Not Invented In Norwich

A couple of weeks back I had the afternoon off and jumped on a train to Norwich to give a talk at the Norwich Cycling Campaign's AGM called "Not Invented Here". 

At some point, I will produce a video of me talking through the slides, but until I do, you can download them from my business website, City Infinity*. 

The title of the talk came from discussions with Peter at the campaign about a bit of frustration they had with the city council's approach to design which had a whiff of solutions being shunned as they weren't the way the city did things. Amusingly, I have been hearing the same for well over a decade and so it was nice to present solutions from across the UK which are routinely deployed. 

OK, I had one slide talking about Middenweg in Amsterdam, but that was more about what can be done on a 20 metre wide arterial road (above).

Anyway, there was time for a pootle around the city with Peter before it got dark and I availed myself of one of the Beryl e-cycles forming part of the city's cycle and e-scooter hire scheme. Unlocking is either by tapping your phone on the cycle's keypad or entering a code provided from the app into the keypad and you're away. 

The system has the clever stuff on the cycles and while you can lock them to a cable at the docks, the system is geofenced so you can just park up at the docking area. One issue I did have was a flat front tyre as we hit the furthest place out of the city that we rode which required a walk to find a dock and another cycle - there is definitely a need for a denser network of docks on the outskirts!

Norwich isn't as flat as you might think and so the e-cycle was great fun to use, although most of the city was no more hilly than most urban UK places, so it was more of a luxury and perhaps at an overall price aimed at short hops. The first place we looked at was the city centre which has a fair amount of filtering and access-loops such as King Street (above) which creates some really nice places to cycle.

The pedestrianised parts of the city centre almost always allow cycling such as the historic London Street (above), which on 17th July 1967 became the first shopping street in the UK to be pedestrianised and you can watch footage of the opening ceremony.

There has been some pedestrianisation around Norwich Market. Gentleman's Walk (above) runs to the east of the market and from what I can find, the area has had controls on motor traffic the 1970s. It is also part of a long running Alan Partridge joke and less amusingly, the scene of mass driver ignorance which led to further controls being removed. It is all the more annoying because the city has a complete inner ring road which really should allow it to go even further than it has done.

Despite the pedestrianisation, there are some larger roads running through the city centre area such as Prince of Wales Road (above). It forms part of a local gyratory of one-way traffic streets. It has a narrowish cycle track (complete with silly tree placement). It is also only intended to be one-way contraflow to traffic which makes it less useful, although many people were using it two-way and apparently the area is actually a shared-use path!

The junction with St Vedast Street is however riskily laid out. Drivers coming towards cycle traffic peel off right (from their perspective) under the control of signals, whereas cyclists are presented with worn give way markings. This should be a signalised crossing running in parallel with the signalised pedestrian crossing which is right next to it (above). It actually felt safer cycling the wrong way because you could see the red signal to traffic. This area really needs a two-way cycle track and if the street is to be for movement, then some of the on-street parking needs to make way.

As we headed out of the city, we picked up NCN1 which took us through St Georges Street (above) which was another cycle-friendly pedestrianised street, part of a wider pedestrianised and low traffic area. What I liked about the design was that it hinted at both the historic layout and perhaps where people should cycle. It may not have been designed that way, but it worked that way.

NCN1 is also on one of the city's "pedalways", a network of colour-coded routes which provide arterials to and from the city and a couple of orbitals (the inner and outer circuits). The red pedalway includes the Marriotts Way (above) which is a longer distance between Drayton and Whitlingham via the city centre.

We were cycling northwest out of the city and the first section of the route was lit; and in general, it's flat grade and a fairly decent width which belied it being a former railway with hints of its use with occasional heritage features. It also connects to local housing and industrial areas. Further on and the lighting ends, but the route has recently been improved with a crossing over Hellesdon Road (above) and a new section of surfaced path, although it soon became gravel and less useful for transport. This is where my front tyre started to deflate!

Feet took over and we walked around 2.5km further west through the Clover Hill neighbourhood to west of the city and we had a looked at some older walking and cycling layouts through the middle of Clover Hill which provide a spine through the neighbourhood (above). It was a mixture of direct access to homes, links to cul-de-sacs and places which were  bit unloved - this really could and should be comprehensively refurbished as it is useful. I then picked up a new hire cycle and we headed off on wheels once more. 

