North Somerset Life has just come out and contains a reference to the imminent council meeting on 27 March (1) to approve removal of the Active Travel England funded cycle track on the river front, and scraping together the funds to do it. It appears that Active Travel England (ATE) have agreed that a cycle contraflow lane is sufficient to justify spending the whole budget on road and car park repairs, and creating a one way road out of a perfectly cycleable minor road.
I am drafting a letter to the council to urge them not to waste public funds, and intend to send something similar to ATE to urge them to show some backbone and ask for their money back.
The draft is as follows:
I note that North Somerset Council intend to approve a programme of capital works intended to remove the Active Travel England funded cycling related improvements on The Beach, Clevedon and replace them with increased car parking. I object to this removal and suggest that councillors should not accept it.
I
urge rejection of this programme, in my capacity as a regular visitor to Clevedon sea front and, since the works were funded from national taxation from my interest as a national taxpayer in avoiding waste and misuse of public funds.
I usually enter Clevedon along Hill Road, descending to the sea front along the beach. This is the only safe, direct way to cycle into Clevedon from the north and has the additional advantage of passing a range of useful shops on Hill Road. As far as the works in Hill Road, which are to be retained, are concerned they do not appear to have had detrimental effects on local businesses, it has never been easy to park in Hill Road.
For the works on The Beach, the only argument against the two way cycle lane and parallel parking could be effects on local businesses. There does not yet appear to be any conclusive evidence that local businesses have suffered, or that the restaurants will benefit from the reintroduction of echelon parking to allow fat people to eat burgers in their cars, whilst looking out at the river.
I never considered that the cycle works on the Beach were necessary; the road was quiet and, like most suburban roads conducive to careful driving and cycling.
It was potholed and scruffy and I always suspected that the main aim of the cycle works was to use cycle funding for general road repairs and tidying. Removing the cycle track will mean that cycle funding has been used exclusively for general road repairs and resurfacing a car park. As the works are complete we now need to consider the proposed replacement, which will consume further public funds.
This is also not the section of the sea front roads that could most benefit from cycle lanes, it could have been justified as the first stage of Pier-to-Pier route related cycle improvements along the whole sea front, with the usual problem that councils will always put cycle lanes first where they are least likely to be noticed rather than where they are most needed.
The current state of the road, with the two way cycle lane does look much smarter than before, although there are odd features like the junction into the roundabout, and the bollards in the cycle lane at foot crossings that show a lack of understanding of how to design cycle facilities. It is unfortunate that being intended to accommodate cycles has caused an extreme allergic reaction among a vociferous minority.
Worse, although replacing the cycle track with a contraflow cycle lane is being presented as reallocation of road space to cycling it will increase the danger for cyclists. One way systems always increase traffic speeds, and instead of being equal users on a minor road with slow traffic cyclists will now be confined to a narrow strip with faster traffic being encouraged to pass closer. It is strange that Active Travel England are said to accept this painting of a white line as sufficient cycling improvement to justify spending the whole active travel funding on general road and car park repairs.
The so-called independent report has come from a large consultancy, AECOM, working mainly in the USA with no obvious claims to expertise in cycling infrastructure in the UK. I have examined their website and not yet found any claims to expertise in cycling, although they have done some pedestrian modelling in North America. It seems likely that in this case their expertise is mainly in providing 'independent' cover for what politicians have decided to do anyway.
(1) (1)
https://n-somerset.moderngov.co.uk/docu ... ndices.pdf (for 27 March 2024)