Oxford - Milton Keynes - Cambridge

[atlas_shrugged]

Is it worth campaigning to sympathetic councillors/MPs about building a cycle super highway along the old railway track instead of building the expressway.

There is a Green party chap I think called Rev Wolff near Oxford who has called the Expressway a waste of money. What about asking him to support a cycle super-highway instead. I am going to try this at the Cambridge end.

[Bonefishblues]

I really can't see a cycle route the a railway, now there's a firm commitment to the latter - I think that the time to lobby for that was before the railway reinstatement gathered pace, I'm afraid. Because so much of the old route, bridges etc is being reused I don't think that a cycle route would be easy to run alongside either.

[atlas_shrugged]

At the Cambridge end a bit of the cycle /walk super highway has already been built along the old Oxford-Cambridge railway. This is from Trumpington park and ride to the Cambridge central station. This has a cycle/walk way and two bi-directional misguided buses. The buses occupy the same track width that the old trains would. This route goes under at least three old bridges. One bridge added an extra borehole for the cycleway.

If one looks at the side of the track from Oxford Parkway to Oxford Station there is a good amount of room to fit in a cycleway.

So I think it would be very possible to mostly follow the old train route. Granted the odd Barrett House may need relocating here and there. Cambridge University may need persuasion to hand back the rail line through their astronomy site.

But even given all of the above this is much much much better than building an Expressway between two cities where a journey of 4 miles by car or bus now takes over two hours.

[Bonefishblues]

I live near the track and have been looking at the route in some detail, not least because of some very lazy planning relating to the construction and depot plans for the section from Bicester Northwards and I don't see it in the same way I'm afraid.

[Cyril Haearn]

Would the railway be double or single track?

[Bonefishblues]

Double track right through from Oxford to Cambridge.

[Cyril Haearn]

Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof

Bicester Town was upgraded to Bicester Village

Oxford Parkway has through trains to London via Bicester, I thought via Didcot would be quicker

[Bonefishblues]

Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof

Bicester Town was upgraded to Bicester Village

Oxford Parkway has through trains to London via Bicester, I thought via Didcot would be quicker

Chiltern Line every time.

[Cyril Haearn]

Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof

Bicester Town was upgraded to Bicester Village

Oxford Parkway has through trains to London via Bicester, I thought via Didcot would be quicker

Chiltern Line every time.

I shall have to add 'village' to my vocab thread
It used to mean a small settlement, houses but no shops
Now it means lots of shops, no houses

[Bonefishblues]

Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof

Bicester Town was upgraded to Bicester Village

Oxford Parkway has through trains to London via Bicester, I thought via Didcot would be quicker

Chiltern Line every time.

I shall have to add 'village' to my vocab thread
It used to mean a small settlement, houses but no shops
Now it means lots of shops, no houses

Sure it's an homage ( ) to Bicester Village, which is a thing, but the town centre regeneration of Bicester in terms of housing is going very well indeed. In fact the regeneration of what was a rather down-at-heel place is going well all round, including the effect of BV.

[atlas_shrugged]

Hopefully this is very good news for cycling in Oxford, Milton Keynes, and Cambridge. I noticed this on the twitter feed of Andrew Gilligan:

Andrew Gilligan‏ @mragilligan · Jun 29
Glad to say my report for the National Infrastructure Commission on cycling in Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge will be published on Monday. It ought to be worth reading...

The report can be found here:
https://www.nic.org.uk/news/new-report- ... nd-oxford/

This report is brilliant.

[craigbroadbent]

Hopefully this is very good news for cycling in Oxford, Milton Keynes, and Cambridge. I noticed this on the twitter feed of Andrew Gilligan:

Andrew Gilligan‏ @mragilligan · Jun 29
Glad to say my report for the National Infrastructure Commission on cycling in Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge will be published on Monday. It ought to be worth reading...

The report can be found here:
https://www.nic.org.uk/news/new-report- ... nd-oxford/

Thanks Atlas_Shrugged
We have been waiting for this. Milton Keynes has next 30 years strategic plan under review. I will be presenting to it this month.
The council have neglected and in some cases removed cycling infrastructure in recent times.
Hopefully we can get them back on track now.

[Pete Owens]

So Gilligan takes a look at three fast growing cities.
Two of them have some of the highest shares of cycling in the country, and one the is the most car dependent.
And his recommendation is that it is the first two that have the problem - so he will be busy making them more like the third!

[craigbroadbent]

So Gilligan takes a look at three fast growing cities.
Two of them have some of the highest shares of cycling in the country, and one the is the most car dependent.
And his recommendation is that it is the first two that have the problem - so he will be busy making them more like the third!

Hey Pete,
Not sure I read the same report.
London and now Manchester have some major energy and money going into promoting cycling, and are showing results.

If OX-MK -Cm are growing, which they are, then they need more capacity to move people.
The cheapest fastest way to do this is cycling.

[atlas_shrugged]

Both Oxford and Cambridge have high rates of cycling probably thanks to the Universities forbidding undergraduates to have cars. Also both places are flat(ish) and during peak times a cycle is the quickest method of getting around. By NL, DK, D, and A standards the cycling network in both places are really poor. So I think that Gilligan is suggesting that the cycling network (not the roads) in both places should be improved and he is right about this. In north Cambridge for example he has picked out a bridleway that if upgraded to a cycleway would really help the development at Waterbeach as well as people working at the Science park. Not even Cambridgeshire CC spotted this route.

I will stay out of the argument about huge house building and property development in both places and if this is a good idea or not. That is another story.

On Milton Keynes he suggests maintaining the redways and improving signage as well as extending the redway network into the centre and new developments. I do not think Gilligan is suggesting building a grid of dual carriageways and roundabouts in either Oxford or Cambridge.

Personally I would like to see more joining up of existing cycleways using underpasses. But that does not come cheap. So I think Gilligan has been quite pragmatic in his budget.