, except (circuitously) around a series of suggested zebras. There should be clear paths for cycling through these junctions, separated from motor traffic, with perpedendicular crossing points on the arms of the roundabouts.