Cambridge Unsustainable Travel Zone is Back

 I wish I didn't have to come back to this. Oh, well.

Cambridge's Sustainable Travel Zone, the STZ, turned out to be hugely unpopular. This is unsurprising - if you tell motorists "we're going to make this better for everyone but you'll have to pay..." then they'll get angry. And they'll stay angry. It doesn't matter what the good stuff is, of course. You could be offering free public transport with busses running to high speed rapid transit that transports everyone to their destination as fast as the car, paid for by stubborn motorists who refuse to use it, and the car lobby would insist on being just that stubborn and paying more to travel less efficiently. There's no compromising with the car lobby, they're not interested, their only moral compass is personal freedom to drive as far and as fast as they like at any environmental cost and fuck everyone else.

So in response to criticism someone at Greater Cambridge went out and got kicked in the head by the horse and decided to offer a compromise and charge motorists slightly less often, with some free days, and then not have anything like enough money to pay for the bus service that was the only thing they had on offer. They also had to dump two thirds of the funding for non-bus improvements despite those commitments having been nebulous and non-committal at best. Or in other words "get the bus peasants, but not as many as we were suggesting, or as frequent, or ride a bike but we aren't actually raising the money we need to build cycle facilities that you'd be happy to ride on, not that we were promising to build those anyway, suckers!"

Other than the democratic deficit inherent in the Greater Cambridge Partnership and the near inevitability that the web toed fenland Tories would win the County back sooner or later and cut the funding to buses as fast as they can say "I do" when marrying their cousins, I raised two concerns with the scheme. The first was that it isn't Tory proof, and that "please get the bus, please!" doesn't fix our urgent need to start building a modern rapid transit system. The other was that the scheme didn't give me any confidence in their commitment to high quality cycle infrastructure. Neither concern has been addressed.

So this compromise proposal, has it any chance of getting through?

No. It's dead. It's just a matter of whether the LibDems or the Labour Party at the County and District councils dump it first and blame the other lot.

You can't compromise with the car lobby, anything shy of utterly unrestrained car access leading to deadly pollution and endless congestion and they'll keep pushing back and refuse. And they have plenty of petrol drinking morons and conspiracy theorists in the media who'll back them up. And more than a few in local politics. Has Greater Cambridge thrown any bones to anyone who opposed this scheme on any other grounds? Nope. Only the petrol heads. Who can never be won over.

There are answers here, good ones, and viable solutions. But because of over a decade of inactivity and squandering vast sums on endless nonsense, Greater Cambridge can't afford them and the Mayoral authority opposes them becuase they can't bring themselves to back any of the half hearted schemes our former Tory mayor never really believed in anyway (remember, he had years in post and listed free parking in Ely as one of his top accomplishments - this is not a man to sort public transport out). I like you Mayor Nick, you're a good bloke, but I believe your opposition to rapid transit scheme and reliance on the bus as an answer is ideological and stupid.

I think the STZ is dead, which is a shame because we urgently need to address transport chaos in a fast growing city. But with any luck it'll take Greater Cambridge with it. And if that's true, good riddance. 

Edit: Looks like I called that just right... 

Mill Road. Why ought I even care?

Mill Road in Cambridge is shit, basically. Which is a shame, it could be fantastic. It used to be fantastic. But these days it is just shit.

As a destination it should be a vibrant, exciting, diverse place where people visit, shop, can spend time on the street, and enjoy the cultural and culinary influences of dozens of nationalities and ethnicities represented there. What it is instead is a car sick urban canyon, narrow, noisy, chokingly polluted, and too dangerous to walk or ride on. It's one of the cycling accidents hot-spots in this City. It's the street with most road traffic accidents in the whole county. Or in other words you might want to go shopping there for some fab Korean ingredients, and then sit out in front of a café before popping in to the Chinese supermarket to get a big bottle of soy sauce and a sack of rice from Al-Amin, and maybe a dozen different ingredients in the deli and at the greengrocers. But the reality is very different. You ride your bike there looking for somewhere to lock up, but before you've got to the bridge four drivers have sounded their horns or revved their engines hard from behind, you've faced three dangerous overtakes and a guy driving straight at you has assumed you'll just fucking float over him or something. You get off and try to lock up but you can't because cars are illegally blocking the pavement stopping you getting to the bike locks. But you soldier on, eventually getting something from the first shop you go in to but after breathing diesel smog you're not in the mood for a coffee, let alone a cake, the thought of food with the pounding noise and aggression from drivers there makes you feel physically too sick to eat. You pop in to another shop, get the minimum absolutely need, and leave.

