National Cycle Network Being Slashed

[Bmblbzzz]

As you note, there is indeed duplication of numbers, although you dismiss them as legacy and errors and — somewhat dodgily IMO — a distinct numbering system. Why not just as rightfully say that the national/regional/local routes are distinct systems?

Because the motorway network has a distinct character as roads. [...]

Maybe then we should applaud Sustrans's recent bonfire of their routes and encourage them to go further, removing the MTB challenges and remaining wider 60mph-limit roads, so that red-number routes have a distinct character of off-road/back-road routes that are nice to ride but even more extremely unlikely to be useful for transport or touring on their own?

We should applaud this if it results in routes of a consistent quality and nature, easy to use and follow. They could make them all mtb challenges or all dual-carriageway TT courses as long as it's clear and consistent. The problems come when you need a TT bike at one end and a mtb at the other (and you're on a tourer!). (Also of course, and surely the most common problem of all on cycle routes of all description, when whatever machine you're on won't fit through a barrier.)

Interesting point about road numbers historically but that is historical and a rabbit hole we should probably only go down in another thread.

Yeah, Bristol to Bath was just an illustrative snippet.

Still not sure what you mean about locality. If I ask the best way to get from Kings Lynn to (looks at map) Wisbech, you can tell me "Follow route 1" or "Follow Euro route 12" (I'm taking these numbers by looking at cycle.travel) or (making this up now) "Follow local route Grasshopper" or "Go through Wiggenhall St Germans, Marshland St James and West Walton". It's all the same when I'm there and meaningless when I'm not. Which set of numbers I find it easier to follow is going to depend on signage, and whether I find it easier to follow numbers or names is going to depend on my own thought patterns.

[Ianwhitwell]

Interesting debate. My thoughts

1. The cycle network is helpful for those with children to do family rides on their off road sections. They are generally in reasonable condition and if not this can be ascertained by some simple research prior to the trip. Many of these sections have car parks along them as well which is important for families. My granddaughters are getting new bikes, with gears for the first time in 2 weeks time. My son suggested a family cycle for their birthday. This really needs to be off road as they are primary age, inexperienced and riding new bikes while adapting to gears. The NCN map made finding off road routes between the two easy and I had to simple look in more detail to find one with no road sections and a car park adjacent to the ride. I think that's excellent. The bits they are chopping would never have featured in this choice in any case. This is just what the NCN are looking to promote I suspect.

2. When I'm planning routes for ME, or with cyclist friends, I know that if I choose sections on the cycle network they are 'less likely' to be busy roads. In addition, when I plan routes in detail with Komoot, it will direct me away from any really busy sections in any case, which I can override if I wish.

3. When I'm planning routes in an area of the country I haven't cycled before, I find the NCN helps me to identify the quieter back woods areas to focus on ( not guaranteed, but likely), the removal of any 'dubious' sections now makes this easier not harder.

4. As a fairly confident and increasingly experienced cyclist; how busy a road is isn't the main priority when planning routes. Though it is a consideration it is one that the use of modern route planning technology can now make easier and potentially safer. Simply planning a 50 mile route between two town with Google maps (Cars) and Komoot or even Google maps(cycles) makes this clear. I accept none of these are perfect solutions, but better than trying the same in a new are 30 years ago with just paper maps.

Given al this, I can understand their decision to remove sections where safety is an issue, especially for new/inexperience cyclists who might lack confidence (my wife for instance) and focus on other sections. If I'm honest these changes themselves will make no difference to my cycling and will benefit others who might need the help more.

[wjhall]

Interesting debate. My thoughts

1. The cycle network is helpful for those with children to do family rides on their off road sections. .... ...

2. When I'm planning r......sections on the cycle network they are 'less likely' to be busy roads. ....

3. .... the NCN helps me to identify the quieter back woods areas to focus on ( not guaranteed, but likely), the removal of any 'dubious' sections now makes this easier not harder.

4. As a fairly confident and increasingly experienced cyclist; how busy a road is isn't the main priority when planning routes. .....

