Cycling Embassy of Great Britain AGM 2019: The Journey Is Starting In Cardiff - Part 2

Earlier this week, I caught up on last week's blog post with my first report from last weekend's Cycling Embassy of Great Britain's AGM in Cardiff (with me so far?) This week, I continue with a look at the Greener Grangetown project.

Grangetown is a ward of Cardiff right in the south of the city and is largely bounded by the River Ely, River Taff, Cardiff Bay and railway corridor. Very roughly, the area is split between residential and commercial development.

To the east of the ward along the River Taff, the Greener Grangetown project completed in October last year, was a £2m investment partnership between the city, Welsh Water and Natural Resources Wales to better deal with stormwater in the area. 

The previous situation saw stormwater going into the local combined sewer system which is pumped 8 miles to the nearest treatment works whereas the recently completed scheme deals with the stormwater at source by intercepting it with rain gardens which eventually discharge directly into the adjacent River Taff. 

This is not to say that that a flooding risk is being added to the river because the whole idea of rain gardens is that they hold stormwater and allow it to slowly infiltrate into the ground or where the ground is too saturated or cannot take flows, they hold the water until after the storm event and so smooth the outflows. 

Rain gardens also take water out of the system naturally with their planting through evapotranspiration. The other clever thing is that biological processes within the planting structure can also break down the oils and nasty compounds which can be found on the road surface as a result of motor traffic use. 

On the ground, there are rain gardens of all sorts of sizes, from the small on street corners which also help keep parking away from junctions,

To the large which repurpose large areas paved as part of historic filtered permeability works, although the entire project area is not fully filtered.

There are a number of side streets which are curiously wide such as Abercynon Street (below). The side streets have central reservations which were previously just paved and parked over. The redesign has changed these paved areas into rain gardens, while retaining some parking (and there are lots of people parking in this area);

The other interesting thing about the project is that it has what is claimed to be Wales' first ever "bicycle street" along Blaenclydach Street and the Taff Embankment, essentially providing better space for the Taff Trail cycle route;

The layout has a central strip of imprinted asphalt to give narrow traffic lanes which gives information to people cycling that they may take the lane and that drivers should cede priority. This is not backed up with any legislative power, it's purely through design.

We visited twice over the weekend and for the most part, drivers seemed to understand how the street worked and when they did feel the need to overtake (despite the 20mph speed limit), most did so safely. I would say that cycling here did feel safer in a group and without traffic flow data, it's hard to comment on the appropriateness of the layout - certainly the driver in the photograph below didn't fancy hanging about and overtook dangerously.

I think that to truly create a bicycle street, more work is needed to get rid of through traffic because not only the spine of the scheme along the River Taff is unfiltered, a number of the side streets are also unfiltered. A bicycle street really needs to have cycle traffic in excess of general traffic to work properly.

The north end of the Taff Embankment is accessed through a signalised junction which is perfect for getting people into and out of the potentially filterable area. The plan below shows the scheme area bounded in green, the signalised junction at the top circled in purple and the unfiltered streets circled in red (there are private alleyways, but these are gated);

The layout of the streets would make it very easy to complete filtering with just 2 or 3 other treatments. My personal feeling is that the Taff Embankment needs filtering as it does present a nice straight run for drivers which is (I think) the reason for putting in road humps across some of the junctions - and filtered would have been cheaper than humped junctions;

One other little thing which came up on the visit was a proposal for a crossing over Penarth Road which runs to the north of the area. The proposed scheme has the a parallel zebra crossing to the east of the junction with Blaenclydach Street which would help cross the road and connect with the already filtered Dinas Place opposite;

The photograph above shows the view from Blaenclydach Street - the crossing would be to the right of the junction. The obvious answer here would be to filter Blaenclydach Street and have the crossing centralised to meet Dinas Place as I have roughly sketched here;

The other benefit of filtering here would be to remove traffic from the junction of Blaenclydach Street and the Taff Embankment which is currently an apparent conflict point - the Taff Embankment has to currently give way to Blaenclydach Street which creates the issue.

It's a fantastic project from the point of view of storm water management and the bicycle street concept is good, but to be a truly great scheme in terms of active travel, I think there needs to be that final push to exclude through motor traffic. Who knows, the idea might catch on!

Greener Grangetown is impressive, just look at these statistics;

• 42,480m² of surface water being removed from the combined waste water network (the equivalent of 10 football pitches).
• An additional 1,600m² of green space (the equivalent of 4 basketball courts).
• The creation of Wales’ first ever ‘bicycle street’ along one of the busiest sections of the Taff Trail Active Travel route, slowing traffic by design and improving conditions for pedestrians and cyclists.
• Increased biodiversity – 135 new trees and thousands of shrubs and grasses planted.
• Creation of a community orchard.
• 26 new cycle stands.
• 12 new litter bins.
• 9 new seats and benches.
• Increased resident-only parking spaces.

