Wetherby Road Crossing for Slingsby Walk

A new crossing of Wetherby Road for Slingsby Walk is to be considered at a North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) Executive meeting tomorrow. Harrogate District Cycle Action (HDCA) have given some context, in 8 Points About a Slingsby Walk Crossing of Wetherby Road.

At present there is an “uncontrolled crossing”, which means that those on foot or on bikes get no priority and simply have to wait for a gap in the traffic. Wetherby Road is very busy and this can take a long time.

If built, the new crossing would be a Toucan (traffic light-controlled). A concern is that NYCC typically prioritises motor vehicles with the settings of such crossings. People have to wait ages to cross.

Uncertainty and Delay

Just because a crossing of Wetherby Road is being discussed doesn’t mean that it will happen.

HDCA point out that the Otley Road cycleway was funded in 2017, and so far only about 300m of it has been built. Similarly, in 2020 NYCC won funding for active travel schemes on Victoria Avenue, Oatlands Drive, and A59 Knaresborough Road, but they are yet to deliver any on-the-ground improvements.

A crossing of Wetherby Road has been discussed since 2014. If it is built, it will be in the financial year to March 2024 at the earliest – which would mean 10 years of going round and round in circles for a single crossing.

£75,000 from Harrogate Borough Council

The NYCC report in advance of the council meeting states that Harrogate Borough Council (HBC) is paying £75,000 for the crossing. If it turns out to cost more than that, NYCC say they may change their minds and not build it after all.

Focus on Traffic Flow not Active Travel

The clear impression from NYCC’s report is that their main concern is “traffic flow” not active travel. They seem to resent giving people on foot and on bikes a decent safe crossing, because they think it might slow the cars driving along Wetherby Road.

This is despite the fact that their consultants, WSP, have told them that the impact on traffic flow will be minimal. The A661 Wetherby Road crossing is:

‘…likely to operate with spare capacity and the average delays are likely to be manageable.’

wsp report on traffic modelling

Anyone who knows Wetherby Road knows that vehicles stopping at a new crossing will simply reach the next traffic queue a few seconds later than they otherwise would have done. It is very unlikely that there will be any overall delay to these drivers’ journeys.

Anyway it is hard to understand what NYCC are hoping to achieve by prioritising “traffic flow” to the exclusion of active travel. What is their endgame? Make it unsafe and inconvenient to get around town on foot and by bike, so everyone is obliged to travel by car, then…how does this help? We’ll just end up with ever-increasing congestion.

At some point the North Yorkshire will have to move from ‘predict and provide’ to ‘vision and validate’. Have a vision for how you want people to travel, and build for that. If some people still choose to make short, local trips by car, they may get stuck in traffic. Tough.

NYCC has signed up to the Routemap to Carbon Negative, which aims for very significant modal shift very soon.

It must be time to take steps to achieve the Routemap’s goals, instead of attempting to continue to provide for ever more traffic.

Missing Crossing

WSP were asked to look at crossings of both Wetherby Road and Oatlands Drive, but only the Wetherby Road crossing is being taken forward.

What happened to Oatlands Drive? A crossing is needed there too.

HDCA believe that a parallel crossing of Oatlands Drive would be better than a Toucan.

The advantage of a parallel crossing is that it genuinely gives priority to people on foot or on bikes. You can cross straight away, whereas light-controlled crossings give local authorities like NYCC the opportunity to prioritise cars by inflicting long delays on people wishing to cross the road.