Cycling UK Forum

HI All.

Hampshire County Council are developing their Vision for 2050, which includes a section on Mobility ,which requires input by the 23rd of November

From discussions with a few councillors, all the responses they have received to date are about electric and driverless cars, and not a lot else; we need to get the voices of people who want to cycle ( and walk) into the vision.

So, if you live in Hampshire, and want a dutch style network of cycling infrastructure - not the absolute hodgepodge of useless shared paths that we currently have, then please can you fill in the survey below, should take no more than 10 minutes to put together a basic call for such a network..
https://www.hants.gov.uk/news/june05hants2050

On a related note, on the 29th of October, a few of us from around the County gave some Deputations at the Hampshire County Council Select Committee on Economy, Transport and Environment, which is captured in video form below:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/c9C1BnAnIYY
Part 2 - https://youtu.be/KFDPiSqE8MM
Part 3 - https://youtu.be/4qHRxSkzp2w
Part 4 - https://youtu.be/NxF3iKWaY0c
Part 5 - https://youtu.be/AEO8ZZ60Ti0

The proposal to break out into a Working Party, or Workshop, is an interesting one; i don't know what this might achieve in the political scheme of things, but the feedback we received after the meeting was generally positive, with a number of Councillors stating that they cycle a lot, some for transport, some for leisure, and want to do so more with their family...

Thanks in advance.

Tim
Cycle Waterlooville.

This is a very good initiative and the councillors appear to being very helpful and considering this.

Would it be possible to (briefly):
1) List what your recommendations were
2) What the recommendations of the councillors were

This for the benefit of folk who have not got time to view the videos (the audio was quite bad). It was also difficult to work out which councillor was saying what.

The reason to suggest this is that I am doing the same with Cranebridgeshire County Council and I have identical recommendations:

1) Prioritise cycling and walking
2) Produce a county spec for the cycle/walk ways.

TallestTim wrote:The proposal to break out into a Working Party, or Workshop, is an interesting one; i don't know what this might achieve in the political scheme of things, [...]

I've seen working parties or working groups most often as a way to enable participation by interested parties (such as outside experts) without it being bound to the restrictive councillors-in-proportion-to-party-strengths-plus-limited-number-of-officers formula usually set in the orders for a panel or committee - or indeed to have to follow the standing orders. The drawback is it may add an extra step where the working group reports back to a council director or committee before anything can happen, possibly with a vote on accepting its recommendations, depending on what powers have been delegated to who and how.

Workshops are most often parts of consultations. They are far weaker - still a chance to put forwards your suggestions and arguments, but the council members/officers participating are usually less powerful and in my opinion will often dismiss submissions they don't like, by misinterpreting them if they don't have another way.

Could we have a quick discussion about what to call a cycle path?

I've started a new thread here:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=126167&p=1290492#p1290492

TallestTim wrote:So, if you live in Hampshire, and want a dutch style network of cycling infrastructure - not the absolute hodgepodge of useless shared paths that we currently have, then please can you fill in the survey below, should take no more than 10 minutes to put together a basic call for such a network..

You might want to suggest to Hampshire that they adopt Oxfordshire's new Cycling & Walking Design Standards, which are remarkably good:

https://www2.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/sit ... ndards.pdf

https://www2.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/sit ... ndards.pdf

Adopting guidance used by another, similar shire council should be reasonably uncontroversial. Having the policy in place doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be followed, of course, but it's a big step forward.

Richard Fairhurst wrote:Adopting guidance used by another, similar shire council should be reasonably uncontroversial.

That doesn't match my impressions. Has any other shire council adopted that policy yet?

Norfolk came out with a draft design guide which was not very good IIRC but it seemed to go no further and now they are claiming to follow the London Cycling Design Standards but they have misinterpreted them in bizarre ways when defending some substandard proposals.

Completely agree with Richard that the Oxfordshire Cycling Standard is very good. My favourite bits are pictures of:

* How to let a cycleway cross a side junction and this has been implemented in Oxford.
* How to do a protected Merge.

In the absence of any other better standard Councils should adopt this as their own standard. I have been trying to get Cranebridgeshire to do this. In the interests of humour these are their excuses so far for not adopting such a standard:

* We would need to be compliant with the standard and this is not always possible.
* We are waiting for national guidelines from the DfT which we are inputting to.

Thanks for the alert to yet another consultation. If this was the first time that HCC had considered cycling, then I might be more optimistic.

It isn't. I'm not.

I guess we should continue to bang our heads against the solid stone wall of HCC, but it starts to hurt.

