Durham County Council have been busy for the last few months converting what was a fairly unexciting roundabout at the north end of Chester Le Street shown below on Google Maps
They have changed the layout to accommodate more lanes and signals at the roundabout.
The project page is
here along with links to the
plan, and the
consultation report.
The consultation report does mention access to properties, but nowhere does it mention any consultation with groups or organisations representing the cycling community. This is surprising, not least because it is the route of the Sustrans NCN 725. I am presuming the give way markings are appeasements to locals.
Durham County Council replied to a tweet about the markings to Tim Beasley stating
They have removed grass verges and squeezed footpath space to make the extra room for vehicles and in the process created some fairly tortuous and frankly extremely poor space and routes for both pedestrians and cyclists resulting in plenty of potential for conflict.
The southbound route has been largely completed with the exception of signal installation, and the full horror has been revealed.
A167 north of the junction is now a massive 5 lane beast of a road as you can see from the photo below
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| Southbound approach from the A167. The have removed a section of the southbound painted label as part of the lane widening before meeting the off-road section which is segregated. Notice the give way markers for each private house driveway |
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| A closer look at the markings giving driveways priority over people cycling. Why? just why? |
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| Here you can see a traffic light signal smack in the middle of the segregated cycle lane. You can also see just how much space has been given over to motor traffic compared to people walking and cycling |
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This is the shared path around the corner at what will be a signaled crossing across the A693 Blind lane.
That's a Moulton which is about 1.3m tyre to tyre. I estimate the width of the path at about 1,5M wall to kerb, but of course the signal pole reduces that considerably. It is also quite a tight turn for bicycles, |
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| Looking across Blind lane from the traffic island, you can see that for some reason the path humps up with a high stepped kerb. This is on a corner so not a bus stop. Given the posts and the corner I could foresee this being a conflict point with potential for a serious fall if you come off the kerb. |
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| This is a view of the above kerb from the path. Not very person friendly at all. |
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| This is a view showing the exit to the A167 Park road South and on the right the new slip towards Chester Le Street town centre. The large island on the right has shared paths crossing it which are also shown below, which again will be signalised |
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| There is a smaller island as well with more shared paths crossing it, these are not signalised though. This is the north-south route most cyclists will need to follow, unless the want to mix it on the now 3 lane carriageways . Once over both lanes, the southbound route picks up the existing off road path which continues south for a few hundred metres before changing into a painted lane. |
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| Still some work to do northbound, but it still gives priority to private drives over cyclists. Also the cycleway has give way markings where it joins the road just before a bus stop (increasing risk of conflict). Previously there was a painted lane which has disappeared in favoure for 2 exit lanes, and now starts a few hundred metres further up. Could they not have linked up? |
Quite apart from all of the many other problems that you illustrate here, the picture with the Moulton is quite telling.
ReplyDeleteIn the Netherlands you'd expect there to be a minimum 0.325 m gap between a wall and a cycle-path and also between a pole and a cycle-path. That doesn't leave much in your case.
And the UK's biggest cycling charity actually approve of this ? Have they put their name on it as part of Sustrans route 725 or grown a spine and refused to rubber stamp such nonsense ?
David,
DeleteCould you comment upon how they could have done this properly?
The main issue they are attempting to solve is traffic from the motorway heading West onto the A693.
It's one of those situations where you really want to start from somewhere else. I've no idea of how busy this junction is now, and can give only a sketchy idea of what could be done to reduce that based on looking at Google Maps for five minutes.
DeleteAs is so often the case in the UK it seems that one junction is being considered in isolation without much thought to the overall use of roads in the area. It makes no sense to do this. All that happens is that existing problems are retained while the design is tweaked a little, but problems due to network design remain.
In this case it would appear that problems are due to the position of the A1 junction and that the A167 is used to link to the motorway from this point, and that leading as you say to the A693.
This junction is in a residential area. It should not be a major thoroughfare and planners should be trying to reduce its use, not expand it.
It is surely overkill to expand the road to three lanes in one direction at the junction, from just one lane in each direction either side of the junction. Clearly they're trying to compensate for the problems rather than solve them.
