Good news in Worcester. ‘Fewer motorists and more cycles in the city‘ is the headline from Worcester News online. The government and county council backed sustainable travel towns project has seen a 13 per cent increase in walking trips and 30 per cent for cycling, while car trips went down.
And that’s before the Diglis bridge opens for business – due in July. I’ve read that the towpath upgrades have just been completed*. Anyone go that way and can report?
* Update on towpath – it is only one section that has been completed so far. See Worcester News article.
One of the reasons that this website has had no new items for ages is that there hasn’t been any news of the cycle facilities which had been floating around spring 2008. This month, there’s news!
Diglis Bridge, Worcester
Taken from Worcester County Council page: “15th September 2009: Planning Permission has been granted for the Diglis bridge and construction will begin in November 2009. The bridge is due for completion by summer 2010.”
Cyclists from Malvern still have to deal with getting through Powick to get there, but could be a useful way into the city.
Cycle path extension from Townsend Way
Part of the North Site (Malvern Vale) spin-offs, initial information has appeared on upgrading of paths from the side of Morrisons and across Worcester Road. Formal consultation to follow.
The cycle path in Hereford linking the city centre with Rotherwas and beyond, being created as part of Sustran’s Connect2 project, is moving forward. Here’s a new item from Herefordshire Council on students at Herefordshire College of Technology’s Holme Lacy campus working to clear their end of the route.
In Worcester, a series of two-day exhibitions on the Diglis Bridge scheme are being held. Still to come is
19-20 May – Powick Village Hall
21-22 May – Worcester Guildhall
Both are open 6pm to 8pm.
The proposals can also be downloaded via the link above.
Here’s a few items from my meeting today at county council:
The Diglis Bridge Connect2 scheme in Worcester is hoped to be constructed in the next couple of years. A nine metre clearance requirement on the navigable (east) side makes the design a bit tricky. While they are working on the main cycle flow being from Powick towards the city centre, connecting routes in every direction are being planned. £850,000 is allocated from the Connect2 overall £50 million pot for the scheme, and the county council will have to find a fair bit more.
At the Powick roundabout (A4440/A449), toucan crossings (joint pedestrian/cyclist) are part of the package of works due for summer 2008 (delayed from summer 2007 by the floods). They’ll be on the western and northern approaches.
In Malvern, the Science Park/Geraldine Road/North End Lane cycle route has been delayed from this financial year. So there is still a possibility of influencing the detail.
In case you haven’t heard, the Sustrans Connect2 scheme won the Peoples Millions lottery vote. The £50 million will go towards 79 projects around the UK, but will also unlock a similar amount, or more, from local authorities etc to fund key connecting routes for walkers and cyclists.
The Cycle Malvern group is in the process of checking out how the Worcester Diglis bridge would connect with a route between there and Malvern.
There are also other interesting local cycle route possibilities emerging. An update to the Cycle Malvern email list in the next few days should contain a little more info.
The phone lines are now open for voting on the Peoples £50 Millions projects. The number to ring to support Sustrans’ Connect2 project, of 79 cycling and walking schemes around the UK, is 0870 24 24 602. But if you are voting from work do note that doing it by phone via a switchboard may be a total waste – they are only counting one vote per number (DDI systems can sometimes show as one central number in our experience. )
You can still vote online – it takes a double registration process and my first attempt took days for the confirmation email to arrive. But hopefully that was a glitch caused by how I treat cookies. So give it a go at Peoples £50 million vote site.
And here’s the promo show on ITV featuring Lorraine Kelly (after the general intro) via YouTube. The last scheme featured is in my old stomping ground of Southwark and is explained by a local cycle campaigner:
Every other cycle website has mentioned this, so must be our turn.
Fifty of the really rubbish cycle facilities from the Warrington Cycle Campaign’s ‘Facility of the Month’ web feature have been compiled into a book. A great Christmas present for planners and road engineers, and a source of a few laughs to any regular cyclist. And profits go to the Cyclists’ Defence Fund.
Crap Cycle Lanes (Hardcover) by Warrington Cycle Campaign from Amazon.co.uk.
The bicycle news site quickrelease.tv has saved me the bother of expressing my concerns about public voting between four worthy causes for fifty million quid of lottery funds. Although I’d also add my personal dislike of the promotion of gambling as a way to address important issues.
Both the Sherwood and Black Country schemes include walking and cycling aspects, but it is of course the Sustrans Connect2 bid, with 79 projects around the country creating new opportunities for potentially millions of people, which is the high profile one here. As more than one blogger elsewhere has said, the Eden Project is actually promoting more car and coach use with its glorified greenhouses attached to large car parks, at one extremity of the country. And its press release, claiming that a vote for Eden was “a vote for the planet”, might even get me to vote for Sustrans.
The voting for the People’s £50 Million Lottery Giveaway opens online on Monday (26th November), with the Connect2 set of 79 walking and cycling projects in with a good chance. One of these 79 is the Two Tunnels Greenway proposal, extending the first Sustrans route (I think) near Bath using an old railway tunnel.
I’d previously thought that the suggestion of a walking and cycling route through the disused rail tunnel, parallel to the current one between Great Malvern and Colwall, a bit dubious, even if the money for it could be found. However, the Two Tunnels website says “Reusing long rail tunnels can seem alarming to the uninitiated, but experiences worldwide are most positive”. Worth having a poke around this site if you are interested in the idea.
For me, the most interesting thing is that they seem to have used the Five Es method to judge this, developed by Bicycle Friendly Communities Campaign in America. The five are: Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, Evaluation and Planning.
