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news
HS2 animation (via YouTube)MPs ask Transport Minister to build HS2 cycleway in full
All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group members Ruth Cadbury and Lilian Greenwood have written to Transport Minister Andrew Stephenson asking him to commit to building a cycleway along the full route of HS2. The Department for Transport (DfT) has so far said only that plans for cycle routes at 11 points on the route are being “refined”.
In June 2015, then cycling minister Robert Goodwill told road.cc that a cycle network would be built around HS2. He said it wouldn't be the long distance cycle track suggested by Boris Johnson but a network of routes developed from existing bridleways and footpaths.
The government later published a study which looked at the possibility of building a national cycleway along the route of the HS2 railway. However, a cover note suggested it would be down to local authorities whether anything actually got built.
Compounding this lack of commitment, the Government failed to tell HS2 Ltd to ensure new bridges and tunnels crossing the rail line were safe and attractive for cyclists and walkers. Cycling UK said that HS2 was “penny pinching” on the costs of tunnels and bridges and called its commitment to cycle-proofing the project “pathetic”.
Writing to Stephenson this week, Cadbury and Greenwood said that an HS2 cycleway was a chance to connect villages and towns where private cars are currently seen as the only viable travel option and where local roads will be cut as a result of the rail line.
The two MPs argue that the environmental, public health and economic case for such a project is clear.
“A feasibility study commissioned by your department on the subject found that full implementation of the plans would lead to health, congestion and economic benefits of between £3 and £8 per £1 spent. As we look towards emerging from the pandemic and repairing the vast economic damage, we must take every opportunity for economic growth and investment that our communities need.
“A cycleway will help build rural cycle networks and also bring new opportunities for both domestic and international tourism.
“Although it was reassuring to hear that plans to build cycle routes at 11 points along HS2 are being ‘refined’, with £1.4m allocated, we would be grateful if you could provide further clarity on your department’s commitment to implementing the cycleway in full.
“Naturally, to create a cycle network around the Phase 1 route of HS2 will cost significantly more than £1.4m and require additional Government investment in line with the Prime Minister’s cycling ambitions.”
Cadbury and Greenwood concluded by requesting more information about the 11 “key sites” where cycle routes are planned as well as confirmation that the work will adhere to the Government’s recent guidance.
They also suggest repurposing the haul roads used by construction vehicles to build the railway line as cycling and walking routes.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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13 comments
The cycle routes really should have been 'cemented' in the HS2 plans from the start.. I'm not sure people who don't live near the route realise the sheer destruction that constructing HS2 is has caused thus far.
To construct this 19 meter wide two track railway line, the construction companies have mown down an approximate 300 meter swathe the whole length, add into that all access roads and that's a hell of a lot of hedges, trees, ancient woodland and wildlife been destroyed/removed. It has changed the countryside near me forever.
Previously I was all for an infrastructure upgrade to the railway line when they were talking about including the cycle lane (before it was finalised). Despite the ridiculous costs bandied about, simply because as a country we need some new infrastructure, right.. however, seeing it firsthand and the sheer waste of cash and destruction the construction companies have done, I'm now firmly on the opposite side of the fence, the HS2 line is shameful, akin to Sheffields tree massacre a couple of years ago, where a Labour council had agreed for 17,500 street trees to be removed as part of a highways improvement scheme by a contractor.
I organised a Petition in the Bucks Council website in December 2020 asking for support for a Cycleway from Wendiver to Chalfont St Peter to alleviate the heavy traffic caused by HS2 sites along the A413. We had 527 people support the petition.
The first stage of the Misbourne Greenway from Wendover to Great Missenden has received conditional planning permission - but it is now bogged down by a dispute on a unused footpath and undated level crossing. It is unlikely construction will be able to begin for at least a year.
Whilst the onus for the construction of these independent stages lies with local councils there is no overwhelming desire to move things quickly.
We need ministerial action to get things moving.
Scrap the railway, just build the cycle route?
You beat me to it!
There will have to be large roads built for construction over most of the route, some of this could be left as a cycle route once building has finished surely. Not a huge amount of cost there either.
Tunnels would create a little more difficulty but with a bit of planning a route over or around the hill could be used, there must already be some there.
Possibly, but if they don't go where cyclists want or need to go, it's just a leisure route to the track side. We need considered cycle networks that meet leisure and utility routes.
100 billion on the rail route (it'll go up of course) and 1.4 million on some sub standard cycle paths which may not even get built?
As usual it has nothing to do with money available and everything to do with political will.
They keep telling us that HS2 is incredibly green (it isn't) but then cut the funding for the actual green transport. We need a new word for this level of bare-faced lying; hypocrisy doesn't really cut it any more.
HS2 is costing somewhere north of £100bn and has no economic case. The economic case for cycling is proven and it gets £1.4m?
EDIT: I posted this on fb and some kind soul gave me the word for something so vile even hypocrisy didn't cover it; tory.
Labour wouldn't do any different, in fact the Blair years coincided with enormous road construction and I don't recall any cycle route expansion. Remember 'mondeo man'?
If anything the news story says it all, transport is meant to link places hence railway lines join other lines. Meanwhile when constructing cycle lanes they do the opposite and make piecemeal parts that don't link, no wonder they are underused. After all how many people would use HS2 if it didn't link to central London?
Tony Blair wasn't standing at the last General Election, and it's false to say that Labour wouldn't do any different.
They had a very ambitious programme of investment, building 5,000km of cycleways, and safe active travel routes to 10,000 primary schools.
Political opinions are fine, but they should be based on the facts.
That maybe true but I'd rather judge a political party of what it's done instead of what promises that may be broken. I live in Manchester (which has been labour since the war). They have made virtually no investment in cycling in that time, whilst plowing huge roads through the city. This is replicated in many other cities in the UK.
I don't affiliate with either major party but I don't think one has ever shown any greater leadership than the other in terms of cycling infrastructure.
Interspersed with roars of laughter my lady has just told me the results of a survey that asked who is the most effective opposition to the government.
Top of the poll was that well known strategic thinker Marcus Rashford, followed closely by the towering intellect that is Piers Morgan.
Her Majesty's official opposition, the Labour party, came eighth. Give me strength.
I for one, am astonished. As high as eighth?
There is no opposition, save perhaps for Caroline Lucas, and she is the proverbial lone voice crying in the wilderness. It would be a very different story if we had proportional representation, not this fake democracy of first past the post.