That's because, as stated, Mill Road as it is now is fucking horrible. 

And the kicker is, nobody drives between shops there. There's a car park at Parkside, another at Gwydir Street but nobody can possibly drive between the shops. The traffic that destroys Mill Road isn't bringing money to the local traders, it's taking money through Mill Road to the City Centre. Traffic on Mill Road exists at the expense of traders there. 

So why haven't we done something about it? We did. And it was magnificent, after a temporary closure while the bridge had maintenance work, and the world didn't suddenly end, we then had a modal filter on the same bridge and you could breathe there again, it was safer on the road, but the shops and cafe's had a bustle like they'd not had in years. And then a bunch of web toed fenland Tory councillors supported by a single Labour councillor who has a history of raining derision down on cyclists voted to reopen it. There had been a consultation, the modal filter was overwhelmingly positively received, and it was working, but car-centric ideologues supported by a sole Labour councillor overrode this. And the place went to shit again. 

So we had another consultation. And it was overwhelmingly pro-modal filter again.

And now we're having another fucking consultation. But this one is apparently the legal one. So why the fuck didn't they do this first time? 

But here's the killer. Mill Road Traders don't want this. They never have. Mill Road Traders Association oppose this, and always have. Because the safety and convenience of cyclists and pedestrians in not important to them in any way, relative to the angry discomfort of motorists driving straight through and not stopping to shop there. Apparently on the whole they favour motorists passing them over cyclists and pedestrians stopping to shop. I've no idea why, nor do I care, but I do know that I take that as a massive "Get fucked, cyclist" from the collected ranks of shopkeepers there. 

In strict confidence I've been given an extraordinarily short list of traders who don't dare speak up against this tidal wave of petrol headed wankiness, but who don't support this. And to be honest they can get fucked too, if you're not willing to speak up for the safety of your own customers then you don't deserve that custom.

Mill Road was one of the first places I went and explored way back in 1999 when I moved to Cambridge. It was always a fun and exciting place to find good ingredients, with engaging and entertaining people and places there. But over the years I've shopped there less and less as the place became ever more dangerous, until first the bridge maintenance and then the modal filter tamed that space and made it possible to go there again. But the opposition from traders to that essential measure to make the space safe is amounts to as statement that they reject making a space accessible and safe for people. I approve of the modal filter but even after that Mell Road can fuck itself for all I care. 

What do I need to make me shop there again? Reinstatement of the modal filter with unambiguous public support from traders. And those traders I'll big up, I'll recommend, and I will shop there. Other than that? Mill Road is dead. The motoring lobby and idiot councillors killed it.

Cambridge Unsustainable Travel Zone.

Well, it seems I have to do some blog necromancy. Oh, well. About time I suppose.

Because we can't have anything nice, instead we have Greater Cambridge. What is that? Well, you know all the stuff about directly elected councillors doing stuff they're voted to do? Not that. It's rubbish, in fact, it's a quasi-democratic nonsense made up of councillors chosen from goodness knows how many of the four dead-wood strata of local government we have here, the directly elected mayors office and massive companies and representatives of the University that are there for the good of everyone and who are definitely not pushing their own agendas. Honestly, if more than eleven people in the whole county understand how this fundamentally fucked concept is meant to operate then I'm a Dutchman. They've been around since 2014/2015 and basically accomplished nothing other than revamp some roads that were due for it anyway and put some cycle lanes in that the County should have been working on. I would be unsurprised if they've spent more money on consultations than actual tarmac. 

Anyhoo, they've decided to give us a Sustainable Travel Zone and there's a consultation. Doesn't that sound exciting? I mean who wouldn't support a Sustainable Travel Zone? Who isn't in favour of Sustainable Travel? You're dubious? WHAT KIND OF MONSTER DOESN'T LIKE SUSTAINABILITY?

The plan - what is it? 

Well, let me paraphrase.