Given al this, I can understand their decision to remove sections where safety is an issue, especially for new/inexperience cyclists who might lack confidence (my wife for instance) and focus on other sections. If I'm honest these changes themselves will make no difference to my cycling and will benefit others who might need the help more.

Good points, apart from using Komoot not cycle.travel.

Separating functions 1 and 2 & 3 may be logical, it does mean that someone has to take over 2 & 3, presumably local authorities or tourist authorities are the appropriate bodies.

Your point 4 is, however, often referred to as hubris.

Round here the work of debranding seems to have continued apace in South Gloucestershire.

Also in North Somerset:

Just using the route name seems perfectly clear, and is probably best from both route finding and promotional points of view. I doubt if the numbers ever added anything, especially the three digit ones, some of which linger as battered remains.

[Andrew-l]

Just rereading this after having had a sublime ride yesterday - 70 mile loop, where less than 10 miles would have been on road, the rest of it was motor-free cycle paths.

No barriers, >90% of it tarmac wide enough for two bikes.

No mud baths or sand traps.

Being ridden by every age group - I'm sure I saw 7 months to 70+ years.

Being ridden on every type of bike, family groups with trailers, tagalongs and kids riding, Dutch style bikes, tourers covered with panniers, and roadies with all the gear.

And no. It wasn't Sustrans-signed, it had huge numbers of useful signs giving distances to the next towns, and letting you know that you were on the particular City-to-City long range route.

Unsurprisingly, it was in France.

I wonder, after 30 years of Sustrans, whether it's time to throw in the towel.

Is Sustrans more of a hindrance than a help? Or is the UK not deserving/accepting of nice things?

[mjr]

Just using the route name seems perfectly clear, and is probably best from both route finding and promotional points of view. I doubt if the numbers ever added anything, especially the three digit ones, some of which linger as battered remains.

The number signs are smaller and cheaper for the same legibility, which means you can have more of them. Ideally, you want one in each direction on the approaches to each junction where you have to make a turn, plus one in each direction exiting any junction (whether or not a turn was needed). The only routes in the UK where I have seen that done throughout are numbered routes, whether Sustrans or local council/organisation ones. I doubt any council is willing to spend the money for that number of worded signs and siting becomes a problem.

Secondly, I note that all those replacement signs seem to be brown tourism signs rather than blue cycle route signs. Is that an indication that the Councils that Used to Be Avon don't regard those cycle routes as useful business/commercial/domestic transport?

[mjr]

I wonder, after 30 years of Sustrans, whether it's time to throw in the towel.

Is Sustrans more of a hindrance than a help? Or is the UK not deserving/accepting of nice things?

30? Closer to 45 IIRC.

I'd agree that Sustrans should not be needed to do the job it purported to do. Government should be managing a cycle transport network, leaving Sustrans (and similar organisations like the National Byway) to be the equivalent of the old AA or English Tourist Board Holiday Routes. Those seem to have died out, although you can still sometimes find a direction sign, with the AA logo or ETB rosette and HR by it and an arrow.

But if Sustrans and the lottery funding hadn't plugged the gaps for the last few decades, would gov.uk really have stepped up and done the job? Or would we have witnessed the finishing of the near-total obliteration of cycling from most of the road network under Margaret only-the-unemployed-ride-bikes Thatcher's crowd, John "cones hotline" Major and Tony friend-of-two-jags Blair?

[wjhall]

By definition the Avon Cycleway is recreational. I doubt if a cycle ring road about 20 km out has any utility purpose, although the link routes might.

[mjr]

By definition the Avon Cycleway is recreational. I doubt if a cycle ring road about 20 km out has any utility purpose, although the link routes might.

It runs right by the airport and Portbury dock. It could have utility.

[Bmblbzzz]

By definition the Avon Cycleway is recreational. I doubt if a cycle ring road about 20 km out has any utility purpose, although the link routes might.

By what definition? Can you give the definition you're using?

