Failure on Cycle Infrastructure at Trinity Fields and Castle Gate, Knaresborough

New housing development is supposed to be an opportunity to create new cycle infrastructure.

In a project to build new housing estates on the A59 east of Knaresborough, the main destination by bike is the town centre.

Is there a new cycle link from the Trinity Fields and Castle Gate housing estates to Knaresborough town centre? No.

All we are getting are some bizzare-o bits of cycle path and shared use pavement. All of it is to low standards in breach of current guidance, and none of it takes you anywhere.

It's symptomatic of either (a) a broken system or (b) a system that is not being operated properly by those in control of it.

Trinity Fields, Knaresborough

There's a new roundabout at the Trinity Fields development, and on the approach to it you get a painted cycle lane less than a metre wide.

It is way below the minimum width in the guidance, and the road is too busy and fast for paint without protection.

The painted lane leads into a sort of cycle pavement 1m 50 wide.

The Desirable Minimum width in the guidance is 2m, and there's no reason why this has to be narrower. There should also be a 1m buffer zone to a 40mph road, but there isn't any buffer at all.

The main problem, though, is that it just stops. Straight after the roundabout it chucks you off, back onto the road. It's worse than staying on the road, because you've got to get back into the traffic.

If you're building cycle routes, you've got to look after people all the way. Isolated bits of infrastructure are useless. If the cycle pavement actually led on to a cycle track, I wouldn't have a major problem with the other breaches of the guidance.

If you turn right from the cycle pavement to Trinity Fields, you don't get priority over traffic - again, poor service for people on bikes.

You reach a shared use pavement at the Trinity Fields housing estate. It's nearly 3m wide, but shared pavements are the worst level of service, especially when they give way to every side road.

Shared use is not appropriate. Cycles must be treated as vehicles and not as pedestrians. Pedestrians and cyclists should be physically separated (Summary Principle 2, LTN 1/20).

It is possible to build good infrastructure where cycling and walking are clearly separate.

Developers are supposed to give priority first to pedestrian and cycle movements, in developments and in neighbouring areas. Here, they simply haven't - it's crystal clear that the design prioritises motor vehicles.

Linking Trinity Fields to Castle Gate

If you go straight on from the Trinity Fields roundabout, there's no provision. It's not because there isn't space for segregated cycle tracks - there is oodles of space. It's just that's no one has bothered to organise it.

It's really quite a short distance from Trinity Fields to Castle Gate. It is a lamentable failure that these two developments haven't been connected up.

Castle Gate

When you get to Castle Gate, there's another roundabout with the same nonsense cycle non-facilities as before.

There's another painted lead-in cycle lane.

This is total rubbish.

There's the same 1m 50 cycle pavement at the roundabout - too narrow, and missing a buffer, but you'd put up with that if it actually formed part of a connected network.

The same as before, it just chucks you off back onto the road the other side of the roundabout. You think, 'what was the point of that?'

It's consistent, but consistently useless.

If you turn right from the cycle pavement to the Castle Gate housing estate, you give way to traffic at a roundabout entrance/exit with a very wide splay.

If you want people to get about by bike, give them priority on safe crossings. Look after them. Make routes clearly safe and convenient.

If you're of the opinion that we haven't got enough traffic, and what we really need is hundreds or thousands more short local trips by car, then keep doing what you're doing. Keep rolling out the red carpet for motor vehicles and building a few bits of joke cycle infrastructure.

There's another shared use pavement to the Castle Gate estate.

It's the worst form of cycle infrastructure again, and it is in clear breach of the guidance.

The housing estate is straight ahead, and there's a new Aldi on the right.

Aldi have five bike stands, and they are under the roof which is good. A zebra thingy means you can walk towards them, but people on bikes like to ride to their destination. After all, you're not making drivers push their cars the last bit of the way, or pedestrians hop the final stretch.

Couldn't they have made it like a parallel crossing, with a bike lane marked next to the zebra? And would it be too much to ask for a dropped kerb?

Like everything else at these estates, it's clueless when it comes to cycling.

The Road to Knaresborough

It's a bit far to walk from Castle Gate to Knaresborough town centre, but no problem to cycle - if there were safe facilities. But who wants to ride on a 40mph main road in heavy traffic?

There's enough space for segregated cycle tracks on the first section (photo above). After the bend, heading up to the junction with Wetherby Road and Chain Lane, there's acres of space.

Again, riding on the road isn't great. A special shout out to the driver of a Suzuki York van who thought that the pinch point created by a pedestrian refuge was the ideal place to overtake me.

Space is a bit tighter on the drag up towards Knaresborough. You could possibly make the path on the south side shared use. It is only 2m wide, so not ideal, but pedestrian volumes are low, and cyclist speeds uphill would be slow.

The alternative is to take space from the road for a westbound cycle track on the south side, and space from the road and/or the verge on the north side to make an eastbound cycle track.

The westbound cycle track could use the path through Knaresborough swimming pool grounds. The eastbound track would stay on the road.

The last bit to the High Street is a bit squeezed, but there should be space for a cycle track either side.

The important thing is not to abandon people, but to keep cycle tracks going either side of the road at least to the Briggate junction. Then make sure there is bike parking there, or continue the route to bike parking elsewhere.

Knaresborough Housing Estates: Map

The map above shows the new Knaresborough housing estates and Knaresborough High Street.