Just shut the fuck up and get the bus, peasants. Yeah, we'll say we're going to put more bike routes in but we're not going to tell anyone where they are or how good they'll be, those hippies will fall for this shit because we said "sustainable" so we don't have to do anything for them really. Oh, we'll not pay for it out of the £1 billion initial budget that Greater Cambridge said it would have over the years its due to run, that would be crazy when we could have a congestion charge. Say £5 a day for anyone to drive in or out? And then if we put a cap on bus fares of, oh, I dunno, £4 a day, that's less than £5 right? So that'll put SOME people off driving but not many, and that'll give us enough wonga to bung to the bus companies, yeah?

Seriously?

Yes. That's it. They've had a decade to come up with a good plan but the previous Tory mayor seemed to believe in magic fairy dust schemes and did nothing of worth, before that the County built the hilariously still awful Guided Bus Route, delivered cataclysmically over cost and which is still basically fucked. The roots of that plan go back as far as 1994, when the County bought the old railway line and did sweet Fanny Addams with it for years until they botched together a scheme to run a bus through a giant gutter more slowly than it could run on the parallel A14 and, amazingly, even slower than steam trains used the same route when Queen Victoria was on the throne. A scheme so mind numbingly stupid that it connects the areas of heavy road congestion together by bypassing the flat, straight, rapid road that also got an upgrade at a greater cost than the initially projected entire planned lifespan of Greater Cambridge. 

Oh, and if they don't get this going and get the money spent (crumbs from the table relative to what the Highways Agency has shovelled into a road that's already becoming unfit for purpose as congestion increases) then the government will probably take the cash back so they can embezzle it and give it to their mates. 

So is it really that bad?

Yes, it really is. There is no modern mass transit system on offer, there's a trivially lower bus fare than congestion charge. Oh, yeah, and the money they've got will be spent paying bus subsidies in the short term, then the congestion charge comes in after the next couple of rounds of local elections, and then everyone will for reasons unknown get the bus rather than drive and that's it. There are some changes to road utilisation in the City that might give some better space for cycling, but if you tell me you believe for sure that'll happen and councillors won't kick those back into long grass to avoid upsetting the blue rinsed pro car brigade then I suggest that someone responsible needs to take your scissors away.

Wait... The charge comes in after more local elections?

Oh, yes. And yes, you're right, the Tories are usually in charge of Cambridgeshire County Council, and this scheme would need to get them on-side after that election if they do take control again. It just so happens that last time they were in charge of the County they were so rubbish that an uneasy coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Independent councillors united only by not being Tory currently runs the County. But for that to continue on would be astonishing, especially when the Tories lose the next general election as they seem intent on doing. Last time the Tories lost sole control of the County, it was UKIP did the damage. This isn't a county with a progressive alliance waiting to hold the reins long term, sadly.

But there's a Labour mayor?

Aye, but probably not for long. Honestly, I like Nik, he seems ok to me, and I hope his well publicised recent health issues work out and he makes a full, spectacular recovery. And he's better than the last mayor. But without the County, even if we don't get a Tory mayor next time (and we likely will) this scheme is still in danger. 

So what happens when the Tories take over

That's the elephant in the room that nobody will address. We already know they're sceptical. Go look at Steve Counts twitter feed, it's full of this stuff and it varies from conspiracy theory level nonsense to just plain rejection of the scheme. There's an evens chance he's back in the County Council cabinet within 5 years, and that's before a penny of the congestion charge is ever collected. We know the Tories have previously cut subsidy to rural buses. We know they'll do it again. Their whole transport policy has always centred around securing car access for happily married web toed fenland cousins to careen into Cambridge as fast as they can. Remember, the last Mayors big plan was to dual the A10. at massive cost - that'll come back as a scheme, most likely, when the next Tory takes over.

Bluntly, if they don't support this, why won't they do that again? Why is it you think this scheme is Tory proof? And if it isn't, how does it ever deliver?

What's the alternative?

I reject the notion that I need to come up with an alternative to a scheme that's rather likely to fail all on its own. But as you've asked...

1. Commit to gold standard cycle infrastructure on or parallel to all routes in and out of Cambridge.
2. A continuous cycle route from Cambridge to Ely, incorporating access to settlements en route e.g. the new Waterbeach development.
3. A continuous cycle route to Newmarket, it's really not far, likewise incorporating access to settlements en route.
4. Start building a rapid transit scheme. When built, light rail is cheaper to operate than buses, and once spending is sunk into it, it's much harder for a future council to cut it. It's also something that people actually might want to use. Lets face it, you use a bus when you must, you never do it because you enjoy getting the bus.
5. Make some changes to the congestion charge zone scheme. Talk about discounts for those driving out rather than in, or make it a timed thing (if you're driving for 10 minutes to drop someone at the hospital, should that really be the same cost as someone driving into the city and around all day?).
6. Commit to profits from the congestion charge being spent on sustainable infrastructure, both rapid transit and active transport. Shall we say, for the first 20 years, 70% to a rapid transit system, 30% to active transport?

