May 07 Report
From Pedalpushers
Around the City From Simon Geller, CTC Right to Ride Rep for Sheffield.
With the work around Sheaf Square and the station area more or less complete, the all-seeing eye of your Right to Ride Campaigner has passed north to look at the Wicker and Riverside area. The Council has announced £100m for this area and what a mess it all is at the moment - traffic everywhere, buses stuck in it, cyclists trying to get through it all (mostly on the pavement)
Hopefully all this will change. The traffic will be funnelled onto the NIRR and the Upper Don Trail will certainly connect with the Five Weirs Walk and the Canal Basin, so that will provide the missing links to the National Cycle Network in Sheffield, and there will be the links to the City Centre via Pond St & Snig Hill. Nursery St will be much reduced and become a Pocket Park which will also serve as a natural flood prevention measure, absorbing water rather than channelling it further downstream to become a problem later.
The former very poor part of the Five Weirs Walk, between Blonk St and the Cobweb Bridge, has already been obliterated and will be paved lit and overlooked by offices, which should put the junkies (or drug users as the politically correct would have us call them) and other wrong-doers off. Along with the recently opened Phase 6b, we have a good quality cycle route to Meadowhall for those who find the main roads intimidating and for whom time is not the main issue. The only proposal I didn't like was for a multi-storey car park feeding off the Ring Road. This will just encourage people to drive there rather than use public transport, walk and cycle and will do nothing for the local air quality, although I suppose it will be somewhere for DA members to park their cars before going for a ride.
From here, you will soon be able to turn the corner into the Riverside area, where the path along the river is now open as far as Corporation St. Bits of the Northern Inner Relief Road continue to be opened and so far I’ve been reasonably impressed with the cycle lanes, although I’m not too happy with the crossing of the tram tracks on Netherthorpe Rd – take care here! We’ve recently had a member of the DA injured after a fall on West St, and don’t want any more. The issue of safety on the tram tracks is another issue we are continuing to vigorously pursue, with the help of Pedal Pushers members, Barry and others.
Continuing out along Penistone Rd you will see a new cycleway has sprouted as far as Neepsend Lane, and will eventually stretch to Oughtibridge although the current work is intended to take it to Livesey St and the Sheffield college site. Again this is really good quality stuff - the only problem at the moment is the major road crossings but these should eventually be solved by new toucans. Those who consider that off-road paths slow you down might like to count the number of traffic lights you avoid by using this path, along with the number of near-misses by inattentive and arrogant drivers. It’s certainly a more pleasant way to get out towards Butties and the delights of North Derbyshire.
Work has also started on Granville Square. The idea here is that as the last remaining through route for motor traffic in the city centre – Eyre St & Arundel Gate - is to be closed to through traffic - the Inner Ring Road will need to be widened to take the additional traffic using this route. So an extra lane is to be added between Granville Square and Shoreham St. Along with this will be a cycle track that will extend from the existing ring route at Eyre St to Granville Square and connect with the Sheaf Valley Walk, the first section of which is open, as well as routes to the station and further north. So this is another major piece of the jigsaw filled in. The need for this kind of off-road provision is based on the DfT hierarchy, which stipulates that road traffic reduction and slower speeds have to be considered before off-road provision. In the case of a major road like the Ring Road however, off-road provision has to be the way to go - it’s the price we pay for cycle-friendly streets elsewhere.
Nationally, the CTC continues to campaign for the right to choose your route and is resisting the proposed changes to the Highway Code which appear to reinforce the suggestion that cyclists should use cycle facilities “where available” rather than “where practicable”. We are also active at the moment in pressing for better facilities for bikes on trains, via the upcoming White Paper on the railways. For more details visit http://www.ctc.org.uk/campaigns
I got to the CTC/CCN conference in Derby last weekend, which I thoroughly enjoyed, as well as cycling there and back. Derby is a Cycling Demonstration Town and is concentrating on training the cycling kids of tomorrow. A conference report will appear somewhere, once I’ve written it.
Don’t forget my Ride to the Tour De France in July and our joint ride to Teversal in September!
Simon Geller 21 May 2007 ctc.rtr.sheffield at blueyonder.co.uk