[wjhall]

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/find-other- ... -cycleway/

'....the best of the countryside and villages around Bristol and Bath',

'...sparsely populated section of the route with a sense of isolation'

'historic small town'

'restored Victorian pier'

&c

[Pete Owens]

Over the last 25 years Sustrans have done more to marginalise cycling as a serious mode of transport than any other organisation. In the late 1990s after the downfall of Thatcher there was a steady move away from the pro-car policy in government (particularly while George Young was transport secretary) and the creation of the national cycling strategy and the publication of Cycle Friendly Infrastructure, with its emphasis on making the roads safe for cycling rather than the decades old . This would have been a real game changer and a challenge to the auto-supremacist segregationist road planners around the country and they resisted like hell the concept of cyclists as legitimate road users.

Unfortunately, at about the same time, Sustrans got their lottery funding, by promising to build a national cycle network for a absurdly tiny fraction of the cost required to do anything of the sort. Up until that point they had been a worthy charity (one which I supported financially) converting disused railways into recreational trails - fine if you want to drive out into the Peak District for a leisurely scenic ride and you are not trying to get anywhere in particular (and I have done so), but absolutely useless if you are trying to get to work in the morning. They could do these cheaply because all the serious civil engineering had already been done by Victorian railway engineers and the low standards acceptable for a recreational route could be delivered by volunteers shovelling loose gravel onto track beds.

And as the custodians of the National Cycle Network they gradually became THE authority on cycle provision. They published a rival set of standards - more focussed on segregation, full of absurd designs. Of course this view of cycling as a leisure pursuit rather than serious transport was an absolute boon the the auto-supremacist planners who just want us out of the way of the important traffic and are keen to see us ride our bikes somewhere -anywhere- else.

Of course the network was undeliverable on this basis as it depends on the availability of a dense network of disused railways built at great expense in the past and then abandoned. This led to a desperate rush to get anything built of any quality to count towards the network mileage - and this also coincided the John Prescott becoming transport secretary amongst other things and whos only metric of progress with regard to cycling was miles of farcility constructed.

[Bmblbzzz]

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/find-other- ... -cycleway/

'....the best of the countryside and villages around Bristol and Bath',

'...sparsely populated section of the route with a sense of isolation'

'historic small town'

'restored Victorian pier'

&c

That's a description, rather than a definition. In any case, while the Avon Cycleway might have been thought of as a leisure route, it's just a collection of roads, any one of which can be used for many purposes – just as if you follow one of those brown "scenic route" signs on your way to work, it might be scenic but it's also your commute.

[Zulu Eleven]

My feeling, for many years, has been that the NCN suffers in never really having a clear vision of what it is for.

Is it for commuting?
Is it for leisure (both walking & cycling)?
Is it for joining together towns?
Is it for long-distance cycle touring?

Because all too often, the NCN os designing routes to meet one standard, when the actual use of the route is completley different.

Nor am I particularly convinced that there is a particular for anyone, least of all unaccompanied 12 year olds, to ride between, for example, Dorchester and Glastonbury - rather than having a ten or twenty mile circular route around where they live .

[Bmblbzzz]

Nor am I particularly convinced that there is a particular for anyone, least of all unaccompanied 12 year olds, to ride between, for example, Dorchester and Glastonbury - rather than having a ten or twenty mile circular route around where they live .

You seem to be missing a word.

[cycle tramp]

Over the last 25 years Sustrans have done more to marginalise cycling as a serious mode of transport than any other organisation.

While we speak of the marginalisation of cycling, we may have to consider that the majority of the population do not wish to cycle. And have no intention of doing so. Cycling was at its height between the two world wars, and then as the availability of motor transport, motorcycles, motor scooters and cars became available the majority drifted away from self propelled vehicles to fuel propelled vehicles. The leaders we had following this change merely reflected the public mood. If people had wished to continue cycling as a nation, this drift would not have occurred..
..no doubt we wish to see the best in our fellow man, but nationally speaking we are a small minded, conservative thinking, lazy nation which cares more about the programs shown on the t.v. and the display of our wealth and status rather than our health, the welfare of our neighbours or the state of the planet.
For all its criticisms sustrans does allow those who may be interested in cycling some space to try it, in reasonable safety and reasonable pleasant surroundings