Look, it's this simple. The scheme as presented now has little chance of surviving. In the name of all that is holy, go back to the drawing board and get it right this time. 

'Weaving in and out of traffic'

Is there a phrase or term in psychology or sociology for a phenomenon whereby the mechanism by which a minority copes with a hostile environment created by a majority is as a result demonised?

I ask because I can't think of a better way of describing how people get so very angry about us 'weaving in and out' of traffic.

I mean its a constant complaint. You see it literally all of the time. And its a senseless, stupid thing to say. 

I'm addressing this mostly at you, motons. Here's the problem - there's traffic and it isn't going anywhere. Its probably not going anywhere at all, although its just possible that it just isn't going anywhere fast. And while I have a certain amount of sympathy for you stuck in the ceaseless, smoke belching, global warming creating traffic prisons of your own devising, I don't care enough for your problems suffer the same fate. I mean, yeah, I get it, you don't want to be there. I don't want you to be there either, what you're doing is delusional and irresponsible and you should be fucking ashamed. But I don't immediately get why that should be my problem.

So I'll go around the right of your car. If there isn't room on that side, I'll go around the left of your car. I mean I'd rather you all just got together and choose which side to leave us space on, but you stubbornly won't do that so I've sometimes got to go around on the right and then switch to the left. I should once again point out I can only do this when you're not (or at most barely) moving. Otherwise I can't do it, but then again if you're actually moving I don't need to. 

And yet, despite the fact that you, the motorists, created the problem, I mean you created the only problem here, the one you're suffering from, you're angry with me? I ask you, fairly and honestly, just whats fucking wrong with you?

There seems to be a set of unwritten rules among motorists that you're somehow all in it together and its the same for everyone. But for some reason you think it applies to those of us who aren't contributing to the problem? Why? Why is it you require, for your own happiness, that you drag us down into the same shit you're suffering with?

Is this just some fundamental principle of out-group psychology? I mean I can see parallels in how the coping strategies of other groups just looking to get by when people are giving them a hard time. Although here I think it might be different in that we aren't just surviving motons shit, we're doing better than them because they can't get their shit together. Because they've created a road environment that fucks everyone, but mostly themselves, and we're able to get through it, are they primarily angry out of sheer jealousy?

The truth is, I think, that they're angry and we're visible. We're a minority seen to be transgressing the rule that we've all got to be miserable as fuck and wasting time, money and resources polluting the planet and not getting anywhere.

In truth all motorists need to do in the situation where we're 'weaving in and out between traffic' is go and fuck themselves. Bluntly. They made the roads this way, all we're doing is making the world a bit better. 

Jumping Red Lights - when and why I do it

One of the constant bellyaches from cyclist haters and idiot victim blamers is red light jumping. The idea that in some strange way a Moron sees another cyclist who isn't you jumping a red light and that's why they give you a hard time when they see you afterwards. Its nonsense, as anyone who has read any psychology at all will be able to explain.

But at the core of this is the idea that we must not ever jump red lights. only an idiot would say that we should ignore traffic signals. But to maintain that we must never jump a red light goes beyond idiocy and into suicidal stupidity. From a cosy, closeted view that never sees the world without windscreen wipers and a rear view mirror in the way its easy to pretend this is an absolute principle but don't be fooled, it isn't. At some stage when out on a bicycle you too will jump a red light for a valid and fair reason. The road network is so given over to dangerous motorists that by obeying the rules we can be put into extreme danger if we don't.

I don't intend to produce an exhaustive list of reasons, I'm only listing those that come to mind for why I sometimes have to go through a red light. Feel free to add as many more reasons as you like in the comments. But I am going to go through the times and reasons I sometimes go through red lights. tl;dr version: because I don't want to die.

...because a driver behind is going to kill me if I don't

This is one of the most common reasons, and it will be familiar to many of you. You're heading down the road at a fairly decent lick, probably covering your brakes because there's a light ahead of you and it could change. It goes amber with plenty of time for you to stop at the red light. But there's a car accelerating behind you, and from the sound of it you know the driver isn't planning to stop. 

