Agenda and minutes

·       Jesus Green Lock (signage). CR has made suggestions to Gareth Guest at the County Council but Gareth was unlikely to put more up.

·       Newnham Bridge (‘Cyclists Dismount’ sign). Gareth Guest has confirmed he’d be happy to follow up on discussions between Cllr Cantrill and Cllr Reiner.

·       Green Dragon Bridge. All current signage is to remain. The bridge has now re-opened. The County Council will now begin work on the approaches to the bridge as the bridge maintenance was a separate County-funded project.

·       ‘Overstream Clean’ – Wintercomfort. One bicycle has been purchased with the funding so far provided. Further funding will be made available.

·       Bike Bus

·       Bike Bus Explorer. This pilot scheme is being led by South Cambridgeshire District Council in partnership with other organisations including the County Council and the National Trust. The scheme is intended to provide access to the countryside and various visitor attractions along the Cambridge-Gamblingay corridor on Sundays and Bank Holidays to cyclists, particularly families who may wish to avoid cycling on difficult or unpleasant stretches of road. Service users would board a bus with bikes trailered behind. The funding being applied for (£4,338.00) would provide a cycle map indicating circular routes at various points. The service would operate for 57 days during the first year.

Conclusion.

Although the Steering Group would have welcomed an application which showed more of a business case for the bus service, it concluded that this was not a proposal of sufficiently high priority. Moreover, as many local bus services have already been cut to make savings, the Group expressed some doubt as to the appropriateness of the scheme as a whole.

APPLICATION REFUSED.

·       YHA Cambridge – cycle parking and facilities. The proposal seeks £4,980.00 for cycle lockers, a visitor parking bar, and external tap and hose, a work stand, pump and toolkit as the budget for the current redevelopment of the building has been exceeded. (Cllr Rosenstiel declared an interest as a YHA member.)

Conclusion.

The Group felt strongly that the provision of more extensive and robust external cycle parking should be explored as the proposed bar would have cycles locked awkwardly against it. (The YHA are advised to look to the nearby CAB building as an example of high quality parking provision.)

The Group were also not convinced by the need for the external tap and brushes as these would be more appropriate to rural areas where the use of mountain bikes would be more common.

Based on additional information requested, the Group would confirm its final decision via email. YHA Cambridge are strongly advised to place a greater emphasis on publically accessible cycle parking, even if this would result in the loss of the proposed external seating area.

These are both County Council projects with a total of £150,000 allocated for the Fen Road scheme.

·       Fen Road. Proposals were presented at a recent Steering Group. The intention is to calm the traffic along Fen Road and provide a safer route through the Water Street/Water Lane/Fallowfield junction. All private access points will be maintained. The proposals are currently at an early stage with the views of stakeholders and the wider community to be sought during the public consultation in early summer. Not all options being discussed are deliverable within the budget.

·       Tenison Road. City Council officers are involved in the streetscape design for this £500,000 budget scheme. The Section 106 for CB1 requires some traffic calming measures for Tenison Road although is unspecific. According to AP, the project steering group is currently working to narrow down the number of potential areas to be re-designed, with recent discussions having had a focus on cycling.  Local residents have expressed objections against any raised surfaces or narrowing however. Junction improvements are also being examined. Cllr Rosenstiel highlighted the Tenison Road/Devonshire Road junction as an area of major conflict. The Mill Road/Devonshire Road junction is also a particularly high-risk area, where accidents involving cyclists are likely to go frequently unreported according to AP.

Tenison Road has been the subject of a recent article in the Cycling Campaign newsletter according to SN, which highlights the County Council’s withdrawal from truly innovative proposals. The Lyndewode Road/Devonshire Road link is seen as an important link by the Cycling Campaign and in their view should not be adversely affected by improvements elsewhere. AP confirmed the City’s streetscape designers were returning to shared surface principles. The next steps according to AP will involve the County Council taking forward a certain set of options and a consensus being sought from local residents etc.

·       Histon Road proposals. This is no longer included within the Better Bus Fund. County Councillors have requested that officers carry out further work and so progress has been stalled for the time being.