Arup was the scheme designers and GreenBlue Urban were the specialist suppliers for the water management systems.

I shall leave you with a film of what it's like to ride around the area and next week, there will be a third and final Cardiff post.

Cycling Embassy of Great Britain AGM 2019: The Journey Is Starting In Cardiff - Part 1

Last week's blog post didn't get written because I had the pleasure of attending the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain's AGM. This year, we were in Cardiff.

What this means is there will be a double edition of the blog this week, starting with a look at the city's new cycleways. The current plan is to provide 5 new routes to connect people to the centre with (according to the published plans) a circular route linked them together in the city in the future.

What is possibly even more exciting is how these cycleways are just the start of some very dense work for the city as set out on its integrated network map which itself has come from the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 which to cut a long story short requires Welsh councils to develop and implement walking and cycling upgrades to a least a minimum standard.

Cardiff appears to have embraced it and is putting cycling at the heart of its development planning as the city knows it cannot accommodate more traffic. According to the draft cycling strategy, Cardiff will be 50-50 between cars and sustainable modes by 2026 with cycling being 18%. This is pretty ambitious stuff!

So, back to the cycleways. The first route which heads north out of the city centre has its first 1km under construction along Senghennydd Road which runs next to Cardiff University and Cathays Station and impressive it looks too as can be seen here in this image from the Council's scheme information with a works plan here;

So, what does it look like on the ground? Well, the huge wide road has plenty of space and plenty of space is being given over to the cycleway;

The 2-way cycle track is kerb-protected with the remaining carriageway still providing lots of space for parking and general traffic, with hopefully more of an inducement to stick to the city's extensive network of 20mph streets. At the junction of Senghennydd Road and St Andrew's Place, the scheme continues with a new (not quite finished) zebra crossing as it turns the corner;

Then on St Andrew's Place itself, some reworking of the street connects St. Andrews Crescent with Park Grove via some contraflow working and a parallel zebra crossing;

The route continues via St. Andrews Crescent and ends at the wonderfully named Stuttgarter Strasse which is a dual carriageway A-road, but can be crossed by using the existing toucan crossing, but unfortunately, that's where things stop and because the adjacent Windsor Place is one-way, it is not possible to continue into the city centre from this route. There clearly is work still to be done in that regard.

I'm not convinced about the use of corduroy tactile paving at the cycle crossing point on the parallel zebra crossing, but it is the same level as the footway, so I have to assume it's attempt to assist visually impaired people - I'm happy to be told it's helpful by those who need it of course.

Here's a little film of the work so far;

The other scheme for this week is a cycle track which has been built on North Road, or rather from some repurposed parking next to Bute Park. I had originally thought this was another Cycleway project, but it's not officially.

North Road is the A470 which eventually connects to the M4 and it's not somewhere you would wish to cycle. To the south, the route actually connects to a route through Bute Park and at the north, it joins an existing shared path which then goes back into the park. About half way along, one can cross North Road into Corbett Road.

A little further to the east, Corbett Road will become part of CW1 (when the next phase is built), but it does connect to the north end of Senghennydd Road via a toucan crossing. The crossing of North Road is via toucan crossings which isn't wonderful and Corbett Road isn't pleasant - unless you realise you are meant to use the shared footway and toucan, you can get caught by a left turn signal (see film below). This junction really should have had proper protected cycling space rather than lumping walking and cycling together.

However, there is the very start of a local network forming here and I hope Cardiff seizes the initiative and does some more local filtering with cycle tracks on the busier roads.

The photograph above is the cycle track as it crosses an entrance to Bute Park - this really should have been more engineered in favour of walking and cycling. On the day, there were event vehicles being taken into the park and so barriers rather than traffic marshals were used to slow people cycling down.

The photograph below shows how the space was actually won - it was taken from a long and skinny car park which runs along North Road (and they did take away parking spaces). The cycle track is left, then a footway stepped up and then the car park stepped down. North Road is to the right.

It would be usual to put the footway behind the cycle track and so here, I assume this was done the other way round so people getting out of cars and walking on would use the footway rather than the cycle track. You'll notice the bollard and in fact, the car park could have been used as a filtered service road, although the cycle track does of course avoid people driving in and out of parking spaces. I think it works well.

I'll leave you this time with a film of the scheme;

CROW Flow

For the first time in a very long time, I have been lucky enough to have had the chance to read lots of guidance and to catch up a little on designing for cycling.

This post was going to be a bit of a review of what is out there, but frankly, after getting more acquainted with the Dutch CROW Design Manual for Cycle Traffic, I thought this was worth concentrating on.

