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Warrington Borough LTP 2001-2006
Implications for Cycling

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Summary

The Government has funded the borough council's entire Local Transport Plan bid. £33 million will be spent on transport in and around Warrington over the next five years. The proposals include significant progress towards establishing a borough wide cycle network.

A bypass at Bridgefoot and a new Urban Traffic Management and Control system will share £11 million. The remaining £22 million will be invested into improving public transport, pedestrian, school and cyclist routes, the structural maintenace of roads and bridges and the creation of new traffic management schemes. We will have plenty of work trying to prevent the big schemes harming cycling, and also helping to ensure that the positively cycle friendly schemes are carried out well.

Centre of Excellence

Warrington Borough Council has been named as a ‘Centre of Excellence’ for Integrated Transport Planning for the duration of their first full LTP (2001/02 to 2005/06). Judges specifically praised the council’s commitment and enthusiasm to take forward the Government’s integrated transport agenda at a local level.

Ministers are keen to see that COEs are delivering improvements in transport. COEs will have robust targets and indicators and rigorous monitoring to measure progress against them, based on the annual LTP progress reports.

Transport Minister Keith Hill said "I am delighted to designate Warrington Borough Council a Centre of Excellence for Integrated Transport Planning. I was very impressed with Warrington’s local transport plan and this recognition is well deserved. I look forward to seeing the plan becoming reality."

Warrington Borough Council will now take a key role in helping other councils across develop equally strong local transport plans and be used as an example of best practice.

Targets

4: Implement 35 Safe Routes to School schemes by 2006
5: Implement 90 Safe Routes to School schemes by 2010
22: Reduce cycle casualties by 40% by 2010
37: (CT1) Increase in the overall modal share of cycle trips in Warrington to 10% by 2006
38: (CT2) Increase in the overall modal share of children cycling to school to 20% by 2006

Policies

Technically, the formal Mode Hierarchy places cyclists above private cars and motorcycles and below pedestrians and buses. However, in practice, any scheme that provided for cyclists at the expense of general traffic would face formidable political obstacles.

The council's adopted Cycle Strategy is an excellent document with many good policies that, if followed, would make a big difference for cyclists. To date application of these policies has been patchy so we will need evidence of actual implementation of the strategy rather than a statement of good intent. In particular, we are interested to see progress in the following:

CP1: Wherever possible, measures to make the use of existing roads safe and convenient for cyclists will be implemented in preference to segregation.
CP3: The route network will achieve high standards of coherence, directness, safety, attractiveness and comfort, and design criteria…The council will adhere to national design guidance contained within the IHT/DOT/CTC/Bicycle Association publication: Cycle Friendly Infrastructure, Guidelines for Planning and Design (1996) and Sustrans National Cycle Network Guidelines and Practical Details (1997).
CP7: All Land-Use and Highway development proposals will include a cycle audit
CP14: The council will adopt cycle parking design standards to ensure that cycle parking facilities are sufficient in number, secure and accessible
CP18: The council will endeavour to increase the number of schools and pupils taking part in cycle training and road safety education.
CP23: The council will ensure that sufficient expertise among a wide range of staff within the relevant departments to enable the effective implementation of cycle policy.

Programmes

Twelve Cycle Routes are proposed. Eventually these routes will form the backbone of a cycle route network for Warrington. Rightly, priority has been given to routes radiating from the town centre. They should all connect to the "inner circulatory road" cycle route, which should be implemented during 2000-2001. The routes are:

Warrington town centre to: Winwick
Orford
Croft & Culcheth
Birchwood & Gorse Covert
Padgate & Woolston Grange
Woolston
Latchford & Grappenhall
Lymm
Stockton Heath & Stretton
Walton & Daresbury
Sankey Bridges, Great Sankey & Penketh
Old Hall, Westbrook, Urban Village & Burtonwood

We are concerned that resources (£1.7M over 5 years) may be spread a bit thinly, particularly as Warrington has a record of poorly designed cycle facilities that fail to conform even to minimum standards. It will be important to monitor the quality of provision on these routes.

Cycle Parking is proposed for "various locations" to cover main destinations.

The proposed Bus Priority Measures on A5060 Chester Road, A49 Wilderspool Causeway, A5061/A50 Knutsford Road and A57 Manchester Road will form parts of some of the cycle routes listed above and should help cyclists so long as lane widths are sufficient.

Safe Routes to School and Local Safety schemes should help to fill in some of the local connections to the cycle network. These are likely to have a greater impact in the 2006-2010 period.

The Highway Maintenance Strategy contains the objective to "address the special needs of vulnerable road users, such as cyclists" Roads that are important cycle routes gain points in the maintenance assessment framework. Applying cycle audit procedures will be the key to ensuring that highway maintenance schemes deliver improvements for cyclists.

Bridgefoot Bypass Major Scheme

The claims that cyclists would be helped by this proposal are a bit wide of the mark. While it is true that Bridgefoot is a major obstacle (one of the worst in Warrington in fact), cyclists arriving from the south can currently avoid the Bridgefoot gyratory by crossing the river using the blue bridge from Brian Bevan Island (i.e. the proposed route of the bypass, which is now very quiet). The scheme is likely cause considerable extra severance for cyclists, particularly at Brian Bevan Island due to conflicting cycle-vehicle manoeuvres (right hand turns). Careful design will be needed to minimise the dis-benefits to cyclists. It will be important to apply the policies in the cycle strategy and the mode hierarchy, and to consult the cycle campaign.

Road Traffic Reduction Act (RTRA) Report

The traffic reduction target is rather less ambitious than implied. The target is for traffic growth to 2006 of only 1% less than that predicted for a "do-minimum" unconstrained traffic growth. This is assumed almost entirely to be due to a modal shift from car to public transport. The RTRA report seems to assume that not only will the cycling modal share targets fail to be met, but that cycling will actually account for a slightly lower modal share of journeys than under a "do-minimum" strategy. If the cycling modal share target of 10% were to be included in the calculations this would result in a target for a reduction in traffic volumes rather than just a slightly lower rate of growth.

Links

Warrrington LTP 2001-2006 http://www.warrington.gov.uk/LTP/
Warrington Cycle Strategy http://www.ben.lukey.care4free.net/reports/wbc-cyclestrat.doc
Proposlals Map http://www.warrington.gov.uk/LTP/PDFs/Proposals.pdf
Cycle Plan http://www.warrington.gov.uk/LTP/PDFs/CyclePlan.pdf
Centre of Excellence Bid http://www.warrington.gov.uk/LTP/PDFs/LTPDocuments/CoE Final.pdf
DETR Guidance on Full Local Transport Plans http://www.local-transport.detr.gov.uk/fulltp/
Cycle Campaign Comment on Provisional LTP 2000/1-2004/5 http://www.ben.lukey.care4free.net/reports/ltpcomment.doc
Cycle Campaign Comments on the Interim LTP http://www.ben.lukey.care4free.net/reports/ltpcomment.html
List of Cycle Routes http://www.ben.lukey.care4free.net/reports/numbered-routes.html
Inner Circulatory Cycle Route http://www.ben.lukey.care4free.net/reports/towncentre.html

Updated 14th February 2001
Pete Owens
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