APPENDIX 16
Memorandum submitted by CTC
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 CTC, the national cyclists' organisation,
has 70,000 members and supporters. CTC provides a range of information
and legal services to cyclists, organises cycling events, and
represents the interests of cyclists and cycling on issues of
public policy. CTC celebrated its 125th birthday in August 2003.
1.2 CTC believes that cycling has a wide
range of benefits in many different areas of policy. These include
improved health, independent mobility for all (including children,
older people, lower income groups etc) and local economic benefits
(in urban and rural areas alike), as well as reductions in the
adverse effects of motorised travel (eg congestion, road danger,
pollutant and greenhouse emissions, noise, community severance
and the spatial pressures, in both urban rural areas, for the
provision or increased road and parking space).
1.3 CTC campaigns for the promotion of cycling
at national, regional and local level. CTC seeks to ensure that
cycling is central to the policies of not only the Department
of Transport and its agencies, but is also incorporated into the
work of departments and other actors in policy areas and sectors,
eg health, environment, education, law enforcement, taxation,
land-use planning and development, regeneration, rural economic
development and tourism. Our interests cover not only policy and
resource allocation, but also the planning and design of streets
and highways, road safety, traffic law and its enforcement, integration
with public transport, influencing travel behaviour, and the promotion
of recreational and off-road cycling.
1.4 CTC was closely involved in the formulation
of the National Cycling Strategy in 1996 and, more recently, the
setting up of Cycling England. It was closely involved in the
preparation of the Walking and Cycling Action Plans for both England
and Wales. CTC has also provided input to the Government's Transport
White Paper, its Public Health and Physical Activity White Papers,
and the review of its Road Safety Strategy. CTC sits on the Government's
Road Safety Advisory Panel and the Highways Agency's National
Road User Committees at national and at regional level. CTC provides
support to the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group of pro-cycling
parliamentarians. Recent parliamentary activity has focused on
legislation relating to Traffic Management, Road Safety and Rights
of Way, as well as Private Bills concerning transport in London
and the London "Crossrail" scheme.
1.5 CTC's local volunteer "Right to
Ride" campaigners are active in seeking the promotion of
cycling in the policies and actions of local highway and planning
authorities, as well as schools, colleges, health authorities,
retailers, employers, public transport operators, local strategic
partnerships, local access forums and other bodies.
2. CURRENT CONDITIONS
FOR CYCLISTS
2.1 Historically, the principal purpose
of the Highways Agency has always been to cater for the long-distance
movement of motor traffic along its motorway and trunk road network.
Problems of severance, the effects on local communities and catering
for non-motorised motorised users (NMU's) have been at best of
secondary interest. The needs of cyclists in particular have been
almost wholly ignored and little understood.
2.2 The effect of this has been to produce
motorways and trunk roads that carve up the country and encircle
cities with almost impenetrable barriers to safe and easy cycling.
CTC, together with other non-motorised user groups and the former
Countryside Commission, documented the problems of broken links
(rural lanes, byways and bridleways etc) and severed communities
as long ago as 1993 in a report entitled "Breaking Point"
1 (copy enclosed). That was written before the establishment of
the Highways Agency, but the problems remain broadly unchanged.
To the Highways Agency's slogan, Safe Roads, Reliable Journeys,
Informed Travellers, cyclists might well ask, "Safe
and reliable and information for whom?"
2.3 To go from one extreme to another, if
a cyclist crosses the Channel to the Netherlands, he or she will
find a totally accessible road network. All major roads can be
crossed comfortably, and almost all—even motorways—can
be cycled along or alongside, in the case of motorways separated
by a barrier. This did not happen by accident, of course. To the
Dutch, any facility or destination must be genuinely accessible
on foot and by bicycle, an approach that has been systematically
applied over a period of many years. (NB Until the Dutch Government
first adopted pro-cycling policies in response to the oil shocks
of the early 1970s, cycle use there had been on the same declining
trend as in Britain. The differences in cycle use between Britain
and Holland today are the result of public policy—they are
not deep-rooted cultural differences as is commonly believed).
In other continental European countries the situation is similar
though less comprehensive, with excellent accessibility and permeability
for cycles in Germany and Denmark, for example.
