Hills Road Cycle lane improvements
As part of the Cycle City Ambition Grants there are proprosals to install wide, segregated or hybrid cycle lanes, with priority over sideroads, on Hills Road.
Issues
This section lists issues - problems on the street network and related matters.
Issues always relate to some geographical location, whether very local or perhaps city-wide.
You can create a new issue using the button on the right.
Listed issues, most recent first, limited to the area of Cambridge Cycling Campaign:
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Consultation re Milton Road / Gilbert Road junction changes
Consultation February 2014 (see thread)
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Planning app 14/0120/FUL: huge new development at Addenbrooke's
Car Parks P, F1 And F2
Addenbrookes
Hills RoadTo provide education centre, private hospital, hotel, conference centre,
ancillary space, associated car parking and public realm works to replace
existing surface parking to accommodate 42,600sqm of development. -
Planning apps 14/0121/FUL and 14/0122/LBC: student accommodation, Churchill College
Churchill College
Storeys Way
Cambridge
CB3 0DSErection of new building comprising 68 study bedrooms, shared kitchens, and meeting room, associated external works and tree and shrub planting together with alterations to South Court building (grade II listed) to widen pedestrian / wheelchair access.
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Planning app 14/0133/FUL: 72 student flats off Thompsons Lane
St Clements Gardens
Thompsons Lane
CB5 8AHErection of new student accommodation comprising 72 study bedrooms
together with ancillary kitchens, common rooms, porter's office, plant and store rooms, cycle parking (including 13 dedicated external spaces for Bishop Bateman Court) and associated external works following demolition of 1-8 St Clements Gardens. -
'Stop nuisance bikers' cutting through Petersfield bollards
Spotted at the walking/cycling junction cut-through between Hooper Street and Kingston Arms:
"Stop nuisance bikers"
Personally I don't think this is a huge issue, and it would be better to have a simpler bollard arrangement and just accept there will be some biker use.
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Mariner's Way underpass (Cutter Ferry path)
From: Old Chesterton Residents Association
Sent: 01/02/2014 15:19
To: ...
Subject: Consultation on 5th FebruaryIf you have views on the Mariners Way/Cutter Ferry Lane underpass, you have an opportunity to make them known at a consultation arranged at St Andrew's Hall on 5th February. Details are attached.
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Queuing traffic on Milton Road blocks cyclists
Traffic queuing on Milton Road between Cowley Park Road and the on-road cycle lane south west of Trinity Hall Farm Ind Est blocks cycles getting past.
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Francis Crick Avenue
At yesterday's BUG-WAG meeting, it was clear that Addenbrooke's themselves have heard dissatisfaction about this area. I said I'd forward comments from members, of which I remember many, but in no detail at all, just a lot of comments. However, doing a search for "Francis" or "Crick" pulls up no results, so either any thread on this is so obscurely labelled I can't find it, or all the traffic I remember seeing is on the members' email list which I don't have archives for.
I've been asked to send comments asap, as I get the feeling they want to lean on the developers to fix snags.
Either, can someone point me to the correct Cyclescape thread, or, assuming that doesn't exist, can people, if they can remember what they said (or think every day), can they repost here. I will collate comments anonymously into a file and send to Katharine Smith. The new LMB already had comments about how you are supposed to actually get a bike to the cycle parking from the road as that didn't seem to have been thought of!
I get the feeling this is needed fairly soon, hence the plea so early on a Saturday morning, so I can try to do a dossier tomorrow or Monday.
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S/0107/14/DC Building 430 Cambridge Science Park
Discharge of Conditions from outline application S/0179/13/OL regarding cycle parking for 4600 sq m building on Cambridge Science Park
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New Cambridge Assessment HQ, Shaftesbury Road
Proposed building will have 3000 employees, 250 car parkign spaces and 900 bike parking spaces
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14/0028/OUT up to 69 houses/apartments off Coldhams Lane And Hatherdene Close, Cambridge
Outline application for up to 69 residential dwellings including houses and apartments, open space, landscaping and new access. | Field At Corner Of Coldhams Lane And Hatherdene Close Cambridge Cambridgeshire
New junction onto Coldhams Lane proposed, which includes a central island, the gap on the westbound side is 3.1m, about the worst possible for cyclists.
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Dangers from roadsigns for drivers placed on pavements and cycleways
Please sign my change.org petition http://chn.ge/1epSzpK
Accident CC-23012014-0561 (Incident logged by the Cambridgeshire Police)
Leaving Zoology Department 18.15 walking east on Downing St, north side on 23 January, 2014. Car stopped in Downing st just west of Corn exchange road junction, obscuring the light. Lying on the road was a road sign warning cars of road works further left in Corn Exchange St, a needless warning. This 1 metre road sign had been placed on the pavement, occluding it seriously and had been, presumably, knocked over and left lying on the pavement with its black and invisible legs raised up about 10cm from the surface and its reflective surface tilted away (see picture). I tripped over the road sign in the dark and fell forwards injuring my face and forehead; the metal cut into my right leg. My glasses are destroyed, the leg of the sign tore my shoes.