·       Gilbert Road/Milton Road scheme. The proposal seeks to remove two turning lanes and replace them with cycle lanes in order to improve the on-road experience for cyclists. It is hoped cyclists will be less likely to cycle on the footway as a result. The proposals will be funded from the DFT Cycle Safety Fund. (SN reported that in recent Cycling Campaign statistics, 28% of cyclists were calculated as using the footway.)

·       Cycle Ambition Grant Fund consultation. Responses were similar for both schemes with 845 responses received for Hills Road and 828 for Huntingdon Road with 79.4% of respondents seeing a need for improvements on Hills Road and 74.5% on Huntingdon Road.  Full segregation (Option 1) was seen as the most popular option for both schemes, with a raised cycle lane (Option 2) the next most favoured option for Hills Road and a combination of the two (Otion 3) the next most favoured option for Huntingdon Road.

·       Officers, in liaison with a stakeholder group are looking at a combination of kerb segregation and raised cycleway (Option 2) for Huntingdon Road due to segregation for the entire length of the road likely to cause both aesthetic and practical problems at private access points. And raised cycleway for Hills Road where the number of private accesses is an issue and segregation may cause problems for ambulances..

·       The majority of responses received were in favour of the ‘floating’ bus stop design although disability groups have expressed their concerns. Officers were looking at amending the design to give pedestrians more priority and working with disability groups to make the bus stops as user friendly as possible. CR added that no trees will be removed as part of the proposals. A report will be going to Committee in May.

·       Trumpington Road. There are no firm plans yet although options are being explored e.g. the removal of parking on the Botanic Gardens side and moving the Bateman Street crossing further south and the bus stop further north. Segregation options are being considered for the Bateman Street end and Chaucer Road junction improvements should also be included. These will go before Committee in July.

·       Jesus Green (drainage improvements). Works will begin after the beer festival.

·       Green Dragon Bridge. Designs are being looked at currently.

·       Perne Road/Radegund Road. Works should start in May.

·       Cycle parking. Various sites are underway e.g. on the Peas Hill side of the Guildhall. Other sites are due for completion within the next 3-5 weeks. The layby on St Andrews Street is being extended to provide additional racks that are in particularly high demand.

·       Lion Yard toilet refurbishment. This is currently delaying the new cycle racks intended for Guildhall Street.

This issue was raised by the County Rights of Way team following the Jesus Green improvements.  Currently the City Council gives permissive rights to cyclists on City owned path many of which are public footpaths but their legal status with regards maintenance and accident claims is rather a grey area which the RoW team would like to make clarify.  These paths will have acquired cycle rights through usage over more than 20 years and so consultation on whether or not the paths should be cycleways is not felt to be helpful. The RoW team are therefore proposing that the paths are designated as cycle tracks under section 24 of the Highways Act which can be undertaken as and when paths are upgraded or when time and funding allows. 

The County Council’s programme of works dedicates £306,000 for Midsummer Common improvements and there may be additional funding from S106 monies from the East Area Corridor Transport Plan. CR met with the Friends of Midsummer Common who were concerned at the conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians which they felt were increasing and asked that signage was considered for the entrances into the Common asking cyclists to cycle considerately and that the visibility issues be looked at.  CR added that the camber of paths and inadequate width was a problem, particularly for the well-used path running diagonally from the Cutter Ferry bridge to the Fair Street crossing.  CR was organising a meeting with County and City officers to prioritise work on the paths and look at opportunities for improvements.

·       2-way cycling. The consultation period is about to close and so far the main objections have been received for 2-way cycling on Albert Street and Panton Street. There may also be issues raised by the Safety Audit which has not yet been completed.  Under new legislation in 2015, TROs won’t be required. SN stressed that Panton Street was a key route for cyclists and that proposals were welcomed by the Cycling Campaign as the group are in favour of all one-way streets being converted to 2-way cycling.

·       Park Street Cycle Park. This needs cleaning according to SN. CR confirmed she had forwarded this request and plans were in place for this.