Your help pls Bradford/Shipley

[Cyclewala]

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority is currently carrying out consultation to improve the A650 road between Shipley and Bradford to a) build a two-way segregated cycling route and b) reduce the road speed from 30mph to 20mph.

This is the same authority responsible for the Leeds-Bradford cycle superhighway amongst other cycling schemes.

Knowing what happened before, there is likely to be firm opposition from the motoring lobby and local residents.

Could I ask you to take about 3 mins of your time to complete the survey below, which would add weight to more sustainable transport. I don't believe there is a requirement to be a local resident.

Visit the link below and the survey can be found under 'Have your say'.

https://www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov. ... ordshipley

Many thanks.

[atoz]

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority is currently carrying out consultation to improve the A650 road between Shipley and Bradford to a) build a two-way segregated cycling route and b) reduce the road speed from 30mph to 20mph.

This is the same authority responsible for the Leeds-Bradford cycle superhighway amongst other cycling schemes.

Knowing what happened before, there is likely to be firm opposition from the motoring lobby and local residents.

Could I ask you to take about 3 mins of your time to complete the survey below, which would add weight to more sustainable transport. I don't believe there is a requirement to be a local resident.

Visit the link below and the survey can be found under 'Have your say'.

https://www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov. ... ordshipley

Many thanks.

I hope the word segregated means precisely that, on that particular road. The artists impression has bushes separating the cycle route from the rest of traffic- pretty but somehow I don't think that will happen. I also notice that the plans say that "The plan is to improve Canal Road / Valley Road to increase capacity so that a lot of the non-local traffic can be taken off the A650". That concerns me. Its easier on Canal Road and Valley road to cycle than Manningham Lane/A650 going out to Shipley because you're on the near side, it's the return journey that's not doable in peak period. I'm not convinced of this plan working at all well. Canal Road/Valley road will become more of a racetrack than it already is, and Manningham Lane will have even more start/stop local traffic using a narrower road- with buses as well of course. That sounds like the journey from hell..

[Cyclewala]

In preparation for this, a decent segregated cycle route exists along Canal road - completed last summer. It runs from the city centre to Shipley. The first section runs behind Tesco and along the railway line to Queen's Road. Then through Hillam Road. Once it gets to Arnold Laver, you cross the road and there is a paved Greenway that runs to Shipley nr the viaduct across Leeds Old Road.

The proposal will be to make Canal Road to 4 lanes of motoring traffic from Shipley to town.

The A650 will have a segregated cycleway that mirrors what they did along the railway line.

[arnsider]

Just happened on this post.
I lived in Bradford back in the early seventies, before the big road works at the city end of canal road.
I was there recently doing Bus/Train surveys and one of our static survey stations was at the Bingley end of Canal road just before the Brigate turn off for the Leeds road.
Traffic backs up here going out of the city so Manningham lane must take a lot of overspill.
Are there plans to upgrade Canal road at the Bingley end?
Quite a nice way into Bradford along Manningham Lane, especially when Lister Park is blooming or during leaf fall.

[atoz]

In preparation for this, a decent segregated cycle route exists along Canal road - completed last summer. It runs from the city centre to Shipley. The first section runs behind Tesco and along the railway line to Queen's Road. Then through Hillam Road. Once it gets to Arnold Laver, you cross the road and there is a paved Greenway that runs to Shipley nr the viaduct across Leeds Old Road.

The proposal will be to make Canal Road to 4 lanes of motoring traffic from Shipley to town.

The A650 will have a segregated cycleway that mirrors what they did along the railway line.

Yes have been on it. There are quite a few uncontrolled crossings for access to businesses etc on Valley Road. The crossing to get over Canal road will be busy esp after the "improvements" and because Manningham Lane will be avoided by through traffic not wanting to be held up by cycle way proposed. Signing is not great esp once through the park at Shipley and access from Shipley town centre going back is badly signed and not safe enough. OK on Sunday when I tried it, peak period? It is possible to avoid Shipley centre to get out to Otley side from park exit but not signed, only experienced locals will realise this

Verdict: could do better if they tried

[thirdcrank]

.... Are there plans to upgrade Canal road at the Bingley end? ... .

I'm not up-to-date here but traffic schemes have histories measured in decades.

