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news
Halifax cycle lane (image credit: Amjid Khan/Twitter)Council blames "design error" as new 30m-long cycle lane blocked by lamppost causes ridicule
Residents have been left baffled by a new cycle lane that has opened in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and is just 30 metres long, abruptly starts at a pedestrian crossing and is blocked by a lamppost...
The far from innovative infrastructure can be found at King Cross as part of the A58 Corridor Improvement Programme to improve the route between the M62 at Ryburn to Halifax.
However, the lane's grand reveal has prompted ridicule online and bewilderment in the streets, with Calderdale Council, who worked with West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s West Yorkshire Plus Transport Fund on the scheme, admitting problems with design errors.
A council spokesperson told The Yorkshire Post "the cycleway is bi-directional as marked and is designed to national guidance" but did not address the impracticality of the 30m route which would take just seconds to cross, and may see riders wait longer to access the lane at the pedestrian crossing than actually ride across it.
"Unfortunately, errors and omissions on the design drawings which should have been corrected during construction mean there is currently a lamp column located in the cycle lane and the lane itself is marked up to the adjacent zebra crossing. We are currently working with our contractors to relocate the lamp column and remove the incorrect cycle lane markings," a spokesperson said.
"We're aware at the moment the cycleway looks somewhat disjointed, but as work progresses we're confident that this will link with other improvements to provide a positive contribution to travel in the area."
Liberal Democrat councillor James Baker expressed disappoinntment at the safety issues, namely the lamppost and abrupt end at a pedestrian crossing, saying: "There are good examples of cycling infrastructure around the country, sadly this isn't one of them."
"What's frustrating is many councillors will ask for improvements only to be told there is no money, then stuff like this goes ahead. It kind of makes a mockery that there is any real local democracy or say over what happens," he said.
Baker's Lib Dem colleague Cllr Paul Bellenger admitted "even as a councillor for Calderdale I shake my head at this and wonder 'whose idea it was and what their thought process was?'"
Writing to the Halifax Courier, a former Calderdale councillor who also claims to be a cyclist said: "We have got a new 30 metre, yes you read it right 30 metre, cycle lane in King Cross. You can imagine hundreds of people riding up and down this lane getting fit and shedding pounds.
"Seriously what a sad state of affairs for the people of Halifax."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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35 comments
Whomever thinks the lighting column is the problem there isn't paying attention.
The presence of give ways at the tactiles is wrong. Segregated bi directional butting up to the crossing is wrong, should start off shared then go segregated, which means the warning paving further down is wrong, looks like 800 repeaters, there should be 2400 of it at the start. (you also wouldn't need repeaters for a 30m long stretch) I'll assume signage is there somewhere.
The lighting column I can actually forgive - that may have been a site decision. It could have been in the footway on the drawings but if they can't install it on site they'll just put it at the closest location they can (existing utilities are never where they're supposed to be). Its also possible the cycleway designers had any say in the lighting - often a local authority will have a contract with a power company to do the lighting (SSE do all of Leeds). They may comment on it but have no power to force them to change anything although they usually do.
Had a quick look but I can't find the designers for this package A58 of works. I know AECOM are doing the A629 works in the city centre. Edit - found some drawings from Atkins as part of the business case so they may have followed it through.
This wasn't due to a design error. It was due to the stupidity and rank incompetence of a number of people tasked with the design, review, sign off and build of this waste of building material.
Part of the problem with that one is the location's an oldfashioned "shopping street" which is now mostly takeaways and cafes &c which generates lots of short visits, and everybody travels by car now instead of bus. So the formal parking isn't enough and there's lots of adhoc parking on pavements, bus stops, crossing zigzags, &c.
So far I haven't seen anybody parked in the bike lane itself, but I went to have a look at the bike lane and there's a short stretch where there's just wide pavement with no markings, and somebody had parked a van right in the middle of that.
The rest of the street is not cyclist-friendly because of the chaotic parking.
To their credit, the council have tried lots of interventions on that street, but each intervention they make reduces the number of formal parking spaces, and putting down some more paint or a different kerb increases the chances of somebody putting a Range Rover on it diagonally. Whilst keeping the engine running so they can tell themselves "I'm not actually parked, just paused here for a minute to collect dinner". Instead of faffing about with a short stretch of bike lane I think something more "naked street" might work better, plus some of those protruding bus stops (what's the name for that?). It would allow twice as many "official" parking spaces, reduce chaotic parking, slow down through traffic, reduce the number of idling cars, and make the whole street (not just those few metres of painted cycle lane) more friendly to buses and cyclists. And maybe also reduce the mysterious problem where everybody using the disabled parking space has forgotten to put their blue badge on the dashboard but it's OK cos they're just nipping into the vape shop for a minute.
Just out of sight of that photo is a complex, fast-moving road junction where the only change the council's made in recent years is putting up signs saying how many casualties there have been in recent years. I'm a confident cyclist but I would be terrified of riding through that junction.
And drivers complain about cyclists not using cycle lanes....
Labour run council. Enough said.
Are you lonely?
Nigel seems to believe that spelling god with a capital G will get him into heaven, yet his heart is filled with bitterness.
I'll give Martin73 his due, he puts effort into his trolling, Nigel just spews out the same old same old. He's already back on deriding fat people so I'd give him another 48 hours before he gets back to posting his racist crap and gets banned again.
