Suffolk Council currently have a consultation for the Nacton Road and Ransomes Way corridors “to meet the projected increase in traffic associated with development in this corridor”. However they haven’t considered cycle traffic. Cycle traffic currently has narrow cycle lanes, or shared use pavement cycling. See our discussion on our Cyclescape group and on our Google group.
The nearby Ravenswood estate (just to the south of the Nacton Road) has one of the highest cycle to school rates in the UK, yet the people who live there don’t cycle to the nearby shopping area due to the inconvenient and scary cycle journey that you have to take. The new plans make this even worse.
Please can everyone write to Suffolk County by emailing Suffolk.LTP@suffolk.gov.uk before the end of Wednesday 5th March 2014, highlighting the problems that their plans pose for cyclists and pedestrians. Here are some general things that you can mention:
- Mixing cyclists and pedestrians on the pavement doesn’t encourage large numbers of people to cycle thus should be avoided. If shared pavement cycling encouraged more people to cycle, then there would be a huge number of people cycling in Ipswich compared to what there currently is. A separate cycle track is much preferred.
- Tighter corners are needed to slow vehicles down on the junction to make it safer.
- Dog leg crossings need to be replaced with straight across crossing, otherwise cyclists and pedestrians are treated as second class citizens and discourages people from walking and cycling instead of driving.
- Crossing multiple traffic lanes is currently problematic at many junctions already, the new plans will make this even more inconvenient and harder with up to 3 lanes.
- The new designs will induce even more motor vehicle traffic and reduce cycle and pedestrian traffic.
Shaun McDonald has published a blog post containing his response, which you can use as further inspiration.