You've got two choices. Stop and hope the driver behind won't kill you, or keep going and know that he's not going to kill you. Go through the red light and survive or hit the brakes and, with any luck, the driver behind is aware enough to stop. 

I've lost track of the number of times I've run a red light this way. It must be dozens, if not hundreds of times. And on every single occasion the car behind followed through on red - I've never mistakenly gone through a red light to avoid being run over and for the car driver behind to demonstrate that no, he wasn't willing going to kill me.

I'm not going to die under someone's car wheels just to stubbornly be right about obeying the law.

...because its understood by motorists that I should

There are some junctions here where if I don't go through a red light and cross the road on my bike on the pedestrian phase, drivers waiting behind become positively hostile. The best local example is the junction of Arbury Road, Union Lane and Milton Road, a four way intersection with lights for all ways on and a pedestrian phase. And almost every cyclist held up at the lights goes on the pedestrian phase, if the lights haven't favoured them sooner.

Is this naughty? Sort of. Its harmless, the space to ride across is safe enough, but you're still jumping a red light. The question really is, why not wait for your own green phase? I invite you to try it. 

You see, the cyclists going on red aren't holding any of the motorists up. If you wait for green then anyone in a car behind you IS (in their flawed opinion) held up for a few moments while you get away. Whereas all the other cyclists who headed off before you, through the red light, haven't held them up. Which exposes the cyclist waiting for a green light to hostility from ignorant motons who just won't have it that they need to wait their turn to get through. I've had some horrendous encounters at that junction because I've obeyed the law. The end result? I'm not waiting at a red light just to put up with some half wit threatening me for doing so. I'm going off with the other cyclists who don't suffer the implicit threat of murder under the angry wheels of an idiot. 

...because the road is designed without regard to cycling

This is another one best shown by example. If you're riding on Victoria Avenue in Cambridge towards Mitcham's Corner, you will most likely find yourself wanting to get off the road and on to the cycle route and shared crossings across the junction. Reasonable enough, its a shorter, faster, and less hostile route that doesn't require you to take the very centre of a lane of traffic to prevent motons encroaching on you from both sides. You get to the red light, but unless you're lucky and the bike box doesn't have a car in it you're left on the left kerb needing to cross a stream of cars to get where you're going. And they've only got a short light phase to get into the junction, they're not going to stop and let you past. Its not bad if you hit the junction on a green light and can get straight through - but that never happens.

Your other option is to go around the outside of the cars, through the red light, and straight on to the off road facility. Yes, its designed so badly that without breaking the law the safer cycle facility is inaccessible unless you go through the red light.

I mean I could ignore the cycle route and ride in completely the wrong lane holding my right arm out to cross two lanes of traffic hoping someone lets me out (they won't) to go the long way around a hostile road junction, that for once motons will show the slightest bit of respect to a cyclist there (they won't). But for the sake of going through a red light and breaking the law for all of about a yard of distance, screw that. I'll go the safer way.

...because the bike box is full

We've all seen this one. You're passing a long stream of car traffic to get to an advance stop box for cyclists, but when you get there its full of car drivers. You have the choice of waiting to their left (and if they'll turn left through you, you'll die), on their right (if there's space, but there won't be - and if they turn right through you, you'll die) or in front of them on the other side of the white line. Illegal, but visible and safer. I mean yeah, I could just legally wait in a stupid place and die, but that's not going to happen is it?

...because a lorry has pulled alongside 

By far the biggest killer of cyclists is large vehicles turning left through them. Many savages in the press like to blame cyclists for this, but most often if you find yourself in this situation its because as soon as the cab of the lorry has pulled alongside you the driver just forgets you were there, and then you're in danger. 

If a lorry pulls alongside me at a red light, or even right up behind me to put me into his blind spot, I'm not going to wait there just to prove a point. I'm going to ride forward until I can comfortably make eye contact with the driver, and I'm going to make sure he's seen me. I'm not going to get myself killed just to win moton brownie points by not jumping the red light. I didn't design the road in such a way as to make it potentially lethal to me - you're going to have to put up with me adapting my behaviour to make myself safer. 

...because the sensor hasn't seen me

Thankfully this is less common than it was, but it still happens. You ride to a light that is meant to be triggered by a vehicle on top of it, and you wait. Maybe other lights change and other people get a phase, but you don't. And you realise that maybe its your alloy bike, or you've maybe not lined your ride up on the right part of the road sensor. So you shuffle about a bit, and the lights change for other people again, and it becomes apparent you're going nowhere.