I was taken to Addenbrookes and treated there. I left there ca 20.30 with head injuries and abrasions and now have an impressive black eye and surround.I am seeking redress. I am exploring legal action against the County Council whose idiotic health and safety rules (for drivers, not for the rest of us) say that drivers should be warned in advance of even highly visible roadworks (in a 20mph area) and the company responsible for placing such a flimsy and dangerous sign right in the middle of a narrow pavement. Also am anxious that in general people who leave road traffic signs occluding the pavement or creating dangerous obstacles there, should be held responsible and penalised. I see these road signs often as I walk around Cambridge, they should be on or above the road, not blocking the pavement in my opinion.
The next day the same road sign, with my blood still on it, was back in the middle of pavement waiting to be knocked over again and even now forcing pedestrians to avoid it by diverting on to the roadway. I attach a photo of it taken on Friday the day following my accident with a diverted pedestrian on the right.
It was again fallen on the ground waiting to kill someone on Saturday night, presumably following the afternoon storms.
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Monitoring Cambridge City & SCDC Planning Applications
An umbrella issue for discussion of general matters relating to reviewing planning applications in the city and south cambs.
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Tenison Road area traffic calming scheme
The County Council is planning to redesign Tenison Road.
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Bizarre change at Marque development on Cherry Hinton Road
This junction has a new cycle lane over a widened pavement. This looks like very substandard infrastructure, encouraging pavement cycling, that should never have been approved by the County Council.
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Faded paint and invisible signs on shared/dual use pavements
This is a general use issue so people can create specific threads about shared or dual use pavements where mainly the paint is so worn that they sometimes get abuse or are told off for riding where it's perfectly legal to do so.
I'm not a great fan of these facilities, and totally subscribe to their use being 100% optional, but there are places where they are useful for some or many, for example a short stretch to avoid having to turn right twice, or to be able to make a turn at traffic lights rather than in the middle of an unsignalled area.
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Possible effect on cycle route in Chesterton
Need to check this planning application for access issues. It proposes to make a new car entrance through a high wall across a pavement at the end of Chesterton Road.
The cycleway cut-through here is very poor currently.
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On-street Parking in Cambridge City
Issues surrounding the effect on-street car-parking has on road space, pinch points, car-dooring, interruption of cycle lanes etc.
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Newnham Croft junction
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Petition-to-improve-dangerous-Newnham-junction-signed-by-260-people-20131223060000.htm
I suggested a 'cycle scramble' phase ie a free-for-all for pedestrians and cyclists in all directions, as recently suggested for Trumpington Road/Brooklands Avenue. What do the experts think? -
Wests Garage, Newmarket Road, planning application
The erection of new student housing (257 study bedrooms) and associated communal facilities, cycle parking, and external landscaping following demolition of the existing buildings. Wests Garage Ltd 217 Newmarket Road Cambridge CB5 8HD
(see in particular Ground Floor Plan under Documents)
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Sawston crossing
I couldn’t tell from the Cyclescape map interface whether there is already a thread on the crossing at the northern junction to Sawston - but I see that it is now being rebuilt, and there seems to be a quite a sizeable central island. Did the inadequate plans get changed? (and why has there been no mention of this if so?)
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Corn Exchange Street contraflow to close for 2 months
Corn Exchange Street contraflow is to close temporarily.
Advanced notice of temporary cycle lane closure (aka Woodburn Way) has been published in the Cambridge News. Cars apparently able to proceed, which I find puzzling.
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Cyclist death on Milton Road
The Cambridge News sadly reports that a 16-year-old cyclist is dead after a crash on Milton Road.
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Building sites
I'm creating this as a general "issue" in the hope that people will put different threads here for problems they have with building sites, generally associated with deliveries. Listing those problems and any action or complaints they've taken personally, and also asking how further complaints can be made.
I can't help feeling we should be talking to the council about making it a condition of planning permission that deliveries that either require "odd" movements of HGVs eg, reversing and taking ages doing so, or parking on the street eg while delivering scaffolding, should not take place during "rush hour", especially on roads that are busy and are major cycle routes.
This map shows all issues, whether points, routes, or areas:
The most popular issues, based on the number of votes:
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Chisholm Trail
Proposed route along the rail corridor through Cambridge, part of which is in the Cambridge Local Plan.
