North Yorkshire Council Planning a Broken Link in Otley Road Cycleway
North Yorkshire Council is recommending ten highways projects to replace Phase 2 of Otley Road Cycleway, which it has cancelled.
The council is therefore planning a broken link in cycle facilities on Otley Road.
The first Core Design Principle in LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design is that cycle routes should be coherent, allowing people to reach their day-to-day destinations easily, along routes that connect.
A coherent, joined-up cycle route is vital to providing sustainable transport links from the West Harrogate Urban Expansion to Harrogate town centre.
As things stand, there will be no joined-up cycle route. It will be a case of ‘we didn’t do this bit because it was too difficult, so you’re on you’re own’.
This is specifically warned-against by LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design.
There is No Alternative Cycle Route to Otley Road
The report claims:
‘…one of the key messages that came through from the engagement events was whether other measures [instead of Otley Road Cycleway Phase 2] could be used to create quieter and safer streets to encourage cycling.
Several residents felt that the side roads such as Queens Road and Victoria Avenue could be made to feel safer by reducing speed limits, providing clear cycle route direction signage, and removing a limited amount of parking from certain areas’.
para 3.2 of the npif report
The fatal flaw in this line of argument is that Queens Road and Victoria Avenue are not alternative routes to Otley Road.
There is no justification for listening to ‘several residents’ if they don’t cycle and/or don’t know what they are talking about.
NYC appears to be trying to dictate to people on bikes where they may cycle, rather than providing a network of cycle routes that enables them to make the trips they want and need to make.
Or, more likely, the council is trying to justify abandoning Otley Road Cycleway by putting forward imaginary alternative routes.
Similarly, officers are now proposing to resurface Rossett cycle path, and are claiming this is ‘an alternative route to the Otley Road Corridor for walkers and cyclists’.
Rossett cycle path is a useful fragment of shared use path, but it isn’t an alternative to the Otley Road.
The second Core Design Principle in LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design is that cycle routes should be direct.
‘To make cycling an attractive alternative to driving short distances, cycle routes should be at least as direct – and preferably more direct – than those available for private motor vehicles’.
para 4.2.8 of ltn 1/20
The other significant point about Rossett cycle path is that it is an existing route, whereas NPIF funding was intended to provide a new route to enhance Harrogate’s cycle network.
Using NPIF money for routine maintenance that the council should be doing anyway is wrong.
Officers Still Making Untrue Statements About Phase 1 of Otley Road Cycleway
The report states:
‘Phase 1…included the construction of a cycleway…to provide sustainable transport enhancements. The link this section provides is between the business district of Cardale Park, Harrogate Grammar School, and the shopping/business area of Cold Bath Road’.
para 3.1 of NYC report on npif programme
None of this is true.
Phase 1 of Otley Road Cycleway does not reach Cardale Park, it doesn’t quite reach Harrogate Grammar School, and it doesn’t extend down Cold Bath Road at all.
Majority Support for Phase 2 of Otley Road Glossed Over
In the most recent consultation there was majority support to go ahead with Phase 2 of Otley Road Cycleway.
NYC’s take on this is ‘the feedback did not generate a significant response in favour of any of the proposals set out’.
What do they want, a street party? If NYC was committed to its own cycleway project, it would have accepted the majority support in the consultation and got on with it.
Instead here we are with the whole of 2023 wasted, starting all over again from scratch, and with Otley Road still a problem to be resolved.
Projects in the NPIF Programme
These are some of the projects included in NYC’s NPIF programme.
Replacing Traffic Lights to Increase Capacity for Motor Vehicles
The council says of the projects in its NPIF programme:
‘These projects are primarily to support sustainable transport in the wider area and make streets around Otley Road feel safer and more accommodating to those choosing to walk, wheel, cycle or use public transport’.
para 2.1
Despite these warm words, the largest single item in the package is replacing traffic lights in order to increase capacity on Otley Road for private motor vehicles.
Fundamentally, this is about prioritising cars. If two sets of traffic lights are linked in order to increase capacity for motor vehicles, it means that non-motorised users are an afterthought, and may only cross once the important people in cars have been accommodated.
The council might “potentially” make the footpaths wider.
Extending Cold Bath Road 20mph
NYC is proposing to extend the existing 20mph on Cold Bath Road all the way to the junction with Otley Road. That’s a good idea.
Traffic calming will be needed, and the cost is £100,000.
Crossing at Western Primary on Cold Bath Road
The council says it doesn’t yet know what type of crossing it will put in at Western Primary.
It needs to be a priority crossing, not an uncontrolled crossing (which is not a crossing at all, just a suggestion as to where people might cross).
Crossing of Green Lane at Ashville College
There is already an uncontrolled crossing (i.e. priority to cars) where the Rossett cycle path meets Green Lane at Ashville College.
NYC are proposing to ‘improve visibility’ for £10,000, but not make it a proper zebra or parallel crossing. That is very poor.
Cycle Signage Review
NYC wants to spend £10,000 on cycle signposts ‘to improve awareness of cycle routes across the network in Harrogate’.
This was already done comprehensively in 2014 and does not need doing again.
Signposts will only take you so far. There comes a point when the only way to improve a cycle network is to actually build a network of safe routes, instead of signposting inconvenient and unsafe ones.
Nursery Lane Dropped
The daft proposal to put a formal cycleway on the already-safe-and-not-very-useful Nursery Lane has been dropped (para 6.2 of the report).
It has been partly replaced by a proposal to spend £60,000 resurfacing Rossett cycle path.
Full List of Ten Items
This is the full list of Ten Items in the Programme.
Delay, Delay, Delay
NYC made its successful bid for funding from the National Productivity Investment Fund in 2017.
It has delivered motor vehicle-focused elements already (widening Otley Road for cars at the junction with Harlow Moor Road, and building a little slip road at the Burn Bridge turn-off from the A61).
In 2021, it also built a short, isolated section of an Otley Road Cycleway to poor standards, before abandoning the rest.
It’s now 6 years after the funding bid succeeded, with the money worth considerably less than it was in 2017, due to inflation.
Instead of getting on with the remaining projects, NYC intends to take a leisurely approach. Its timetable is:
- January 2024 start design work
- ‘Spring 2024’ present another report to the Environment Executive
- ‘Spring 2024’ report to the Harrogate & Knaresborough Committee of Councillors
- 1st April 2024 – 31st March 2025 ‘an expectation’ to deliver the schemes subject to successful consultations