I'm not going to wait there all night in hope. I'm going to wait until I can see its safe and I'll ride on. I don't see I've got any other choice.

...to make space for an emergency vehicle

A while back I was approaching the red light at the end of Bridge Street, with heavy traffic on the other side of the road blocking that lane all the way around the corner. I heard a siren, glanced back, there was a police car coming. I went past the knot of pedestrians on the pavement, through the red light, and hopped the bike onto a quiet bit of pavement I could see ahead before waving the police car through.

Amazingly someone on the other side of the road stormed out through the heavy traffic on the other side, waving a walking stick at me and yelling for going through the lights and being on the pavement. I think you'll agree it takes a very special kind of dick head to argue its better to block emergency vehicles than to go through a red light.

...because someone is threatening me

So you've had someone yelling abuse at you on the road, and there's a red light ahead. You don't want to face continued hostility, and you don't see any reason they should be allowed to project their own inadequacies via. the medium of a car engine and the relentless gleaming metal and glass box they're in. You get to the red light, they're stuck in traffic. Be honest - why the hell wouldn't you ride through and get out of their sight if you can? You aren't obliged to put up with someone abusing you and threatening you, and if you need to take the law into your own hands to escape them? I won't argue against that.

So there you have it - my short list of reasons I've broken the law and gone through red lights. I know, it is an inconvenient truth that on a hostile road network we are forced to sometimes bend or even break the rules to avoid being killed by the idiots who the rules are set up to control. But there it is - I'm not spending time recovering in hospital because I want to demonstrate how virtuous we can be, and I'm not having it that going through a red light in any circumstances where I'm putting myself at greater risk if I don't do so is wrong. 

Bluntly I suggest that anyone telling you otherwise should be invited to take a long walk off a short pier. You don't have to take their shit. 

Cambridge Transport Policy - How NOT to do local government.

Sadly I'm going to have to split this up into multiple blog posts. There's too much to absorb in one go, and its a developing situation changing very rapidly. A friend of a friend of a friend suggests that there have been some leaks from some of the authorities listed below that will be hitting the web in a few weeks time - so the state of things is currently fluid. Stick with me, please.

Cambridge is often heralded as unique in Britain, in that more people cycle here than elsewhere. And thats certainly true, although the numbers aren't as great as some would have you believe. In my view thats only one of the many ways this city is different to the rest of the UK. There is also strong evidence that we have the worst local government stratification in the country, and that this is completely ruining any hope of ever having an effective transport policy.

To explain why, one must look at the organisations involved. 

The City itself is operated by Cambridge City Council. Its currently Labour run although as things stand its hard to know whether that majority is safe going forward, especially with coming boundary changes. When you drill down into it you find that the local Labour party is as divided as it is everywhere else - we've got hard red Trots like Dave Baigent and Kevin Price (I can make a case for him being the second worst councillor Cambridge has ever had), essentially they're hard nosed Corbynistas, and we have notorious cyclist haters like Gerri Bird, all the way to pragmatic modernists like Carina O'Reilly. And this has bubbled over into petty deselections of councillors to apparently balance the wings of the party. The idea they might have a unified or intelligent transport policy is extremely far fetched.

But in a way that barely matters because the transport authority is the County Council. And that authority is made up of a few labour and liberal democrat councillors mostly from Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire, but is dominated by a comfortable majority of red in the face Tory fruitcakes representing rural and fenland constituencies where a monkey with a blue rosette would win. So thats who they put up, the most frothing at the mouth, swivel eyed, nasty Tory who passes muster with the local associations seemingly more interested in the petty hurt they can inflict by executing Tory dogma than anything else. Until recently the only challenge they faced was UKIP, so now they're effectively unopposed. If they have any interest in Cambridge at all its how to fleece us for council tax to then spend giving immigrants a harder time in the Fens, and how they can maintain car access for hate filled geriatrics who had their souls sucked out by Thatcher. Suggestions to them that cycling and walking are important is likely to get you shot through the lungs. 

Then we have South Cambridgeshire. That was a Tory stronghold but spectacular mismanagement gave the Liberal Democrats a way in. So far they haven't done much - in itself sufficient reason for cynicism, and they've really flopped when faced with intransigent road engineers who are making a right royal mess of the arterial road through their area. But they're there. And thats as much as we can say for them.