2.4 The United Kingdom does stand out as
being particularly poor in this regard. Although in this country
most cyclists would not expect to be able to cycle on a track
adjacent to a motorway, they should be able to cross all
motorway junctions comfortably on whatever non-motorway road they
are travelling. In practise, this is very rarely possible. The
vast majority of Britain's major motorway junctions—typically
large roundabouts—are extremely cycle (and pedestrian)-hostile,
with a cyclist being up to 15 times more likely than a car occupant
to be injured while crossing a roundabout (depending on the roundabout
type). 2
2.5 In the case of non-motorway trunk roads,
however, not only should cyclists be able to cross them easily,
but also to cycle along or beside them safely. Although generally
legal, this can be extremely unpleasant or hazardous because of
high traffic speeds or volumes or inadequate provision of road
space or facilities. Where special facilities have been provided,
this has generally been only in response to special or prestige
projects such as the National Cycle Network, overlooking other
routes and the needs of local cyclists anywhere in the country.
Design standards also leave much to be desired—they are
fine on providing off-road cycle facilities but far less satisfactory
on delivering good on-road cycling conditions, or providing for
crossing movements.
2.6 In 1996 the government of the day launched
the National Cycling Strategy, 3 the major part of which
would be delivered by local authorities who were expected to produce
Local Cycling Strategies. Although government guidance
has changed and become more flexible, local authorities have also
been expected to plan for cycling through the Local Transport
Plan process, to monitor and report back on progress. Similar
or parallel obligations have never been laid upon the Highways
Agency. It was striking for example that the Agency was the only
highway authority exempted from monitoring and annual reports
by the English Regions Cycling Development Team (ERCDT) while
it still existed (ERCDT reported to the former National Cycling
Strategy Board on how local authorities were progressing with
delivery of their cycling strategies, as well as providing support
and information to the authorities themselves).
2.7 Technical knowledge of cyclists' needs
and best practice are also very limited within the Agency, although
in this respect it is little different from most highway authorities
and the culture of road engineers around the country. It is rare
to find any Agency staff familiar with the content of the Government-backed
"Cycle-friendly Infrastructure" guidelines, 4
or any other published works on providing for cyclists. Engineers
instead take as their bible the Design Manual for Roads and
Bridges, (DMRB) for which the Agency is itself responsible,
and which is very weak indeed on the provision of a cycle-friendly
infrastructure. Recent updates to DMRB provide very good guidance
on off-road cycle provision5 and on cycle audit procedures6 (the
process of systematically considering a new highway or traffic
management scheme to identify opportunities to improve cycling
conditions). However the guidance on on-road provision7 is far
less satisfactory—key topics where it is poor or wholly
lacking include cyclists' spatial requirements (and how these
relate to prevailing motor-traffic speeds), cycle-friendly traffic
calming, problems at slip roads, or the designs of major junctions.
(NB it is particularly unfortunate that DMRB, intended for trunk
roads, has for many years been the standard reference work not
just for trunk roads but all roads and streets anywhere, even
within towns and cities, and has formed the basis of training
for a generation or more of road engineers).
2.8 We would also expect the Highways Agency
to systematically examine and implement as appropriate any new
advice published by the Department for Transport, for example
in its Traffic Advisory Leaflets. This does not appear to happen.
A case in point is TAL 1/04 Village Speed Limits8 which,
in line with the Government's Tomorrow's roads: safer for everybody,
9 recommended a standard speed limit of 30 mph in villages as
the norm and defines what is meant by a village. As far as we
can determine, there has been no process for ascertaining current
compliance with this advice or for implementing improvements in
line with it.
2.9 There is however a serious problem for
cyclists with the traffic calming techniques proposed in TAL 1/04
(and elsewhere in DfT literature) which do closely resemble those
already used by the Agency to slow traffic. To slow traffic by
narrowing the carriageway, usually by providing a central island
or refuge, far from calming the traffic for cyclists can make
the road far more dangerous or intimidating for them. These pinch
points—any kerb-to-kerb width below 5 metres—are only
acceptable where speeds are below 20 mph and even then for only
very short distances. No cycle-friendly country in Europe uses
these techniques unless there is separate provision for cyclists.
Indeed, throughout continental Europe traffic calming is in effect
defined as improving conditions for pedestrians and cyclists,
not merely as slowing traffic. European models do also produce
slower traffic speeds but by different techniques, typically more
visually attractive too.