I think Martin73 has some actual strongly-held beliefs - and has explained these - so I do sometimes engage. (Plus it sounds like they're the one cyclist in a household / family of very pro-motoring types).
Nigels appeared to be more "for the lolz".
Flintshire Lad seems to be written by two people or operates in two modes. Mostly runs in "chorus" mode but occasionally comes out with an actual meaningful observation about the article or even reply to others.
At least they didn't spell it "Lay-baaaaah" like certain persons on here...
Because Tory-run governments are sooooooo much better?
Yes, of course. Look at what they've done for the country over the past 12 years; massive increase in food banks, huge increase in children living in poverty, NHS on its knees, social services underfunded and failing people, councils starved of funds so potholes don't get fixed, nurses going on strike, more drilling for oil etc, etc; the list of their achievements is endless.
But none of those matter as we've got lots more billionaires.
At least with the Tory-led austerity measures, our country's finances are in tip-top shape. World-beating, I believe.
They're both dreadful parties, devoid of ideas and completely disconnected from their voters.
If you see cycling provision as a red vs blue issue, have a rethink.
I'm starting to think that we should have a maximum voting age to go along with the minimum age. Once you hit 60, voting rights should be only allowed for people that can pass a "with-it" test (e.g. correct understanding of modern terminology and technology - maybe being able to identify fake/misleading information). There's a clear problem with older people suffering from dementia and cognitive decline, so we should recognise that they may not be able to make effective decisions in the same way that young people are recognised for making poor decisions even though some young people can be surprisingly mature for their age.
Can't have that - then lots of our politicians would clearly not be able to vote (examples too numerous to mention).
Then... there's the House of Lords. ("A man dreamt he was making a speech in the Lords and woke to find it was true").
I think there's a lot to be said for having experience in the House of Lords, but that experience needs to be allied with critical thinking and knowledge of the real world. One advantage of having old people in the House of Lords is that they can be truly independant and deal with each issue on its own merit, but it does seem to me that recently there's been a slew of knightships handed out for being a loyal toady which is the opposite of what's good for the country.
Well, they seem to go bankrupt quicker...
I had hoped with LTN1/20 and ATE (Ombusman/Boardman) we had saw the end of building such cr@p 👎
Yes. It sounds as though it was funded by West Yorkshire Combined Authority, so ATE probably had no involvement.
WYCA are usually quite good but not in this case.
Design error? Why are they all like that?
Well, I suppose it's good that they have admitted that they got it wrong, unlike so many other councils who just ignore any complaints and imply that the cyclists should be grateful for the crap they inflict on us.
But who conceived it, who designed it, to what standards and who signed it off? This isn't just one random person getting it wrong, it's a whole department; kind of depressing really.
Well it is crap really. On the other hand this is being done by people at a whole group of levels to whom this is shockingly new and for whom "make it like you always have" has been impressed upon them for their career. So what's blindingly obvious to us may well be "but the guv'nor said to keep the two posts...".
It shouldn't be difficult - we've got some fairly detailed documentation in the approved manual now and this is not too bad (far above most current UK standard stuff). Unfortunately this is a) still "guidance" and b) when it comes to anything other than the main carriageway it seems that there's been little pressure to do anything other than "do what you can; it's the bits left over after we did the cars so we don't really much mind what you end up with".
Although latest directives around funding mention "standards" there still seems to be an expectation of "just let different places do this as they see fit - they'll know best". Strangely we don't do this with the roads, or railways...
If it was me I'd just get the Ranty Highwayman to design the lot but he might be at capacity already.
Maybe we can send them a copy of the Suffolk design guide for streets, apparently a first of its kind document https://labmonline.co.uk/news/suffolk-county-council-adopts-new-streets-...
eburtthebike you are so right with his on every level, this design has (or at least should have been) been skeched out , drafted, checked, redrafted, checked again, signed by a senior engineer, been sent to tender with multiple contractors, redesigned, signed off, contract awarded then actually built.
This is not a simple design error, it a sytems failure somewhere down the line, sytems either wrong/overloaded/ignored/completly unfit for purpose
...and not forgetting "at no point speak to a cyclist during the process, just wait for the ungrateful buggers to complain once built".
Why don't councils just employ an old surly cyclist that can cast an eye over the designs and laugh at the rubbish ones? They probably don't need to even employ a specific person, just grab any nearby cyclist and ask them whether they think a lamppost should be in a cycle path.
Unfortunately, whilst eminently qualified, having recently retired I am no longer available to be that Old Surly Cyclist. (Is there a 'Taliban' for that?)
Your second point reminds me of a friend 'accidentally' shopping in a Gucci store. 'If you need to ask you shouldn't be here.'
I went shopping yesterday, to an actual shop, to buy a jumper for my partner. It was all organised by brand, so was really hard work. I can only assume that the target market goes shopping to buy a Gucci or a Boss or something, rather than thinking "I need another jumper".
I recognised your experience. Turns out I'm (a certain kind of) male too. (This is probably leading into another "bike store / parts bin / tools" thread).
My wife can't understand when I say that I refuse to shop in TKMaxx. I try to explain that I want to be able to go to the shop, see the item I want, select the right size and then leave. All as quickly as possible.
Clothes shopping is not a leisure activity. I don't care about the brand so much, and I don't want to spend an afternoon 'browsing' through some sort of overpriced jumble sale...
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