Going back to the 1970s there was going to be a trunk road coming down the Aire Valley, through Bradford and beyond. They built some of the easier bits like the dual carriageways on either side of Keighley, but then they always come to hard bits which are often left as bottlenecks indefinitely. eg the bit through Keighley. Bingley was eventually bypassed but Shipley remains a total mess. Valley Road widens out to six lanes at Queen's Road, or narrows to two in the other direction, depending on where you are trying to go. Continuing up the A650, it's six lanes as far as Rooley Lane/ Sticker Lane, (Bradford's laughable ring road,) where it narrows before grinding to a standstill alongside Tong Cemetery. And so on.

A good example of unfinished business in Bradford is the way the M 606 ends almost in mid-air. It was going to swoop down into the centre of Bradford, then it didn't.

When a very wet-behind-the-ears Christopher Leslie unseated Marcus Fox (perhaps you unearth a fox?) as MP for Shipley in the 1997 Blair landslide, he was going to sort out the matter of the Shipley bypass, but then he didn't.

[arnsider]

Well, I completed the survey and found the matter quite interesting.
Manningham Lane/Keighley road/ Bradford road/ Bingley road is largely residential so maybe the residents would welcome a safe cycleway between the towns as a practical commuter route. For drivers, it is a bit of a stop start trail with lots of signal controlled junctions.
Canal road by contrast is wholly industrial with a bit of residential/apartment development at Shipley end.
You have an urban station at Frizinghall, though I don't know if cyclists would get on/off here.
The terminus at Foster square is a busy station and seems to be a winner for Airedale commuters.
I always thought it strange that Foster Square and Interchange were never connected though studying the OS, there was a convoluted Rail route from Wyke through Laisterdyke and Idle into Shipley.

[atoz]

Well, I completed the survey and found the matter quite interesting.
Manningham Lane/Keighley road/ Bradford road/ Bingley road is largely residential so maybe the residents would welcome a safe cycleway between the towns as a practical commuter route. For drivers, it is a bit of a stop start trail with lots of signal controlled junctions.
Canal road by contrast is wholly industrial with a bit of residential/apartment development at Shipley end.
You have an urban station at Frizinghall, though I don't know if cyclists would get on/off here.
The terminus at Foster square is a busy station and seems to be a winner for Airedale commuters.
I always thought it strange that Foster Square and Interchange were never connected though studying the OS, there was a convoluted Rail route from Wyke through Laisterdyke and Idle into Shipley.

There is nothing strange about the two stations not being connected. You can first blame it on the original private companies not to come to an agreement. But in reality the main reason is that our incompetent and arrogant politicans have never seen it as a priority.

When you look at the history of public transport in Bradford you will discover that it has got progressively worse over the years. When my father was growing up in the 1920s and 1930s Bradford boasted trams, trolley buses, significant rail network, and of course buses. The rail network was decimated post war, the trams were abandoned, followed by the trolley buses, and the bus network around town was damaged under privatisation.

When I was in my early teens Forster Square and Exchange station were only yards apart, so there was not a real problem changing stations, and this could have been improved with access arrrangements. Instead, Exchange station was demolished, replaced by an inferior station slightly further out, with a lot less capacity. Then in the late 80s forster Square got the same treatment- less platforms, and further out from the centre, all so land could be sold for the retail park and the building of the Inland Revenue block, which was a white elephant designed when we still had typing pools. By the time it opened for use, PC's had killed typing pools. Forster Square station is a bottleneck that will never be solved as capacity has now been permanently lost. To add insult to injury the opportunity to finally connect the 2 stations was blown when Westfield shopping centre was finally opened to much fanfare. You couldn't make it up.

An old colleague once said to me that the best thing about Bradford was the road out. But even then they screwed up. You will find on Manchester Road going out of town on the south side, further out, a bus stop on a central traffic island, created because of the guided bus reserved lane right in the middle of the carriageway. I wonder how many people will use this stop, access being via an overbridge/crossings. How many people do you know live on a traffic island?

The standard of politicans in Bradford is well exemplified by it's most infamous local politican, Eric Pickles, who of course is now a Tory grandee. You might remember him, him of the "rubber knickers" quote about cycle shorts, and the usual "war on the motorists" and that catering for cyclists was elitist.

