Norwich's £10k per meter cycle lane

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mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
I've just dug out my individual consultation response. I've cut the preamble - here's the core of it:

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 (now with increased "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. [note: long after consultation, they widened the Tombland part and turned the Palace Street part into narrow advisory lanes because this width is silly; the centre line has gone, but the track is still one-sided and hard to move on/off the carriageway if needed.]

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. [note: the final version has the tiny filter/escape that I photographed earlier]

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.

...and it then continued into objections to various technical details of their plans, most of which aren't present in what they built. So basically "I told you so", but it's not quite as lethal as the bike-grinder that was originally planned with pedal-catchers, cobbled rumble strips every few feet and emerging blind onto corners at both ends. Still pretty disappointing, though.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Norwich Cycling Campaign have released this video about the problems on the busiest section of the route, caused in part by the huge cost overrun in the city centre IMO:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFkyEZ8iyCY
That section is basically how it looked in 2005 except for the addition of a bit of red paint and cycle-unfriendly speed humps.
 

rdfcyclist

Well-Known Member
Location
Norwich
I've cycled that road every day I've gone to work/college for 6 years and it has not improved in my opinion. I understand that things change so I'm hoping the current road works are reshaping the verges into something helpful. Shame really as this project could have turned into a nice route to cycle on. Hey ho, I'm quick so the road is fine.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
I've cycled that road every day I've gone to work/college for 6 years and it has not improved in my opinion.
It's little better than when I started riding it in 1994. The last major improvement in that area was tarmacking Cow Drive west of Bluebell Road to the Sportspark which meant we no longer had to choose between riding on winter porridge, dodging buses and car park users on University Drive and dodging permitted vehicles on the service road from Orwell and Wolfson Closes. The Avenues seems basically unchanged apart from some pink paint and pre-greens, which isn't good value for about £750,000.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Maybe it's just as well the cycle track is paved rather than tarmac! :laugh:
 
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glenn forger

glenn forger

Guest
OMG:

https://www.facebook.com/NorwichCyclingCampaign/posts/1214410651908479

Norwich Cycling Campaign has learned that the City Council is funding the building of car parking spaces along The Avenues verges with Cycle City Ambition Grant funds.

This is despite the fact that earlier this year we were told that there was not enough money to build separate cycle lanes. It was said that to protect the tree roots there would have to be digging by hand and that was too expensive. However, it seems that there is enough money to provide car parking spaces as well as use mechanical diggers to do the groundworks.

How is it that the cycle provision is abandoned but money is found for the verges?

We object to the funding of this work from the CCAG since we consider it is an inappropriate use of cycling money. This is not quality cycling provision to increase the safety of cycle users along The Avenues, or encourage more people to cycle.

Tell us what you think her and/or contact your Councillor.
 
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glenn forger

glenn forger

Guest
So, that white paint on the Avenues cost £800k, and the money that was allocated to cyclists will be used to build parking spaces where they said they couldn't build a cycle lane. So cars will drive over the white paint cycle lane to get to the parking space. So cycling money may actually be spent on facilities for drivers that make cycling more dangerous.
 

Saluki

World class procrastinator
So, that white paint on the Avenues cost £800k, and the money that was allocated to cyclists will be used to build parking spaces where they said they couldn't build a cycle lane. So cars will drive over the white paint cycle lane to get to the parking space. So cycling money may actually be spent on facilities for drivers that make cycling more dangerous.
That sounds about right.
 

rdfcyclist

Well-Known Member
Location
Norwich
Continuing the story of the Avenues, is anyone else concerned that they've dug up the speed bumps and left us with 3 inch deep trenches?
 
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