Canal Road Greenway & Cycleway, Shipley to Bradford
Updated 2nd August 2022
Canal Road Cycleway, Bradford
What follows is my impression of the Canal Road Greenway and
Cycleway. I'm not a regular user of it, but I rode it from Shipley to
Bradford in 2019 (when looking at the route of the Yorkshire Worlds
elite women's road race in Bradford). Overall, I thought it was quite
a good urban route, and one that I would use.
As I understand it, the Canal Road Greenway does the first part of
the Shipley to Bradford route. It has been there for some time. It's a
shared use path, typical of a Sustrans route (but definitely one of
their better ones). The Canal Road Cycleway forms the second part of
the route, and is a segregated urban 'superhighway'. It is more
recent, and was completed and opened in May
2019.
Canal Road Greenway
Start of the Canal
Road Greenway in Shipley
The start of the Greenway is unprepossessing, to say the least.
There are confusing signs, including one about this being private
land, and only the tiniest blue Sustrans cycle route sticker. I
nearly turned back before I realised it actually was the cycle route
I was looking for
The path is quite wide for most of the way, which is helpful on a
shared use route
There's no priority where the path crosses roads. They should put
in cycle zebras. It's all very well national and local government
saying they want active travel to be the natural choice for short
journeys, but you have to back up words with action, otherwise they
are meaningless
Canal Road Cycleway
The Cycleway takes over from the Greenway for the second part of
the journey into Bradford. It's a two-way green-painted bike lane.
It does have a kerb - physical protection from the traffic. This is
essential anyway, and more so given the high number of boy racers I
came across in a short time in Bradford
In general, the bike route has priority over side roads and
driveways - again, essential to a quality bike route. Good use is
made of cycle zebras (see main photo at the top of the page). At the
major junctions, you have to press a button to request permission
cross
There are quite a lot of places where the route designers have
lost their nerve, and made the bike route give way to side roads and
driveways. One of those is a drive-thru Costa Coffee at the junction
of Canal Road and Stanley Road. (There are a million good reasons
why this sort of car-centric development, which is founded on
single-use packaging, should be discouraged; unfortunately, in this
instance, the council is still prioritising the environmentally
damaging over the sustainable).
Bike routes like this need to have sufficient continuity, and be
logical and easy to use, or they will be ignored. Generally, the
Canal Road Cycleway passes this test. One exception is a section (by
the Hillam Court Industrial Estate, I think), where it tried to send
me to the wrong side of the road for what seemed like no good reason
Summary
This is quite a good route. It is usable, and provides a convenient
and safe option for getting into Bradford from Shipley.
The Greenway could be improved, by providing cycle zebras where it
crosses roads.
The council should follow up the work it has done on the Cycleway by
observing how it is used in practice, altering it if need be, and
applying the lessons to future projects. They should talk to local
Bradford cyclists, and get feedback.