We were heading for a look at Dereham Road, but before we got there, we picked up the Mayfly Way which is a local walking, wheeling and cycling route through the Chapel Break neighbourhood. It's of its age and quite narrow (the cycle tracks are two-way), but it features stepped cycle tracks with almost forgiving kerbs (they're at 45° and a bit high), floating bus stops (above) and grade separation (below).

This area is 1970s to 1990s vintage, but someone had ideas of how to build active mode networks, even if they didn't push the boat out on width and making it more extensive.

Part of the Mayfly Way has had some significant and recent improvement works which included the acquisition of land to provide a really good walking, wheeling and cycling route. It features a stepped cycle track and parallel crossings such as at Barnard Road (above) providing longer links and access between residential and employment sites in Bowthorpe with a connection to Dereham Road to the north.

The A1074 Dereham Road is a main arterial traffic route connecting to the A47 trunk road to the west of Norwich to the city centre, with the A47 forming part of an unfinished outer ring road. There are plans to finish it, but they are highly controversial.

Dereham Road is currently being updated as part of the English Transforming Cities Fund programme and the Mayfly Way plugs into it at the junction with Richmond Road. From a cycling perspective, the project creates some local links via a two-way cycle track on Dereham Road. The project also uses some local service roads including Breckland Road (above) which bypasses a large roundabout. 

The layout is a mixture of separate and shared space and unfortunately, some of the detailing is quite poor in terms of the surface quality and the complete lack of radius kerbs as can be seen above. It also has everything in black asphalt which very much hints at having to get the project down to a price.

There has been an attempt at cycling priority at the side streets, but they suffer from layouts that suggest priority for both cycling and driving which really isn't clear enough. The junction above is with Stafford Avenue which should have had the cycle crossing bent out from Dereham Road. Instead, there has been an attempt to ask drivers to give way as they turn into the side street with the result of having the give way marking on the wrong side of the junction if viewed from the side street. What an astonishing decision.

The eastern extent of the project ends at Gurney Road where cyclists have to move to a shared bus lane to head into the city (eastbound) with zero provision for them westbound and so the works will only really be of value to those cycling between the communities on both sides of Dereham Road which is important, if rather limited in vision. The way to access the city centre is through other residential areas to pick up the red pedalway (NCN1).

Time and daylight were against us and so I won't cover the debacle at the Colney Lane roundabout because Norwich Cycling Campaign are all over it. I will add that they are 100% right to be upset at what has been done to degrade walking, wheeling and cycling safety here.

Our city-bound route back took us to a couple more oddities. First was on The Avenues (above) which is an important link between the city and the hospital and university, forming part of the pink pedalway.

It's a curious interpretation of one of the Dutch approaches to cycle lanes on roads which haven't been upgraded to either actual protection or filtering, expect they would surface the cycle lanes in red. It operates by showing the space cycle traffic needs and with drivers sticking to the centre area and only moving into the lanes when there is oncoming traffic. 

It actually felt fairly comfortable, but it's not for everyone and it is only there because the city abandoned a cycle track project a few years ago because of the costs associated with having to be careful with the trees on the street. It's a classic British problem where trees are ultimately more precious than humans and in which we simply cannot look to the long term where we might have to replace some very fine and locally loved trees, but in which the next generation will benefit from both trees and protected space. I find my stance continually hardening on this.

The final thing to mention from our cycle around the city is the traffic sign I spotted on Christchurch Road, just round the corner from the Avenues. Perhaps I have been delving into historical design approaches for too long, but I immediately recognised it as the remnants of an experimental advance stop line programme which saw the stop lines separately controlled, and which I covered in this post about cycle gates. Apart from being a piece of design history, the sign cannot be original which means that at some point it has just been replaced rather than abandoned and in this case, I was very pleased!

My talk in the evening was designed to lift the spirits of the Norfolk Cycling Campaign by showing them the best of the UK, but far from things not being invented in Norwich, there are examples of innovation all over, dating back to London Street in 1967. I think I said at the AGM, the city has all of the parts, it's just not always using them in the right order. I'll be going back to have a look at the north and east of the city at some point, but when it is a little warmer! Thanks to the campaign for their hospitality

* Since May 2024, City Infinity became my full time job after being made redundant. Don't worry, this is not a call for a donation, but if you like what I write, please recommend me to your local authority as I am sure I can help them improve their projects. My services are on my website and I (fortunately) have a growing list of clients and collaborations.