Hampshire County Council does have a cycling strategy:

HCC Strategic transport page:
https://www.hants.gov.uk/transport/stra ... strategies

Or direct link to the cycling strategy:
http://documents.hants.gov.uk/transport ... rategy.pdf

I would be interested in what other people think of this strategy. This was published September 2015 following a public consultation. Virtually nothing changed (I think I found the change: p16, item 3 was added).

I used to think that the many large roundabouts and the ring road were the main barriers to cycling in Basingstoke. While these are barriers, I now think that HCC is, by far, the biggest barrier to cycling. Until there is a fundamental change in HCC, it is difficult to see how any meaningful changes will occur.

HCC's view seems to be that cycling should not be on the highway (or in the New Forest). Consequently, the Highways Authority generally ignores cycling. And standards are irrelevant.

I replied to the Hampshire Cycling strategy consultation, with lots of suggestions. Only one sentence was added nothing else was changed. It is a document which makes it quite clear that nothing will be provided for cycling.
please go to our website and the 2018 annual report on the About us page for what I think. www.cyclebasingstoke.org.uk

basingstoke123 wrote:Or direct link to the cycling strategy:
http://documents.hants.gov.uk/transport ... rategy.pdf

I would be interested in what other people think of this strategy. This was published September 2015 following a public consultation. Virtually nothing changed (I think I found the change: p16, item 3 was added).

The word 'promote' appears 19 times, 'encourage' 22 times, the words 'build' and 'spend'?... just 3 times each.

I wonder what the word counts for an equivalent motorised transport document would be.

Given this, it is little wonder Hampshire CC have spent what little money they have on the 'My Journey' initiative which seeks to promote and encourage people out of their cars into active travel and public transport.

Icsunonove wrote:The word 'promote' appears 19 times, 'encourage' 22 times, the words 'build' and 'spend'?... just 3 times each.

I wonder what the word counts for an equivalent motorised transport document would be.

Norfolk's has 18 promotes, 12 encourages, 11 spends (but half of those are "spend time" or tourists spending in Norfolk, not the councils spending on cycling) but only 1 build.

I'm not aware of an equivalent motorised transport document here and I doubt one exists because they don't seem to spend/build motoring routes strategically at all. It seems like an omnishambles scattergun approach, grabbing at whatever funding straws are offered.

TallestTim wrote:HI All.

So, if you live in Hampshire, and want a dutch style network of cycling infrastructure - not the absolute hodgepodge of useless shared paths that we currently have, then please can you fill in the survey below, should take no more than 10 minutes to put together a basic call for such a network..
https://www.hants.gov.uk/news/june05hants2050

Just a reminder:
Mobility, Connectivity and Energy – 23 November 2018

In answering, consider:
1. What do you think might happen in the future?
2. How will that effect/impact on what we do?
3. How will the County Council and Partners need to react in light of this?

The questions for Mobility, Connectivity and Energy:

Question 1 - What do you think might happen in the future?

Question 2 - How will that effect/impact on what the County Council does?

Question 3 - How will the County Council and Partners need to react in light of this?

(Q4) Any other relevant evidence or views (i.e. facts/figures, personal experience etc.)

(Maximum 3000 characters per answer. For comparison, this forum reply is 745 characters, excluding the quote.)

TallestTim wrote:...with a number of Councillors stating that they cycle a lot, some for transport, some for leisure, and want to do so more with their family...

Thanks in advance.

Tim
Cycle Waterlooville.

Really? That's most unusual. Perhaps ask them where they cycle and where they would like to cycle? That usually focusses their minds!
I would like to respond, but I don't live if Hampshire.

MikeF wrote:

TallestTim wrote:...with a number of Councillors stating that they cycle a lot, some for transport, some for leisure, and want to do so more with their family...

Thanks in advance.

Tim
Cycle Waterlooville.

Really? That's most unusual. Perhaps ask them where they cycle and where they would like to cycle? That usually focusses their minds!
I would like to respond, but I don't live if Hampshire.

While it is intended for residents, the questionnaire has tick boxes for:

Do you live in Hampshire? Yes / No
Do you work in Hampshire? Yes / No

This implies you do not need to live in Hampshire. But I think it should be restricted to those who have a genuine interest, whether living here, working, or regularly visiting. (I have no idea how surveys like this can be protected from abuse. If one's IP address is checked, then I will fail! as I will be submitting from outside Hampshire).

Sorry, thanks everyone for picking up on this.

I got distracted by a few other things and only managed to submit my own response on the 22nd....!