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NCN route 11 and the Waterbeach Gap
I've visited Riverside to Waterbeach with William Rayner of county cycling team. He's revising signage here and providing it along the St Ives corridor, with the old NCN 51 being renamed Regional Route 24 (blue patch). We've decided finally to continue to sign NCN 11 from Riverside Bridge to Waterbeach Station, and he's looking at suitable (hopefully temporary) wording to advise to follow NCN 51 to Bottisham for destinations beyond Waterbeach, which will hopefully eliminate misrouting those from outside the area.
Our inspection of existing signs showed that only one new signboard was provided on completion 5 years ago of Riverside Bridge. Signboards still send people via Green Dragon. Sustrans considers signage is an important part of any route project.
The intention is to sign Milton Country Park as a destination, not as part of the route, removing route signs within the park, and probably retaining Coles Road as the signed route through the village, though it would be much preferable to have improvements past the shops and the village green, pubs etc.
Retaining the route to Waterbeach as NCN will help keep the gap in people's awareness.
I am planning to contact again the landowner of the missing link between Bottisham Lock and Fen Road, Lode with a suggestion for a low-level route, southeast side of the Bottisham Lode floodbank which is the route of the public footpath, where signs forbid cycling. It might be considered more visually acceptable. All parish councils are for the route, including the one of which he is a member.
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Safer Walking and Cycling between NW Cambridge and Girton
Our campaign for safer walking and cycling to/from NWCambridge now has a petition and a first video (of five) summarising our position.
See our new video summarising our petition:
https://youtu.be/hIlQAzsU0js?t=1sI’d be delighted if you could promote this to your networks. Time is of the essence because a Senate House discussion is coming up [3 Nov 2015], and I will report the number of signatures on our petition there. (But signatures after the date will still be useful.)
More information:
http://tinyurl.com/EddingtonSafetyThe petition:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/EddingtonSafetyAnyone is welcome to sign the petition; we ask people to use the Comment field to let us know if they are University Member / University employee / City resident / SouthCambs resident / etc.
For twitter purposes the recommended hashtag is #EddingtonSafety and there is an @EddingtonSafety account too.
Thanks very much
David
David J C MacKay FRS
djcm1@cam.ac.ukRegius Professor of Engineering,
Cambridge University Engineering DepartmentAuthor of “Sustainable Energy - without the hot air” www.withouthotair.com
and “Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms” www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/mackay/Girton resident and parent.
Cambridge Cycling Campaign Member -
Lack of cycle routes to Cambridge Business Park, Waterbeach
My employer is planning to relocate from central cambridge to the Cambridge Business Park (near Waterbeach). There is currently no decent cycle (or footpath!) access to this business park which avoids riding along the A10. I am a confident cyclist but I am not looking forward to riding to work along sections of the A10.
Are there any plans for cycle route construction which the campaign can, perhaps, help accelerate?
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Bar Hill to Cambridge Cycleway
There is a campaign for a cycle route between Bar Hill and Cambridge, also connecting Dry Drayton, Madingley and Coton to North-West Cambridge.
Currently cycle provision for these villages is poor. Bar Hill has lower rates of cycling than other villages that are closer to Cambridge.
The campaign site is: http://www.bhddmadcycle.com/
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Reach Fair Ride
The Reach Fair ride takes place on the early Bank Holiday Monday (May Day) in May.
The web page for it is:
http://www.camcycle.org.uk/events/rides/The planning overview is summarised:
http://www.camcycle.org.uk/events/rides/timeline.htmlI've created this issue to help plan this event.
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Replace Hooper Street gates with bollard
The permeability gate between Hooper Street and Kingston Street is obstructive as it only allows passage in one direction at a time.
Given the ever-increasing amount of cycling in areas like this, it's time to get this replaced with a simple bollard arrangement that would allow two-way passage whilst still enable the emergency services to unlock for access in an emergency.
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Dangerous to cross Milton Road diagonally at Toucan crossing
As the bridleway crosses Milton Road, it swaps sides of the busway, so most pedestrians and cyclists want to cross diagonally. However the toucan crossing only protects people crossing Milton Road. It doesn't stop busway traffic.
This is confusing and dangerous. When the road traffic stops at red lights, and the Toucan crossing turns green, it feels very safe to cross the busway. Yet buses can come from three directions (busway west, busway east, Milton Road south) at speeds of 30 mph.
Cyclists in particular are tempted to cross diagonally from north west to south east. Last week I saw a near accident.
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A14 very hostile for cycling
The A14 is a very hostile, dangerous road for cycling.
Improvements to it, as well as broader changes to the national framework for cyclist crossings of major roads, are needed.
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Parking policy review
The County appointed an officer back in June to review parking policy across the County, starting with the City.
