Cycles should be safe from traffic (From York Press)

They already exist for people with less confidence and more time on their hands don't they?

When I pedal on road, I'm part of the traffic, not a separate entity.

When I pedal on road, I'm part of the traffic, not a separate entity.

Unfortunately this city wasn't planned for the traffic that goes through it and the traffic planners have tried all sorts of things......

.....except considering turning off the traffic lights and putting in more pedestrian crossings and letting traffic flow more naturally

They've tried the traditional, now let's try the radical!

YSTClinguist wrote:
Unfortunately this city wasn't planned for the traffic that goes through it and the traffic planners have tried all sorts of things...... .....except considering turning off the traffic lights and putting in more pedestrian crossings and letting traffic flow more naturally They've tried the traditional, now let's try the radical!

This would work well with the new 20mph limit, definitely worth a try.

The UK has been oddly resistant to this idea for a long time - with both extremes of the pro and anti car debate being fairly united againts these. Hence the hotch potch of cycle tracks of varying quality and continuity we have.

However...look around the world and look at the cycling features of countries which genuinely have mass cycling - especially Denmark and the Netherlands. There, exactly what the letter-writer suggests has been a key feature. And has it been done in small historic cities? Yes it has...see Delft in Holland for an example.

Every radial route into York could have dedicated, segregated, continuous high quality cycle tracks for a fraction of the cost of many road schemes (like Hopgrove).

Instead of course tiny incremental little scraps of design changes appear every few years - some of them reversed when vested short term interests intervene.

I've said it before...but one trip on the Hull ferry into Rotterdam will change your mind forever about what's possible...and all acheived in Holland in not so many years primarily because they saw potential gridlock as damaging their economy.

People shouldn't have to take their life in their hands to go to work/school by the healthiest, quickest and least polluting way.

The letter-writer is absolutely right and all it needs is some political vision to do this and restore York's No 1 cycling city status.

can't argue with that.
The ide of the cycle route beside the River Foss is one to watch - if it is done properly. If it starts in Strensall and uses the bridge near Huntington Old Village, it can be used by kids going to the secondary schools and it completely avoids the need to use the strensall-york road (which currently carries more traffic than the A6068, which is/was a primary A road the last time I checked!)... if the route then carries on towards the city and has a decent bridge near Yearsley Grove then it'll move cyclists away from sections of Huntington Road which are dodgy (such as the blind bend near Park Grove)... in addition to it bypassing roundabouts and traffic lights therefore offering a time saving. I would hope there'd be a decent fence between the cycle route and the river itself though!

The Derwent Valley route (also called the Foss Islands route) didn't get much use at first, but is now quite popular on certain sections (Morrisons to Tang Hall, Morrisons to Arran Place, Haxby Road to Wigginton Road) and this is because it offers a quick link for orbital journeys such as to Clifton Moor.

Painting a line on the road DOES NOT count as cycling provision. Proper cycling provision that is suitable for families and less experienced cyclists will physically seperate cyclists both from the road and from any nearby footpath (Manchetser has some examples in Eastlands near the Man City stadium and Sport City complex), whereby side roads coming off the main route have their stop lines set back and clearly marked as such with the cycle lane in front of the markings so the cyclist has the same priority using the cycle lane as they would if they were on the road.