Luckily, the Dutch speak better English than I, so the manual is available in English, although you'll have to save up as it's €135 which is an eye-watering amount to spend. However, as an engineer, it's a cracking read (and I am still working through it) and I shall be rereading it a great deal.

"But, RH, we can't do this in the UK" I hear some of you cry. Well, traffic signals are awkward because the Dutch (and many other countries) have priority for ahead movements with right turners (UK left) having to give priority, although it is often the case that the Dutch don't rely on this because it is still risky - in this video, you'll see a combination of "hold the right (UK left) turn" on the main road and give way turning right on the side road where there isn't space for a turn right lane;

I digress slightly, because the CROW Manual spends lots of time on the principles and the UK can copy most of what's in there (although there are a couple of things we shouldn't copy).

We are constantly reminded that the design approach puts cycling ahead of motor traffic in many cases, but where it cannot, then alternatives can be used to keep the modes apart - I am thinking of grade separation at large roads where surface level crossings would be risky;

There is a clear message to the designer early on;

"Put yourself in the shoes of the cyclist as future user of the design, also taking into account vulnerable groups of cyclists, such as children and the elderly".

The manual is no-nonsense throughout and it sets out to demonstrate that cycling is a very important transport mode for the Dutch and that it should be put at the heart of design. We are also constantly reminded of the 5 principles of cycling design;

• Cohesion,
• Directness,
• Safety,
• Comfort,
• Attractiveness,

These 5 principles are constantly reinforced throughout the manual both in how each chapter is structured - the design chapters are set out in such a way that each principle is a sub-heading to be explained and there are regular summaries. In addition, there is a whole section at the end of the manual which provide example layouts and other advice which are referred to throughout the whole document which helps to give understanding and practical visualisation.

The overall chapters are logically set out too;

• The development of bicycle traffic (essentially Dutch policy),
• Cycle-friendly design (more general policy and how it fits together at a high level),
• Basic data (the 5 principles, design speed, design cycle, dynamic considerations),
• Design of the cycle network (network planning using the 5 principles),
• Road sections (i.e. 'links' from a UK point of view),
• Junctions,
• Implementation, maintenance and furnishings (planting, lighting, signage etc),
• Evaluation and management (including winter service),
• Design sheets.

For something so elegantly written, it is very hard to explain to someone who hasn't read it just how easy to read and apply the manual is and so you are going to have to believe me, but perhaps it can be best described as "flowing" in the same way that cycling should be designed for.

One of the (several) points I have picked up is the one that suggests that every time we ask someone cycling to stop, we require them to expend the same energy as cycling 100m. Thinking back to my old commute of 5.6km, I would have to stop at least 8 times; more when giving way at every side road; so I would have to expend another 800m worth of energy or 14% more.

If you are able to afford or borrow a copy of the manual, I thoroughly recommend it and certainly, it needs to be in every design consultant or local authority design team's technical library.

Rural Transport - Harwich vs Hulst

Whilst driving between Clacton-on-Sea and Harwich yesterday, I was reminded how badly let down our rural communities are when it comes to transport. 

In contrast with many parts of the UK I have to regularly remind myself that although London is vast, it has a great transport system and it's really not too difficult to get around. But, our trip was London to Clacton to Harwich and back home to London, so car it was. Part of out trip included the B1414 which happens to be NCN51;

It's a route which essentially runs parallel to the A120 between Colchester and Harwich port. By car, the recommended route via the A120 is 29km and the NCN51 is about 30km - it's therefore not in commuter territory, although it does connect up a number of villages and once one is within 7km of Harwich port, it would in theory help people travel to Harwich from the villages of Great Oakley and Little Oakley - perhaps 30 minutes by cycle.

However, there is absolutely nothing to make cycling pleasant and indeed possible for most people. The cycle route is essentially just a series of signs to guide you along the twisty lanes, many with a national speed limit. As I cruised the route from the safety and comfort of the car, I saw one person cycling on a section of narrow footway and that was it.

Compare with the Dutch town of Hulst in South Zeeland at the same scale;

Routes galore providing easy access by cycle, not because there are more of them, because they are high quality. Hulst has the N290 skirting it, taking longer distance traffic around the town as Harwich has the A120 skirting it (with a connection to the port of course). But whereas NCN51 is just signs, the cycle routes around Hulst have cycle tracks like this (on a section running by the side of the N290);

It also has traffic calmed and quiet village streets;

From what I can work out, both towns have a number of bus routes serving them, although not that frequently. They also have plenty of people driving to them if you look at their respective town centres and parking availability. But if the bus doesn't suit you or help you, then it's really the car or nothing to get to Harwich from the local villages. 

Meanwhile, Hulst has got the ultimate turn-up and go mode designed in to its road network and parking is free as well. We have so far to go and given Harwich is one of our gateways to the Netherlands it's embarrassing.