North Yorkshire Want to Abandon Otley Road Cycleway
In an interview with the Stray Ferret, N Yorkshire Executive Member for Transport Cllr Keane Duncan says that North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) want to abandon the Otley Road cycleway.
Background
In August 2017, Cllr Don Mackenzie announced that NYCC had made a bid to the DfT for funding, including for a segregated cycle track on Otley Road. It was successful (November 2017). Work was to start in the financial year 2018/19.
In January 2019, there was a consultation.
NYCC later ‘discovered’ that the grass verges on Otley Road were Stray land, and a further consultation was needed to endorse a Stray land swap. This took place in August 2020, and the Stray land swap was approved.
Work finally started on a small part of the cycleway (‘Phase 1’) in September 2021. The standards were poor.
Various start dates for Phase 2 passed with no action, then NYCC decided they needed a third consultation, which took place in October/November 2022. It is the results of this consultation that have caused the latest loss of nerve from NYCC.
LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design
NYCC are using LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design standards as an excuse to do nothing.
That is not their intended purpose – LTN 1/20 is there to make sure that councils build to the best possible standards, rather than putting in token cycle infrastructure that doesn’t make a meaningful difference.
Cllr Duncan told the Stray Ferret:
‘We get hit over the head all the time for schemes that are not compliant. This isn’t.’
cllr keane duncan
This is misleading. I do not criticise NYCC for failing to follow LTN 1/20 where space constraints make it impossible. I do criticise them for failing to follow the standards where it is their choice not to do so.
An example of this is them using white line segregation on Phase 1, where they should be using a level difference.
Another example is failing to reallocate space to active travel at major junctions, and allocating it all to cars.
The Importance of a Connected Network
LTN 1/20 stresses the importance of a connected network.
In the Stray Ferret article, Cllr Duncan says a third phase of Otley Road cycleway from the Harlow Moor Road junction to Cardale Park might still go ahead.
That’s all very well, but if you want to achieve modal shift you have to look after people all the way, with a cycle network.
You can’t say, ‘yeah we did this bit, but that bit was too difficult so you’re on your own.’
Lessons from Seville
One of the lessons from building Seville’s bike network was that you should consult, but doing nothing should not be an option. The local authority should make it clear that it is committed to doing something.
NYCC has not learned that lesson. NYCC seems to asking ‘do you want to do A, B or nothing at all’ and in effect giving residents a veto over cycle infrastructure in the streets where they live.
If you’re going to give residents of particular streets a veto, you will never build a cycle network.
The other lesson from Seville was to build a network quickly. It works, people see that it works, and they support what you did.
NYCC is doing the exact opposite.
It has spent 5 years building about 300m of cycle path to poor standards. It’s not connected to anything, so of course it isn’t going to be heavily used – but it gives the anti-cycling crowd the chance to complain that it isn’t being used.
How Not to Run a Cycle Infrastructure Project
Overall, Otley Road is a textbook example of how not to run a cycle infrastructure project. Key features are:
- excessive and unconscionable delay
- lack of commitment from the highways team
- lack of technical expertise
- lack of political commitment
It was never going to be brilliant because of the space constraints. It should have been built in 2018 or 2019, then NYCC could have learned the lessons and moved onto the next project.
Instead we’re still wrangling over Otley Road and no further forward in developing a cycle network in Harrogate.