And lastly there's East Cambridgeshire, a council so ineffective it fights over folk festival parades. Its a bizarrely run, car-centric place in which an unsustainable free parking in the historic city of Ely means that you can neither walk nor breath safely there. At least its Tory/Libdem contest, but as its a contest fought for control of a freakishly car dependent part of the county I hold out no hope of any improvement. 

So four different local government bodies all with their own transport priorities? Oh, no. We're not done. Not by a long way.

Because having at least two, even three layers of local government in each location wasn't enough, our local councillors agreed with central government to have a directly elected mayor who covering the needs of the frothing at the mouth UKIP fenlanders, the cosmopolitan and complex city of Peterborough, and the professors of Cambridge who can show mathematical proof of Plancks constant but if you boil carrots and potatoes in the same pan it blows their minds. Big ask - squaring the circle of a bus and train city, the nations cycling capital and a county that would render down their own children for another gallon of diesel.

The mayor is and will, as far as we can see, always be a Tory - which upsets the Labour/Libdem City of Cambridge. And because its so safe its very prone to cronyism, with the rate at which the mayor shovels cash into the coffers of his mates seemingly showing now bounds. They Mayor has plans for reforming our transport in the city, but he'll probably just blow all his cash on posh headquarters and severance pay.

And last, but oh my gosh no means least, because things weren't complicated enough and we weren't blowing enough cash on 5 layers of squabbling local government (district or city council, possibly a parish council area, the mayoral authority, county council and of course the elected police commissioner) we also have a massive body of good old fashioned quangos shoveling money into endless consultations but very little solid infrastructure work. It was called Cambridge Cit Deal but that became so toxic they renamed it Greater Cambridge - yeah, they say its because that was more inclusive, so at best the rebranding might seem convenient. And they have their own plans and views, and ever more absurd and peculiar ways of feigning democratic mandate for an entirely un-elected body.

Needless to say, this city doesn't have a transport policy, nor a coherent development policy. We're a hub for economic growth and in a very short time the city has grown beyond all expectations, and continues to expand. And at the top? More of a bun-fight than an authority. The Mayoral plan is different to Greater Cambridge, which isn't reflected by what the County wants, and the City don't agree with any of that. While the Districts have their own priorities too.

What a mess. What a pity. What a monstrous waste of resources, having endless overlapping consultations from needlessly repeated local government positions. 

I'll go on to detail how plans of the City Deal and the Mayoral authority differ (and indeed why each is, independently, pathetic) in future posts. But for now, I can conclude that there is no way that the current system can work. Strip away all but two of these layers of government, divide the total number of councillors by 3 and make that a full time job. It would be cheaper, faster, comprehensible, and might actually get something done. 

Arbury Road - Camcycles inexplicable love affair with Greater Cambridge?

In the last couple of years Cambridge Cycling Campaign (often quaintly and trendily known by their twitter handle, Camcycle) have been, on the whole, better than they were. While there has been the occasional weird outburst, and their rabid enthusiasm for the underwhelming eponymous trail remains peculiar,  they have at least no longer got a convicted child assaulter on the committee, and I've talked to Robin (still their chair, I believe) about the support Martin gave for the crap facility on Gilbert Road,and he didn't get it either. There are some excellent, committed, positive people there who deserve our appreciation.

So what the heck is he going on about here? Why did he choose this pooch to screw?

All I can think is that he didn't really know Arbury Road, or how people rode in this part of town, before the new lane was constructed.

Ocado delivery driver dangerous to cyclist and pedestrians

The background - Arbury Road is the oldest named route in the City, connecting Chesterton to Arbury Camp, which has had some occupation since the neolithic era. And since Orchard Park was built there the site has culturally reverted to that state. It is, like many roads derived from old drove ways, long and mostly straight, the result being that many choose to drive far to fast on it. The modern road can be divided into two main sections. South of Campkin Road it is fast, narrow, with parked cars all the way down one side and occasionally blocking the pavement on the other side too, essentially limiting it to two very close streams of vehicles with no room for safely overtaking cyclists. Not that this stops them. And North of Campkin Road, it isn't much wider but there is (and has always been) a hedge down one side and little parking on road on the other.

