We asked, you said, we did

We asked

We asked for your views on the future of the A1000 ‘pop up’ Cycle Lane, ahead of a Phase 2 formal consultation planned for November/December 2022.

You said

We received a total of 136 people registering for a series of ‘face to face’ and on-line’ workshops and all were offered attendance. A total of 60 of those people attended one of the six workshops.

A mix of opinions were expressed at the workshops, both in support of and opposition to the scheme and overall people were measured in their comments about the scheme, notwithstanding that some attendees would like to see the scheme removed and many made comments about how the scheme could be enhanced and improved in the future.

The high-level summary of the workshop findings is as follows:

• those who support the scheme had reservations about the quality of the provision, as it currently is – not great for cycling and not great for motor traffic
• those who oppose the scheme do so on the grounds of perceived traffic congestion that has arisen both on the A1000 and redistribution, to surrounding roads. Other opposition was more generalised e.g. facilitating cycling is not something that public money should be spent on, or that new infrastructure does not create new cyclists/cycle journeys
• a common issue was that the type and quality of provision is not seen as consistent along the route including. lack of segregation at junctions and confusion about the blue cycle patches as used on the A406 bridge
• there were some concerns around accessibility e.g. disabled parking bays being blocked by other users or insufficient supply of access for disabled people travelling by car
• people identified how and where improvements could be made including the quality of the surfacing and materials used (segregating bollards seen as cheap and of poor quality), widening of the cycle lane particularly in segregated sections to enable street sweeping, proper segregation on the A406 bridge, introduction of early-release traffic signals for cycles.

We did

Following the workshops, we have used the feedback to develop Phase 2 of the consultation process, which runs from 21 November 2022 to 21 December 2022.

The feedback from both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the engagement and consultation exercise will help inform recommendations for the future of the route, to be presented to Environment and Climate Change Committee in January 2023.