If the through traffic could be moved elsewhere, a move which feedback from the residents would suggest could be positively received, then a much smaller junction would be required here. Perhaps something like the nearest roundabout to our home would then suffice. It is very similar in size (and in any case can easily be shrunk to smaller sizes while still working well). This, incidentally, is in a location which was much busier in the past before the traffic was taken elsewhere in Assen.
There are a couple of other routes which would appear to have potential to offer relief in your example. By the look of it, the A693 through traffic could be taken along Drum Road to link with Vigo Lane and use that route to the A1.
I suppose there's also a problem with some traffic from the industrial areas North and West of the junction under consideration and that could take the same route, avoiding this residential area altogether.
Unfortunately, there seems to have been the same confusion about purpose at Vigo Lane, so residents who live in houses next to that road might not like this change of use.
There's also what appears to be a disused railway line, perhaps converted into a shared use path. This also appears to have potential to become a through route for some of the heavier traffic, removing it from residential areas. In particular, there's a straightish line going from the little roundabout in the Drum Road industrial estate to the A167 North of the junction under consideration where the existing path could be paralleled by a road to get the traffic out of the way of the residents.
Perhaps none of these things is possible for some reason, but the problems for these residents won't be solved simply by making the junction bigger, and cyclists and pedestrians are served incredibly badly by the design which has been built.
That's my five minutes of thought.
Hi David & Gary,
Deletethe current situation with NCN725 is that not one inch of it has been accepted into the National Cycle Network. One local authority (not Durham) was given permission to put up NCN signage on a short section but even there it’s not as yet NCN.
The procedures for admitting a new section of NCN are that once it’s a reasonable length we will inspect it referring against current design guidance (yes, the manual which you are not a fan of). If what has been built does not meet guidance or does not meet the more subjective criteria of being fit for use by a 12 year old then it will be rejected.
Generally there is an acceptance in Sustrans that there are some bad existing bits of the NCN but this should not be used as an excuse to create more, we need to draw a line under this and raise standards.
NCN725 presents a challenge because as the "old A1" it passes through some difficult locations. Some of the sections that have been built have already failed review both locally with Sustrans here in the North East and nationally (This does not apply to Durham as we have not been asked yet to go and look at anything that they've built).
If we find that a section of NCN doesn't meet our standards we will discuss this confidentially with the highway authority and try and agree a way forward to get it fixed. We are not in the business of trying to embarrass local government into doing what we want, although I'm not necessarily saying that Gary's blog highlighting the problem is a bad idea.
This particular instance highlights two of the problems that local authorities face building infrastructure in the UK.
1/ As David says, the transport planning context is often poor, with decades of trying to accommodate traffic growth on the cheap by make and mend schemes. The Path running from Drum Estate over the East Coast Mainline and the A167 is actually the famed NCN7 Coast to Coast [before anyone says it, yes it’s now a good quality tarmac path all the way from here to Beamish], but the point still stands, with good planning traffic can be moved away from residential areas. Ultimately the “width constraints” on what has been built originate from this.
2/ The pressure to do the more ridiculously bad things that we see in the UK such as painting give way lines at people’s driveways does not come from councils. At every stage in a cycling scheme in a residential area pressure comes from the public “can’t this go somewhere else”, “kids are best off on the pavement”, “what about when I reverse out of my drive”. There are situations where this feeds through to what is implemented on the ground, it shouldn’t but unfortunately in some instances things go wrong and it does. The solution to this is in part better design guidance that has more teeth, but in part it is public acceptance that space should be allocated for cycling (or for people).
Yours from the coalface,
@tynetom , @sustransNE
We seem to be in agreement that the problem here has arisen in large part because the "old A1" was kept in operation alongside the new one. It's a very common problem in the UK. Bypasses and new roads generally provide additional access routes by car, not different access routes. If this could be turned around there are a lot of benefits which could come the way of cyclists. There are a lot of places in the Netherlands where old roads, both small and large, have become useful links for cyclists.
