Since soon after arriving at the University of Surrey to begin my
PhD studentship and discovering the terrible state of cycling
infrastructure in Guildford, I started attending Guildford Cycle Forum
meetings to try and discuss what could actually be done about it. For
most of that time, the meetings have had a rather predictable format:
a chorus of Forum members pointing out problems experienced by
cyclists and opportunities to fix them, countered by County and
Borough Council officials explaining either that no budget exists for
cycling improvements, or that the changes requested weren't in their
department and they couldn't address them.
Recently, however, some money has finally become available
via the government's Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF), and
Guildford is hoping to receive approx. £900,000 of it, a large chunk
of which is intended to fund cycling improvements.
A major component of Guildford's bid is the establishment of a
network of cycle routes within Guildford. On Thursday 3rd May, Alan
Fordham, the "Sustainability Programme Delivery Officer", hosted a
Guildford Cycle Forum meeting at the Guildford Borough Council offices
to present and discuss the routes that are currently planned for the
network.
A total of fourteen local cycle routes are planned to be defined,
mostly radial routes fanning out to the north from the town centre,
which actually lies in the southern part of the town. Unfortunately,
the route maps that Alan handed round at the meeting aren't available
online anywhere yet; I asked him to circulate some digital copies by
e-mail, but in case he doesn't get time to do so I will try to copy
them onto Google Maps or something.
In following blog posts, I plan to discuss the routes and the
weaknesses that I see in them based on my experiences cycling to and
from Guildford every day. However, in this post, I want to discuss
some more general points about the plans.
The most important point which I haven't seen addressed is what the
overall objective of the project is, and how it will be assessed. In
my opinion, the logical objective is modal shift, where journeys
currently made by car are transferred to other forms of transport, and
both the design of the network and its performance should be judged by
how well it achieves that. I think this is supported by the purpose of
the LSTF, which is to help promote the use of and migration to
sustainable transport.
Tying into this point, one of the things that really isn't clear to
me is what type of cyclist the routes are intended for.
- Are they intended to be used by regular cycle commuters? Many of
this class of cyclists will be aiming to cycle quite quickly and
travel at all times of year in all weather conditions. Quite often
they will be travelling at rush hour, and given rush-hour congestion
and aggressive driving, would likely welcome the addition of good
new cycle routes. These cyclists desire routes that have good sight
lines, are no more obstructed than roads, and facilitate
bidirectional flow well. Unfortunately, these kind of requirements
can be very difficult to accommodate well without new, purpose-built
segregated cycle facilities or the provision of mandatory on-road
cycle lanes. I am one of these users.
- Are they intended as an 'easy option' to attract occasional
cycle commuters? The provision of signposted routes might be the
key to persuading people to take up cycling to work, but if the
routes are too much slower than driving, or have significant
sections that put them in conflict with rush hour traffic, they
might be put off. To me, this is a core target group, as moving them
to cycling will often directly replace a single-occupant car
journey, and I suspect that the problem may not be getting them
cycling as keeping them cycling.
- What about parents taking their children to and from school?
When I was in Cambridge, I used to see a couple who would cycle to
work at the university on their tandem, taking their children with
them in a trailer and dropping them off at primary school on the
way. For this kind of user, the routes really need to be accessible
either when towing a trailer or when using one of the Dutch-style family carrier bikes
with a bay in the front (these are also really good for
shopping, or so I hear). For these cyclists, who are often heavily
laden, it is important to provide facilities that are wide enough to
accommodate them and have few sharp corners. Even a single chicane
like this
one can make a route impassible.
- Are the routes intended to be used for school travel by children
old enough to ride their own bikes, but not experienced or confident
enough to fall into one of the first two categories? For these
users, good segregation of cycle routes from traffic is important,
because they will commonly want to ride with their friends and might
be easily distracted from paying attention to other vehicles.
Another factor is that, unfortunately, many of these users will be
using equipment that is incomplete or in poor condition (e.g. bad
brakes, or no lights), and once again, good segregation may be key
in keeping them out of danger.
- Or are the routes intended for casual cyclists and cycle
tourists? These users, who will usually be travelling with a
flexible itinerary, in favourable weather conditions, and at times
of day when traffic is relatively light, can be accommodated much
more easily than any of the other types of user described above.
In following blog posts, I will try to consider the proposed routes
with reference to how suitable they are for each of above types of
user. Unfortunately, one of my biggest worries about the network as a
whole as it is currently envisaged is that it accommodates the last of
those classes of user really well, but that many of the routes are
fatally flawed for any of the other groups to depend on. Because of
that, I worry that the objective of getting many people living in
Guildford to change to cycling might be compromised.
Another problem is that there is very little money actually
allocated under the plan to major improvement works (such as altering
junctions to make them safer for cyclists, or changing road layouts to
add cycle lanes of appropriate width), and that the main Surrey County
Council highway planning department doesn't seem to be involved in the
process. As far as I can tell, this seems limit the project to mostly
an exercise in putting up signposts to direct cyclists onto the least
inadequate of the existing routes (and even then, one of the Cycle
Forum members raised the "environmental concern" that "ugly" signs
were "unnecessary"). Fortunately, however, there are a few
improvements being made to some of the most obviously hopeless
spots.
Overall, I think that just the fact that this project is taking
place is a major step forward for cycling in Guildford, finally making
a move onto the long road towards making Guildford a town that's
genuinely accessible by bicycle.
In my next post, I will investigate Route 4: Wooden Bridge to
Jacobs Well, and how well it holds up during rush hour.