[arnsider]

Crikey!!!!
I lifted your lid pal.
Thank you very much for that insight. I lived on Crow Tree lane in the early seventies and coming from Bristol, I really liked Bradford and found the people very friendly and straightforward.
I won't tell you what I started out as in Bradford, but for the last year and a half, I worked for C N Gaunt on New John Street.
I was back there last year on a public transport survey that invoved a four week period of observations and counts on both bus and train movements and passengrer numbers.
Back in earlier times, I can remember being able to drive down Manor Row and on down Cheapside to the city center.
Well I tried that last year and got caught up in a "Bus Gate" and got a ticket!!
I was mortified to find that the K2 Kashmiri restraunt on Lumb Lane was gone. No more!!!
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could get a through train from London to Glasgow, via Bradford and up the S&C!
I was amazed to learn that there was a rail route from Keighley to Bradford via Haworth, Denholme and Great Horton, indeed looking at the Leeds Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield conurbation, it was really well served with railway lines and must have been a powerhouse of industry and prosperity.

[atoz]

Crikey!!!!
I lifted your lid pal.
Thank you very much for that insight. I lived on Crow Tree lane in the early seventies and coming from Bristol, I really liked Bradford and found the people very friendly and straightforward.
I won't tell you what I started out as in Bradford, but for the last year and a half, I worked for C N Gaunt on New John Street.
I was back there last year on a public transport survey that invoved a four week period of observations and counts on both bus and train movements and passengrer numbers.
Back in earlier times, I can remember being able to drive down Manor Row and on down Cheapside to the city center.
Well I tried that last year and got caught up in a "Bus Gate" and got a ticket!!
I was mortified to find that the K2 Kashmiri restraunt on Lumb Lane was gone. No more!!!
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could get a through train from London to Glasgow, via Bradford and up the S&C!
I was amazed to learn that there was a rail route from Keighley to Bradford via Haworth, Denholme and Great Horton, indeed looking at the Leeds Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield conurbation, it was really well served with railway lines and must have been a powerhouse of industry and prosperity.

The line to Keighley you speak of was part of the "Queensbury lines". There is a campaign to reopen Queensbury tunnel as a cycle route https://mobile.twitter.com/qburytunnel?lang=en

[arnsider]

So I believe, but haven't the powers that be pumped lean mix in to stabilise the roof?
I'm collecting cycle tunnels and would love to add this one at some stage.
Just now I have Devonshire and Combe down, the short one at Midford, Staple Hill, Winscombe and the two on the Great Torrington line up from Bideford.
I understand the long one at the head of the Rhonda might be converted.
There is one half way up the Clydach, but the cycle way takes a diversion.

[atoz]

Actually the Bradford farce is worse than I thought. Turns out that shopping centres are having cash flow problems (quel surprise) so the Westfield shopping centre will probably become a white elephant- to match the Inland Revenue building built for typing pools...

[arnsider]

Bradford had a wonderful market when I was first there back in the late sixties.
There was even a local Folk group named after it "Swan Arcade"

[thirdcrank]

When my wife and I first got together she had a bedsit just off Manningham Lane and it was, briefly, our first home when we were married in 1967. Although I'm a Leeds Loiner, and we soon moved to live in Leeds, we always preferred shopping in Bradford because the shops were generally better.

I've had various connections with Bradford over the years including working there for two periods and my wife worked there more recently till 2009.

Last year I took our cuckoo clock for repair at Oxtoby's on Northgate in Bradford. When taking it and bringing it home I used the bus and walked from the Interchange up through what still presents itself as a shopping centre.

It's amazing and depressing that somewhere can go so completely down the tubes.

The the completion of the flagship Broadway Centre was delayed something like ten years, during which it was just a hole in the ground. When it did eventually open, it sucked much of the surviving retail heart out of Bradford, but it seems it's existence is already threatened.

[arnsider]

The same sort of development has blighted other large UK towns.
Architecture and cheap finishes have got progressively worse and sixties developments now showing their age are being abandoned for brand new ones.
This has happened in Bristol with broadmead being neglected in favour of Cabot Circus.
I looked for a cafe in Kirkgate, Bradford and was pretty dismayed at how it was showing its age.
I took a stroll from my hotel on Bridge Street over to the Broadway center and sure enough, the pavement was lifted here and there and men were doing remedials to the block paviors. They just cannot get this block paving right and in every large town and UK city, cobbles have been riven up in favour of these crappy, fired earth offerings.
My old neighbour in Bristol was a Building services Engineer on Cabot Circus and he reckoned it was cheap and nasty.
Historically, Cityscapes were owner occupied, but now everywhere is owned by developers who just want a quick buck and to then move on.
That's why the chav population is forever Brain washed and groomed into weekend shopping.