DeleteI'm glad to hear public acceptance that some existing NCN sections are not good enough. That's true of any network of course and improvements anywhere can only come by recognizing problems. What's important is that you make sure that anything new pulls the average level upwards.
I do indeed find Sustrans' current manual to be lacking. Just as with accepting that inadequate infrastructure needs to be improved, I think Sustrans need also to accept that their standards for new build also need steady improvement. However I certainly think it's better if you stick to your standards than if you accept things that don't meet even that level. That you tell us that "not one inch" of this path has yet been accepted as part of the NCN is a good thing IMO. Push the council for more.
It'd certainly be a shame to do anything which detracted from the coast to coast route (glad to hear it's been upgraded). But it appears the NCN7 could be paralleled for a short distance to get between the Drum estate and the road (my knowledge being based only on what I can see on Google Maps, mind you). This would require the council to build a road bridge next to the cycle bridge, of course, and it's all a lot more expensive than what they've done.
Of course the solution myself and many others will have to this nonsense is just to use the road, which will be safer as it avoids all the conflict points.
ReplyDeleteThe main concern I have is now that the 'shared use paths' are so visible Mr. Angry driver might decide I have no place cycling through the junction and act accordingly. Plus it's alright for the likes of me who's prepared to sprint through on a road bike.
Thanks for the insightful and useful comments.
ReplyDeleteThe mention of Sustrans and NCN 725 is due to it being signed from NCN7 to Durham, and hence over the junction in question. There is no mention in the consultation report of any consultation over the cycling element. Just to be clear there was no criticism intended of Sustrans, and I certainly was confident that this had NO Sustrans involvement. The recent developments locally which I know Sustrans have been involved in are excellent. I use some of them, and NCN 7 daily (occasionally up to Stanley & it is excellent), and I value the input and commitment from Tom and his colleagues in the area.
As for any embarrassment or shaming of the LA responsible, then tough. This is a personal blog and a personal view & I think I have been fair in the criticism. I have seen a reply from Durham that they will investigate to see if any improvements or corrections can be made, and that is to be welcomed.
I cycle that junction north-south daily on my commutes, and have also driven it often (mainly east-west) as we have sites along those roads, so I am personally affected by any changes.
As a taxpayer I want to see any infra spend being well made and value for money. Certainly the cycling element currently fails this in my eyes. As it appears to introduce a lot of conflict points it seems to fail for pedestrians too.
As a cyclist, spending money creating infra like this really is counter productive as it is so poor existing cyclists won't use it. New cyclists will either try it & give up or just not try, and Motorists, LA officers and councillors etc will see the unused infra and wonder why money should be wasted when people won't use it.
My thoughts about the give ways is that they have been added to appease the residents who will have to wait for a gap in traffic to enter the road, and that they would be blocking the cycle way now the verge space has been gobbled up. They are obviously worried about cyclists careering into the side of their cars.
The other main issue is the amount of provision for pedestrians and cyclists in places, and it is very hard for me to see how this can be substantially increased without a major engineering exercise. The exit northbound onto the A167 could be easily improved however.
Durham Council has replied to everyone who tweeted them saying "Hi, we will be heading out to the site as soon as possible to resolve the issues. Thanks"
ReplyDeleteWhich I think will just be the paint problems, I doubt they mean revisit the entire design as the junction design itself is seriously flawed.
Hi Gary, I have been corresponding with DCC Highways about this junction and noticed at the weekend they had removed the "give way" triangles. The problem of the post in the middle of the cycle path has been solved - by making it not a cycle path any more. I assume that this means anyone wanting to go south from the A167 will have to cross the A167 and A693 and then Newcastle Road. What is depressing is that DCC Highways is defending this scheme as the best possible in the circumstances. I've put it to them that no Dutch highways engineer would have come up with a scheme like this. I am a member of Durham Local Access Forum so I will keep pressing for better schemes.
ReplyDeleteThe blog was absolutely fantastic! Lot of great information which can be helpful in some or the other way. Keep updating the blog, looking forward for more contents...Great job, keep it up..
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