Happy New Year, You might be aware I’ve been chairing the BH Active Travel Forum (previously Bournemouth Cycling Forum) for coming up 2 years now. In 2020 colleagues and I are going to make more of the opportunities this public forum has for promoting sensible transport in the BH Postcode area. In March BCP Council whom I work closely with will be recieving some major funds from the DFT for whats called Transforming Cities Funding (TCF). There will never have been such funds awarded to a Council before for the sole objective of improving transport- awarded by London GVT that have been seeing the benefits of promoting Active Travel and Cycling for a couple of years now.
Todays New Year Post is to say what our first consultation found, and to place ourselves at the forefront of the upcoming developments, this is not a combative post- search for those elsewhere, the forum business is educative. As you may know I have a lifetime of Bike commuting experience, and even I found the results of this consultation interesting. Read on.
BH Active Travel Consultation 1, Began 09 December- Ended 23 December.
Who was asked? •125 Emails to individuals who have either been once, or are regular attendees / •Also shared with BUG Bicycle User Group of Bournemouth University Staff/ •Also shared with Christchurch Cycle groups via Council Officer
What where they asked? “Your Preferences- Given the upcoming TCF funding awards, experience of other U.K areas and existing tracks in BCP area state your preference of best cycleway design. State what would be your preferred type of intervention for On-Road with figure 1= (best) descending to least useful with 7 =(worst) And also 1-2 for Off-road designs” See the picture below for the 7 On road examples and 2 Off road examples last, this was provided by BCP Engineers. There were 2 types of route, Light Segregated Cycle Lane and Segregated Cycle Lane that arent to be found anywhere in BCP, for this reason I added the photos shown below. •Randomised so correspondents have to select their own preferences, they were listed G,E,F,B,C,D,A, ( H, I) requiring study to understand.
How many responded? •39 complete replies / •4 incomplete replies / •3 couldnt understand. Written submissions also copied for submission. This is from an email contacts list of people who have either been to the forum once or are regular attendees.
Results and Data Summary
What does it tell us? If youve got this far down many will have already worked out what the responses mean. I was amazed, the attendees of the forum are keen regular cyclists many of whom have been riding on road for 30 years plus like me. Overwhelmingly 37/44 people said that segregated cycle lanes (I much prefer the word protected to be honest) are what they see as the best design for the future. With flow Stepped Cycle lanes like the type we have on Castle Lane West were joint second with same Bi-Directional type and Light Segregation (wands or similar) third. Then after shared use tracks and finally paint lines. For the off-road question- with separation was higher preference than non separation. These results will provide the basis for a meeting I will have with BCP Engineers and Transport Dept Officers before March.
What Else? This shows that the feeling even amongst road users that also want Active Travel and Cycling as normal feel the only way to get modal shift is by building protected routes.
Here below is some more evidence of the type I will be presenting to BCP, designs for Urban Streets along the lines of what is proposed for the Lansdowne area- Cycleways as a core element of re-design, never as guests in pedestrian areas.
The last one of those pictures puts the age old argument about how to separate cycle/footways to rest, probably the best example I have ever seen of what thousands of miles of commuting routes could be like. Lots more evidence on my website here, Facebook and Upcoming bhactivetravel.uk Website. Next Forum meeting is 03 March, Annual Election of Chairman / Secretary. Thanks to all my twitter followers and picture providers.