York Cycle Infrastructure - Naburn Station to Fulford

I'm reviewing this route because I happened to cycle it, and a few things caught my eye. I'm not saying it should necessarily be a priority for investment; other routes may have more potential users on two wheels.

The main problem with this route is its lack of continuity and consistency.

Ideally when cycling a route you would get the impression that a lot of thought had gone into the provision, and gradually you'd gain confidence that you were going to be looked after all the way and provided with a flowing route.

On this route, the opposite is true: where the cycle provision crosses to the 'wrong' side of the road, you think I'm not going to bother, because it's probably going to be rubbish then stop suddenly.

York Cycle Infrastructure - Naburn Station to Fulford: the B1222

I started from Naburn Station, on the Solar System Cycleway, and headed north along the B1222 towards Fulford.

The first thing I noticed were the barriers on the slipway from the Solar System down to the B-road.

Barriers or chicanes like this should not be used, according to paragraph 8.3 of LTN 1/20.

'Access controls can reduce the usability of a route by all cyclists, and may exclude some disabled people and others riding nonstandard cycles. There should therefore be a general presumption against the use of access controls unless there is a persistent and significant problem of antisocial moped or motorcycle access that cannot be controlled through periodic policing.'
Paragraph 8.3.1, LTN 1/20

LTN 1/20 says that simple bollards are better.

By the B1222, there's a shared use path separated from the road by a hedge. That's a good idea.

To access the path, you pass through another chicane-type barrier at the entrance. It probably aims to stop people exiting the path into fast-moving traffic. Clearly a safe solution needs to be found, but in principle, as set out above, barriers like these should not be used.

Every other part of this route has a hard, sealed surface, so this should too. It's not clear what surface this path had originally, but now it's gravelly. On a road bike I'm likely to be put off using it. It should be resurfaced.

When the hedge disappears, the path continues with a grass buffer to the road. Now it has a hard, sealed surface.

A shared use path may be acceptable here, as the volume of pedestrians is very low (see para. 6.5.6, LTN 1/20). The minimum width is 3m (Table 6-3).

This path is less than a metre wide, but there is plenty of scope to widen it.

At present, there's an assumption that hardly anyone will use the cycle infrastructure provided so it doesn't matter if it's rubbish; and the cycle infrastructure is rubbish, so hardly anyone uses it.

LTN 1/20 states (Summary Principle 5) that cycle infrastructure should be designed for significant numbers of cyclists, and for non-standard cycles. Ok, this part of the route will never have very high flows, but the minimum objectives should be to enable and attract people who live in Fulford to access the Solar System by bike, rather than driving to it, and to link Naburn and Fulford.

Other than the width, there's a problem with the arrangements at two entrances to a Yorkshire Water sewage works. The path gives way, but it shouldn't.

This is a private drive, and it shouldn't have priority over people on foot or on bikes going straight on. The path should be continuous. Coloured tarmac and/or a raised hump should be used to make it clear the path has priority over the driveway, together with give way lines for vehicles entering or exiting the Yorkshire Water site.

The same applies to a second entrance to the site.

When you reach the first bit of Fulford, there's a row of houses on the left. The path is very narrow at first so it's hard to pass even one other person; then it widens out. There's no reason why it shouldn't be wider sooner.

The path comes to an abrupt stop at the end of the row of houses. The rubbish bin there seems somehow symbolic.

The suggestion is that you cross to a shared use path on the other side of the road. If you do so, you soon come to a back entrance to York Designer Outlet.

If the Designer Outlet is your destination, that's ok; if not, you find yourself on the wrong side of the road, with no further cycle facilities.

When providing a cycle route, it is not acceptable to say 'oh, this bit is too difficult, so we didn't bother.' Also, the Designer Outlet is a significant destination, and proper cycle infrastructure should allow people to visit it by bike.

My suggestions here are:

• continue the path on the west side of the road just past the entrance to the Designer Outlet
• provide a parallel (zebra plus cycle) crossing to allow people to cross the road
• there should be floating bus stops; the bus stops can be moved if necessary
• continue the path on the east side of the road beyond the Designer Outlet

There are space constraints after the Designer Outlet, and purchase of land might be necessary (but it could be that the City of York already owns the land).

There is plenty of space on the east side again before the bridge over the A64, and on the bridge itself.

 North of the bridge, space is at a premium again; there are houses on the right hand side, and only a narrow pavement.

You don't want to be asking people to swap sides of the road constantly, but this might be a case where the cycle path needs to continue on the west side of the B1222. It would require a parallel crossing, and land may have to be purchased.

York Cycle Infrastructure - Naburn Station to Fulford: the A19

At the junction with the A19, a shared use path begins on the west side of the road. It needs to be wider or (ideally) replaced with segregated cycle infrastructure. LTN 1/20 says space should be reallocated from the road where possible.

The shared use path gives way to side streets, where it should have priority. It's not quite clear when it gives up altogether, but there comes a point where it is very narrow indeed and appears to be just a pavement.

There's no easy solution on Main Street Fulford leading up to the junction with Heslington Lane, but it's a busy road and you can't just abandon people. The objective should be on-road cycle lanes with light segregation.

You reach the Heslington Lane junction, which is already light-controlled. Maybe it needs separate cycle phases? Someone cleverer and more qualified than me will have to work it out.

What I do know is that the unprotected cycle lane at a pedestrian crossing immediately after the junction is dangerous. I watched buses encroach on the cycle lane. If you made the crossing one-phase you wouldn't need the refuge and you'd have more space. You could then widen the cycle lane and give it kerb protection.

After the junction the road is quite wide, so it should be possible to provide proper width cycle lanes with light segregation either side. Some on-street parking may have to go.

Currently, there are two notable bits of bad practice:

• an inconvenient section on the east side of the road where cyclists are invited to join a shared use pavement before returning to the road a very short distance further on
• a dangerous car door zone cycle lane on the west side of the road

The cycle lane should go between the kerb and the parking, with sufficient buffer zone to avoid dooring. Or remove the parking if there is not enough space.

Next you get an unprotected cycle lane on the inside of a bus lane. That makes me think, is that wise, Captain Mainwaring?

It would be better to give the cycle lane kerb protection from buses, and put in floating bus stops. Or if that's not possible, make it a bus and cycle lane (at least 4m wide, preferably 4.5m - para. 6.6.2, LTN 1/20).

I turned off on St Oswald's Road to head via Danesmead Wood to the Millennium Bridge.

York Cycle Infrastructure - Naburn Station to Fulford: the Bigger Picture

There's a huge amount of work to be done to bring cycle infrastructure up to standard, not just in York but in towns and cities around the country. We're supposed to have world-class cycle networks by 2040, according to the government's Transport Decarbonisation Plan.