Driven out to Bluntisham recently? Then you may have noticed roadworks as you approach the village. Well, less roadworks than cycle track works. Lasting six weeks.
The County Council have been gradually creating a cycle track between Needingworth and Bluntisham. Started in 2014, it's taking a while to complete as reported in the Hunts Post. The current work is the most difficult, building a new cycle/footpath bridge over the old railway line, bypassing the road bridge as you enter Bluntisham.
The original estimate for the complete track was £420,000 when tentatively proposed in the 2006 St Ives Market Town Transport Strategy. The current estimate is £1.4 million. That includes almost £320,000 for the cycle/footpath bridge.
The Hunts Post article mentioned that a questionnaire the Council sent to Bluntisham residents (and possible Needingworth) got only 45 responses. Of those, 42 (93%) said they didn't use the route. About half of those said it was because it was incomplete.
Hardly an encouraging response to the questionnaire. Raises the question of how many cyclists are likely to use the new cycle track when it's completed. The Council must have some pretty substantial analysis to justify this work. When asked about justification for the cycle track, the Council pointed to the St Ives Market Town Transport Strategy.
The document covers much more than just the cycle track. Some of the proposals are currently or have recently been implemented in and around St Ives. In private industry nothing is spent without a robust cost/benefit analysis. No sign of that in the Strategy. There are targets, but no explanation about how they're arrived at. And since some of the proposals have yet to be implemented, there's little point in asking if the targets have been achieved.
The total spend estimate for all the proposed changes was £4.2 million in 2006. Presumably that is now nearer £12 million. Thankfully, the money for the Needingworth to Bluntisham cycle track hasn't come from County Council funds. The sources are S106 contributions from developers and funding from Central Government via the Integrated Transport Block. So if any credit is due it should go to the County Council for obtaining these funds on the basis of flimsy or non existent cost/benefit analysis. Nevertheless, some of the money comes from our taxes, and if there is money available, is this cycle track the best way to spend £1.4 million of it?
If 1,000 cyclists use the new cycle track on a regular basis that runs at a cost of £1,400 per cyclist. Pretty reasonable. But since the population of Bluntisham is just over 2,000, that's an unrealistic take-up. How about 100, one in twenty residents? That works out at £14,000 per cyclist. If we get down to 10 the cost is £140,000 per cyclist. That's a bit scary. According to the questionnaire, only 3 residents responded to say they currently cycle that route.
Do you think this is a good use of your taxes?
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Yes.
ReplyDeleteLess people driving means less impact on the NHS, less pollution for people (and then then not impacting the NHS as much), and less pollution on the planet.
Link helping my NHS point.
https://www.nhs.uk/news/mental-health/cycling-commuters-have-lower-rates-of-heart-disease-and-cancer/
If we could also join up the Marsh Harrier to the next roundabout with a segregated route, I could get to the P&R on a bike with a significant lower chance of death.
Also, we know the traffic is bad nearly all the time at this end of town. Encouraging a few to cycle will help reduce that strain. A good thing with all the new developments, right?
Got absolutely no argument with your general point. The more cyclists and walkers, the more healthy we would be. And the 35% rate of cyclists and pedestrians involved in traffic accidents around St Ives is high. Nationally it's nearer 25%.
DeleteThe question is, what analysis exists that this is the most effective way to spend £1.4 million? If there is no analysis confirming, how do we know the money couldn't have been spent more effectively elsewhere? For example, £1.4 million would buy 7,000 bicycles. So if the Council had made available a free cycle rank scheme in and around St Ives, with some financial or other incentives to dump the car, might that not encourage more people to cycle?
Your point about the route beyond the Marsh Harrier is well made. A definite lack of connectivity. And the mini roundabouts by the Tesco store are very dangerous.
The UK is generally pretty terrible for cycling in both towns and cities and in rural areas, with nothing but busy 60mph roads connecting towns and villages, which makes walking scary, let alone cycling. Once you experience how much better the cycling infrastructure is in the Netherlands, it seems ridiculous what we have to put up with here.
ReplyDeleteJust some info on this route:
The cycle path will go all the way through Bluntisham and into Earith, so it’s more than just a path to Bluntisham. A bridge is not being installed over the old railway, instead they’re filling a part of the railway cutting and just running the path over the top. You could see fairly major earthworks there when I last went that way a couple of months ago. They are putting in a new pedestrian/cycle bridge next to the road bridge on the sharp left hand bend as you get towards Bluntisham. As you pointed out, this bridge alone is a significant part of the cost!
The St Ives-Cambridge area is unusual in the UK for being not too bad for cycling, which is why the cycling rate is significantly higher in St Ives than a lot of towns in other counties. This would also explain why cyclists make up a higher proportion of road collisions - more people cycle here than average! I compared cycling safety with a similar sized town I’m familiar with - Stamford, Lincs. There are about the same number of injuries to cyclists per year in St Ives and Stamford, but the cycling rate is 3x higher in St Ives, therefore cycling must be roughly 3x safer in St Ives.
Despite the fact that cycling is not too bad here, there are plenty of gaps in the network. There is already a cycle path to Needingworth, but none to Bluntisham, with only a terrifying road connecting the two.
We shouldn’t say a cycle path is not worth it because people aren’t currently cycling that route. That’s like saying a bridge is not worth it because no one is swimming across the river at that point! I also don’t think we should spend thousands and thousands and delay projects for years doing endless cost/benefit analysis. Once we have a good plan, I think we just need to get on with it.
This path is a small step towards a comprehensive safe walking/cycling network in Cambridgeshire, so yes, I think it is worthwhile.
Thanks for the views ado. Not necessarily saying we shouldn't have cycle paths, just that there might be better ways of spending the money. Probably the highest priority is to find a solution to the VERY dangerous crossing around the roundabouts near the new Morrisons supermarket. Treacherous to cross by foot, let alone cycle. Only going to get worse with introduction of access to McDonalds, Subway etc at Stocks Bridge, and an Aldi supermarket opposite Morrisons. Madness!
DeleteI agree completely on the very dangerous Morrisons roundabout. It’s now by far the highest priority location for pedestrian improvements in St Ives. Almost every time I walk or cycle to Morrisons, I see people having to run to avoid being hit. My brother works at Morrisons, I worry about his safety walking across that roundabout. Not only is someone going to be killed, but it means any elderly people who don’t have a car are effectively not able to get to Morrisons. Morrisons has also installed 40 cycle racks, which is outstanding, but there’s no point in those or any cycle paths if the roundabout is so dangerous that you risk your life trying to access the supermarket!
DeleteOn the bright side, McDonald’s etc. are on the ‘correct’ side of the bypass, so you won’t need to cross the roundabout to get there. Also, you can access Morrisons from the town centre by crossing at the busway crossing and then walking along the relatively new paths along the bypass, but the vast majority of residents will not be coming from that direction.
Finding a good solution isn’t easy though. They could put in a crossing on the bypass about 20 metres before the roundabout, but that doesn’t help people who want to get to e.g. Aldi. Maybe removing the roundabouts and replacing them with traffic lights would work, but given the limited space, that would probably make congestion significantly worse than it already is. In any case, it can’t stay as it is.