City Deal (sorry, that name had become so toxic they renamed themselves Greater Cambridge) has existed in a constant state of existential crisis since it was founded, needing to find ways of shovelling cash into schemes as fast as possible. Hence it has wasted no time in throwing money into shovel ready schemes and the black hole of consultation. And it noticed that building a cycle lane on the North end of Arbury Road would be relatively uncontroversial. So they did.

And... Well, where it is, it isn't bad. If you came at this without knowing this party of the city at all you might think this was great. You would look at the kids riding on this new lane and think its a revelation. But thats incredibly naive.

One of the multiple off road routes parallel to the new lane

The reality in Kings Hedges is that the estate was built at the end of the 1960s in a tremendously forward thinking, progressive way. It was made difficult to drive through the estate but easy to walk or ride, with the result being that a lot of journeys within the estate are made on foot or by bicycle. Conversely no attention was paid to this in much of the rest of the city, meaning that places like Kings Hedges that are great to ride around in are terrible to ride of to anywhere else. The result? You see plenty of kids riding to school within the estate, people riding or walking to the local shops or park, but the rate for commuting by bike is lower than in other parts of the city. 

And true to form Greater Cambridge ignored this. They ignored the simple means by which the same scheme could have been delivered cheaper, faster, with less disruption, with less ecological damage and with a better end result. Because that didn't fit the bill of spending enough money to secure the next tranche of government funding. And what we now have is a highly visible route that accomplishes next to nothing for those who live in Kings Hedges or indeed anyone else. 

Bus stop filled around one minute from every 10

In itself, it isn't bad. In parts. I mean if you ignore the fact that the two bus stops are used by a service that is due every 10 minutes, meaning that for about 10% of the time during the day its actively dangerous. And that there is no physical separation so that delivery vehicles are, all through most week days, blocking either the pavement or the cycle lane. But it doesn't take you anywhere. The primary school already had good provision, and the new cycle lane stops before you get to the part of the road thats most dangerous.

I would say that Greater Cambridges decision to build this white elephant of a scheme that will not increase the total uptake of cycling in the City but may in fact only get people out of the estate and on to the main road is deeply cynical, and that is clearly demonstrated by the fact that where you actually need protection the cycle route disappears. In theory you might turn right, head through the older estate and ride to town there, but of course if you're heading to the Beehive Centre or any of the shopping or employment locations on Newmarket Road the scheme is valueless. The truly terrifying part of Arbury Road has been left entirely untouched by this - no one who was dissuaded by the traffic on the North end of Arbury Road will be persuaded to brave the much worse traffic on the Southern half.

Cycle lane ends - at the worst possible place

Of course its possible that you might be heading North from Kings Hedges towards Orchard Park, or up on to the Guided Bus Route to go to the Science Park. Well, the latter is unlikely, as its the wrong direction and we've another more direct route (that could really do with an upgrade) if you work there. So you're presumably heading to the A14 bridge, going to Histon or Cottenham, or just up to the hotel on Orchard Park? Its an odd one but lets humour that idea. You ride up Arbury Road heading North and you see some good facilities - the new crossing, for example, is good... 

And then you end up at the end of Arbury Road, the junction with Kings Hedges Road. Where you're meant to do what, exactly? Well there's a shared use facility off to the Left there heading off up Kings Hedges Road. Its crap and gives way to the side roads without any sensible signage, of course. Or you can go straight across acres of hostile car dominated tarmac without any specific cycling provision at all. Its like someone vomited all the bad ideas they had on one junction, it has nothing to commend it. Or you could go right where there's a shared use route to cut the corner on to Kings Hedges Road which is, in that direction, lethally dangerous. I genuinely don't know what they have in mind that we should do here - are we just meant to disappear because there isn't a cycle route any more? Kings Hedges Road at this point has four hostile lanes for fast cars with motorists mentally preparing for or coming down from the 70mph high of the A14. They aren't looking for cyclists, few ever want to ride on or across it. 

End of Arbury Road. Well? Now what?

Robin old chap, you've done some good stuff with Camcycle. But if you think this scheme is good you've been suckered. Its a pointless scheme that won't get anyone new cycling, it'll just get some of the people who were already riding to ride on a slightly different route. It doesn't do enough to make whole journeys better, and by concentrating on the (relatively) good section of the road instead of the brutally hazardous end, this is merely a cynical way of digging holes to pour money into them. No one whose journey was bad has now got a good enough journey as a result of this cynical scheme. I lament that you've been taken in by this. You should know better.