2.10 The Highways Agency employs a staff
member with responsibility for disseminating best practice on
provision for non-motorised users. He is making valiant efforts
to do so, and has compiled an excellent slide presentation to
show to engineering colleagues around the Agency, highlighting
typical problems and potential or "best practice" solutions.
This work however is seriously under-resourced within the Agency,
and needs to be given much higher profile.
3. CONSULTATION
AND RECENT
DEVELOPMENTS
3.1 Although the physical conditions for
cycling are mostly very poor, there has been some real progress
in recent years in terms of outlook and consultation. In some
respects consultation has been much better and more systematic
than with many, probably most, local authorities.
3.2 In the late 1990's the Agency set up
Road User Committees, one for each region and a national one too.
These included not just representatives from motoring and road
haulage organisations but from walking, cycling and horse-riding
groups too. There have also been environmental committees with
a slightly different focus, involving conservation groups. These
have been useful, but as with any form of consultation it is not
the meeting as such that count but the changes they result in,
which have been more limited.
3.3 In 2000, the Agency published Encouraging
Sustainable Travel: Highways Agency Strategic Plan for Accessibility,
10 which did address vital issues with sections on community severance,
access to public transport, pedestrians, disability, cyclists
and horse riders. We were initially highly impressed but later
disappointed that its contents did not seem to permeate the organisation,
with few Agency staff even being aware of its existence.
3.4 Around the same time however, the Agency
embarked on a review of its whole road network through its Route
Management Strategies (RMS). For the first time it attempted widespread
consultation with a wide range of local people and groups, through
all-day meetings as well as literature. These raised real hopes,
but it must be said that the initial results were disappointing.
The needs of non-motorised users were typically left as low priority
for dealing with in the long-term rather than immediately. As
a result of complaints however, later RMSs were more satisfactory,
with cycling and walking rising much higher in the listed priorities.
One of the most recent, for example—for the A585 in Lancashire—resulted
in the commission of a comprehensive cycle audit of the whole
road in question, which we found highly promising. It is disappointing
though that the RMS approach has now been dropped in favour of
a cheaper regional (as opposed to route) approach
which no longer includes such a heavy commitment to consultation.
3.5 In 2001 the Agency also started a consultation
process for its Non-Motorised User (NMU) Crossings Programme,
a very welcome initiative, especially as we were given to understand
that £250 million of funding was available for the programme
(although the Government later denied this). It later turned out
that the project scope was more limited than we would have wished
because, whatever was intended, most of the consultants appointed
did not seriously examine the problems for on-road cyclists needing
to cross motorway junctions or the equivalent situation at major
junctions on trunk roads. Similarly for pedestrians, they tended
to accept the unacceptable, for example at-grade crossings around
fast roundabouts without any signals or zebra crossing. Instead
the process concentrated on off-carriageway crossings, more suitable
for ramblers, horse-riders and mountain-bikers, such as bridges
and underpasses. Nevertheless, the process produced a very useful
list of priorities for action.
3.6 All this effort appeared to have been
wasted however when in April 2004 we and other organisations were
informed that the programme was indefinitely postponed—in
effect cancelled—because the expected budget had had to
be slashed. This was to accommodate the new demands on the Agency
created by the establishment of its nationwide team of traffic
officers, taking over the role previously performed by traffic
police to respond to incidents and generally maintain good traffic
flow on the network. Whilst these may be laudable objectives in
themselves, the fact that the funding was taken from the NMU crossings
programme meant that this budget reallocation was in effect a
very substantial subsidy from non-motorised to motorised users.
3.7 Despite the Government's subsequent
denials of the original £250 million sum, this is still acknowledged
in volume I of a report on "Understanding Community Severance",11
published in November 2005. This states that:
"The Agency has a programme to address non-motorised
user needs and undertook in the 2000 Road Users' Charter to develop
and implement by 2008 a programme of crossing improvements for
vulnerable users. This programme was to draw on a notional fund
of £250 million mentioned in 1998 White Paper that sought
to provide universal access to public transport. Due to the profile
of such issues given by project sponsors the Agency now expects
to undertake those improvements by 2030."
