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Hills Road cycle lanes: county council committee defers decision

by aldc on 27 May, 2014

floatingbusstopCambridgeshire County Council‘s new Economy & Environment Committee met for the first time and showed what it is made of.

One of the first decisions it had to take was whether or not to proceed with the officers’ recommendations on new segregated cycle lanes for Hills Road and Huntingdon Road between the Long Road and Cherry Hinton Road junctions. The schemes are two of seven enabled by the Government’s Cycle City Ambition Grant. Hills Road scheme was chosen because it is the main traffic route between Addenbrooke’s and the city centre, carrying 14,000 vehicles, 4,000 cyclists, over 1,000 pedestrians and 680 buses every day, according to the County Council’s report. Hills Rd cycleways schemeA number of concerns have been raised by local residents, particularly about the ‘floating bus stops’, which would require bus users to cross the cycle lane – hazardous, especially for people with disabilities, as well as children. There are also concerns that if vehicles are held up behind buses, they will rat-run into side roads. I have not had satisfactory responses yet as to how the Council will monitor this.

Although I was not able to attend today’s meeting, I was relieved to learn that the councillors on that committee had similar concerns about the floating bus stops, as well as about the design of the cycle lanes, fearing that the kerbs would make it hard for cyclists to mount when getting onto the cycle lanes.

After an hour of debate, they voted to defer the proposal, asking officers to address the safety concerns and to bring it back to their next meeting on 8th July. You can see a live streaming of the debate here, produced by local blogger Richard Taylor.

   2 Comments

2 Responses

  1. Alan Braggins says:

    2.1m is hardly “generous” when the DfT recommended minimum is 2.0m. It means some of the more vulnerable users can’t be passed safely within the lane. That may be a necessary tradeoff, but it isn’t generous.

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