F MERRILL suggested (Letters, February 24) that a crackdown is needed on cyclists who ride through the centre of York during the daytime.

From 1987, the Deptartment for Transport began advising local councils that formal relaxation for cycling could often be safely achieved in areas where motor vehicles are restricted.

Pedestrian priority measures must not result in unsafe conditions for cyclists, eg by forcing them to use busy distributor roads.

Cycling exemptions should be considered if satisfactory routes for them around a pedestrian priority zone don’t exist and cannot be created.

Scrutiny by the Transport Research Laboratory revealed no real factors to justify excluding cyclists from pedestrian priority areas, suggesting that cycling could be more widely permitted without detriment to pedestrian safety.

Cyclists respond to pedestrian density, modifying their speed, dismounting and taking other avoiding action where necessary.

Collisions between pedestrians and cyclists were very rarely generated in pedestrian priority areas (only one pedestrian/cyclist accident in 15 site years) in the sites studied.

The current DfT advice on Vehicle Restricted Areas was issued in 2008.

It contains advice on streetscape design, and advises that careful design can help to create an attractive and functional environment in which cycle speeds are low and pedestrians clearly have priority.

Nationally there are over 30 city centre sites where 24/7 cycling is permitted in VRAs.

Perhaps the answer for York is to trial the guidance with some Experimental Traffic Orders on key cross-city routes, as was done successfully along Deangate some years back.

Paul Hepworth, Press officer, Cycling UK North Yorkshire