3.8 There was a particular irony to the
situation when the Government published its Walking and Cycling:
an action plan12 in which it boasted of the Agency developing
its Crossings Programme for "1,200 crossing sites across
the major road network", despite having axed the funding
only a few weeks beforehand. Only in response to complaints was
the programme eventually at least partially rescued—we understand
that £10 million has been allocated in 2005-06 "for
local accessibility improvements, including crossings".13
However we still do not know what types of crossings are needed
at the 1,200 identified crossing points—for instance, how
many of these can be addressed with relatively low-cost solutions
or how many require traffic signals or bridges? However, as a
"back-of-the envelope" calculation, we estimate that
it would take something of the order of 10 years to deliver the
programme, if funding were to be continued at this rate, and that
this was spent solely on crossings and not on any other types
of accessibility improvements.
3.9 Four recent examples will serve to illustrate
the more general problem of unwillingness commonly encountered
among Highways Agency officials or contractors to incorporate
measures for cyclists into the planning and design of major highway
schemes. The first example concerns the A21 Tonbridge to Pembury
scheme. A new out-of-town hospital and multiplex development were
planned in conjunction with this new road scheme, such that they
would only be accessible via the A21. This is not the place to
pass comment on our general objections to out-of-town developments
at car-dependent locations, contrary at least to the spirit of
Government planning policy (as set out in Planning Policy Guidance
note PPG 13 on Transport14). Nevertheless, our local volunteer
campaigner pressed for the scheme to include a cycle track to
provide access to these developments, and his proposals were supported
by the Kent County Council cycling officer as well as Sustrans
and the Tonbridge Civic Society. CTC national HQ also intervened
(a copy of our letter is attached), but the Highways Agency still
refused to make any form of cycle provision.
3.10 The following year, local campaigners
from CTC, the Ramblers Association and the British Horse Society
finally won a three-year battle to persuade the Highways Agency
to incorporate a "Pegasus" crossing (ie one for pedestrians,
cycles and horses) into the A43 Silverstone Bypass scheme, to
provide a route for non-motorised access between the market town
of Towcester into the surrounding countryside. This was at first
refused on the grounds that the scheme had been designed 10 years
previously and the inclusion of a crossing would lead to cost
increases and delays. The Highways Agency backed down when local
campaigners held a peaceful demonstration which involved around
50 pedestrians, cyclists and horseriders repeatedly crossing the
road itself. But the Agency reversed its position yet again once
construction began, announcing that the crossing would not be
provided after all. It was only reinstated a second time after
local residents flooded the Highways Agency with letters, emails
and phone calls, as well as getting them summoned before a local
area committee.
3.11 Last year, local cycle campaigners
put a huge effort into the public inquiry into the A3 Hindhead
tunnel scheme. Given that cyclists would be banned from the tunnel,
the campaigers were trying to ensure that the existing A3 alignment
would be retained as an alternative for non-motorised traffic,
including cyclists. The Highways Agency at first seemed willing
to consider this, but once the scheme reached the inquiry, the
Agency had decided that the old road would be grubbed up, on the
basis that cyclists still had use of the original A3 road—a
much hillier bridleway route which is only really suitable for
recreational cycling. Indeed, the Highways Agency's consideration
of cycling issues was grouped under the topic of "recreation",
and the Agency's lack of understanding of the diversity of reasons
why people cycle was particularly evident in the following quote
from the Agency's evidence:
"There are three distinct types of cyclists:
mountain bikers, family or leisure cyclists and racing cyclists
who also sometimes commute to work."
The idea that cyclists might want a utility route
for local access was clearly quite alien to the Highways Agency's
thinking.
3.12 Finally, the latest example is the
efforts of local cycle campaigners in Buckinghamshire, to press
for the inclusion of "toucan" (ie shared use pedestrian
and cycle) crossings in the M40 Handy Cross scheme. Here too,
despite lengthy submissions from local cycle campaigners to the
public inquiry, the Highways Agency simply refused to incorporate
the facilities proposed by the local campaigners, despite this
being a £14 million junction improvement scheme. It is not
clear what the Highways Agency intends to provide instead, but
it has suggested that:
"It may be necessary to advise cyclists
to dismount when crossing the bridge. If cyclists are asked to
dismount for a section of the route then for continuity and safety
reasons it may be expedient to designate the signalised crossings,
dismounted use only, hence they may not be Toucan Crossings"15
This is despite clear guidance (in the Government-backed
1996 "Cycle Friendly Infrastructure" publication and
elsewhere) about the importance of route continuity for cyclists,
and specifically that "Cyclists Dismount" signs should
be avoided and progressively removed where possible.