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The 'Milton Road Effect'
Vehicles are continually abusing cyclists who use the road here because the bus lane on the other side forces the carriageway to be narrow.
Although there is the cycleway, it has the usual problems of loss of priority at sideroads, bins in the way, people going in and out of driveways, etc.
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Upgrading Milton Road to Dutch standards
Milton Road, like other main roads in the city, is a mix of typically bad bits of cycle infrastructure. There is considerable scope, possibly within the City Deal funding, to rework the whole streetscape to Dutch standards.
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Cottenham to Histon Cycleway
The Cottenham to Histon cycleway needs improvement.
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Improved cycling facilities on A603 in Barton
The current Barton to Cambridge off road cycle path starts at the White Horse in Barton. During term time Cambridge bound traffic is now backed up and slow moving throughout Barton along the A603. This leaves no clear safe route for cyclists. The road has white hatchings down the middle and would be wide enough for a proper on-road cycle lane to leave a safe passage past the queuing vehicles.
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Poor exit from West Cambridge site onto Clerk Maxwell Road
There's a very poor dogleg right-angle with barriers at the entrance/exit from the West Cambridge site to Clerk Maxwell Road.
This should be turned into a wide splay with good visibility.
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State of Waterbeach-Lode link
Has there been any improvement in the "new" NCN 11 route from Waterbeach to Lode since last summer? Last time I went that way I had to wheel the bike across fields and carry it over two or three stiles.
Any information, including a forecast date when a proper route is likely to be built, welcome. Thanks.
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Emmanuel College 12/0029/FUL
Starting a thread about this application here so we can continue on from the previous planning list discussion.
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Northstowe Planning Application
Major planning application here - c. 10,000 homes
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Railway Route between Cambridge and Cherry Hinton
The railway line from Cambridge to Newmarket turns out across Coldham's Common and right through the middle of Cherry Hinton, and then carries on passing to the north of Fulbourn.
There are currently (2013) two main routes from the east of Cambridge to Cherry Hinton - the Tins and Snakey Path. However both have long very narrow sections involving pedestrian conflict.
The railway line is single track - but satellite images show the bridges crossing Barnwell Road and Coldham's Lane were both built for dual track. So this means there should easily be enough room to accommodate a cycleway alongside the railway.
This route could then connect up with the Chisholm Trail and provide a direct fast cycle route to and from the city and the Science Park area.
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Landbeach to Cambridge Cycleway
The Landbeach Parish Council would like the bridgeway from Landbeach to Cambridge to be upgraded to a cycleway.
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Should Cambridge 'Go Dutch' (or Danish)
London Cycling Campaign has reorientated its policy towards a 'Go Dutch' approach.
This aims to learn from best practice abroad rather than continuing with the 'hierarchy of provision' that, in 20 years in the UK, has arguably failed to deliver meaningful change.
This is an overarching issue for conceptual discussion of this issue.
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Girton Interchange "Improvements"
At the moment it is possible to cycle from Cambridge Road, near Madingley, to Girton, on a bridleway that crosses over the A428 and then passes under the M11 at the Girton Interchange. You can then cross three roads (A1307) and reach a pavement on the North-East side of the Interchange. Using the pavement you can then reach Washpit Lane and cycle up towards Girton. (The pavement is marked as a shared-use route on the OSM Cycle map, although I am not sure that it really is.)
Apart from having to be careful when crossing the A1307 junction it is a rather pleasant route to ride.
The Girton Interchange is being "improved" to reduce the bottleneck for cars. Does anyone know what plans there are to ensure that the current route through remains open and whether there are plans to improve the bridleway route through? Or will this be another example of roads being developed to the detriment of footpaths/bridleways.
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Proper cycle provision on Cherry Hinton Road needed
Cherry Hinton Road is currently mainly typical 'blue sign on a pavement' provision, despite having the edge-to-edge width in places for proper cycle provision. A longer-term objective should be to upgrade this.
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Evil posts on busway cycleway
There are some evil short grey posts on the busway cycleway that are really hard to see in the dark. I have heard of a number of people hitting them with disastrous consequences
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Cambridge Cycling Campaign's "Project Orange"
Project Orange is an attempt develop our general strategy during the year 2013.
It involves
1) Should Cambridge Go Dutch (or Copenhagenize)
2) A more assertive stance in our interactions with agencies: Demanding of them to make feasible what seems infeasible
3) focus on a regional area 10 miles (15 km) around Cambridge and a dartboard network structure to connect villages,
4) the development of a Bicycle Infrastructure Assessment Tool (BIAC) which will allow us to grade and praise provision
5) Priority over sideroads as part of a Dutch-style approach
5) Development of Visualisation Tools for major projects (Chisholm Trail, Newnham to Newmarket Rd, Mitcham's Corner)