4. RECOMMENDATIONS
4.1 The saga of the Crossings Programme
illustrates a more general problem. The Highways Agency can only
be as good as the remit and the finance it is given by the Government.
4.2 We recommend that this remit should
include a sustained, unequivocal demand to encourage sustainable
transport in general and to progressively reduce severance. For
cycling, the Government should set an objective for the Highways
Agency's network to provide a level of access equal to that available
to other users, whether by way of suitable on-carriageway cycling
conditions or adjacent cycle tracks, including junctions between
motorways and non-motorway routes which are fully cycle-accessible.
Even if this remains a longer term objective, a timescale should
nevertheless be set for achieving it.
4.3 We also recommend that the Highways
Agency should provide a cost-estimate for delivering the identified
programme of 1,200 non-motorised user crossings, and that the
Department for Transport should set a timetable for completion
of this programme, so that future budget decisions to give proper
priority to this programme can then be taken on the basis of sound
information.
4.4 As the agency of the Secretary of State
(the highway authority for England's most nationally important
roads), the Highways Agency should be setting an example to others,
striving to be a national model of best practice. In some ways
it already is, with its consultation processes for example. But
with its infrastructure it remains very poor. This highlights
the need to strengthen the work currently undertaken by just one
staff member, to disseminate training and best practice in providing
for non-motorised users throughout the Agency. Greatly enhanced
professional training needs to be backed up by good adherence
to the procedures of Cycle Audit (in accordance with the guidance
recently added to the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges) and
Cycle Review.
4.5 We look to a future where the Agency
can set the benchmark for design standards around all the areas
it serves when cyclists can stop looking upon its roads as the
almost insuperable barrier they mostly are at present.
9 January 2006.
REFERENCES
1 Metropolitan Transport Research Unit. Breaking
point: the severance by road schemes of routes used by cyclists,
equestrians and ramblers. CTC, British Horse Society, Ramblers
Association and Countryside Commission, 1993.
2 Allott and Lomax. Cyclists and roundabouts:
a review of literature. CTC 1993.
3 3 Department for Transport. The National
Cycling Strategy, DfT 1996.
www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_susttravel/documents/page/dft_susttravel_503877.hcsp
4 Institution of Highways and Transport,
Department for Transport, CTC and Bicycle Association. Cycle-friendly
Infrastructure guidelines for Planning and Design. IHT 1996.
5 Highways Agency. The geometric design
of pedestrian, cycle and equestrian routes. Design Manual
for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) TA 90/05 (Volume 6, Section 3, Part
5).
www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/deps/ha/dmrb/vol6/section3/ta9005.pdf
6 Highways Agency. Non-motorised user
audits. Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB), HD 42/05
(Volume 5, Section 2, Part 5).
www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/deps/ha/dmrb/vol5/section2/hd4205.pdf
7 Highways Agency. Provision for non-motorised
users. Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB), TA 91/05
(Volume 5, Section 2, Part 4).
www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/deps/ha/dmrb/vol5/section2/ta9105.pdf
8 Department for Transport. Village speed
limits: traffic Advisory Leaflet 1/04. DfT 2004.
www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_roads/documents/page/dft_roads_027964.pdf
9 Department for Transport. Tomorrow's
roads: safer for everyone: the first three year review. DfT
2004.
www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_rdsafety/documents/page/dft_rdsafety_028165.hcsp
10 Highways Agency. Encouraging Sustainable
Travel: Highways Agency Strategic Plan for Accessibility.
www.highways.gov.uk/aboutus/710.aspx
11 Department for Transport. Understanding
community severance I: views of practitioners and communities.
DfT 2005.
www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_localtrans/documents/page/dft_localtrans_610194-09.hcsp
12 Department for Transport. Walking and cycling:
an action plan. DfT 2004.
www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_susttravel/documents/page/dft_susttravel_029200.hcsp
13 Letter to CTC from former Transport Minister
Charlotte Atkins MP.
14 Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Planning
Policy Guidance 13: Transport (PPG13). ODPM 2001.
www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_planning/documents/page/odpm_plan_606896.hcsp
15 Letter from Highways Agency to local CTC campaigner,
February 2004.
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