Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Cycle paths at risk under government plans to restore disused railway lines

Sustrans urges Department for Transport to safeguard routes now used by cyclists and walkers

Cycle paths along the routes of disused rail lines may be under threat after the government said that it is considering restoring some lines that were axed half a century ago for use by trains. Sustrans has urged the government to protect the status of lines now given over to cyclists and pedestrians.

In its new rail strategy, published today, the Department for Transport said it would “look at opportunities to restore capacity lost under Beeching and British Rail cuts of the 1960s and 1970s, where this enables new housing or economic development, or eases congestion elsewhere on the transport system, and offers value for money.”

The Beeching cuts in particular led to the closure of thousands of miles of railway lines throughout Great Britain, though some have reopened to rail traffic in recent years while others have been given a new lease of life as routes for cyclists and walkers.

Those include the Bristol & Bath Railway Path, the Two Tunnels Greenway in Bath, the Deeside Way from Aberdeen to Banchory and part of the Monsal Trail in the Peak District National Park.

Sustrans, whose first route was the Bristol & Bath Railway Path, completed in 1986, called on the government to safeguard former railway lines that had been turned into traffic-free routes for cyclists and pedestrians.

The sustainable transport charity’s chief executive, Xavier Brice, said: “Whilst we welcome the potential re-opening of disused railway lines in principle, it will be critical that the many walking and cycling routes which have been built along some of these lines are also maintained.

“These routes, some of which form the National Cycle Network (NCN), are a critical part of the country's active travel infrastructure and strategy, encouraging people to walk and cycle in a safe environment, as well as providing important commuting access for people choosing to travel actively to work.

He added: “Every year an estimated five million people use the NCN. These trips save the UK economy over £550 million each year by reducing levels of obesity, of this £75 million is saved from the NHS budget.” 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

Add new comment

33 comments

Avatar
biketime | 6 years ago
0 likes

<p>Thank heaven here in America we threw over a huge chunk of our rail system after WW2. Well, at least where miles long bike trails are concerned. In SW Ohio, my area, one can go nearly 70 miles before having to ride a few clicks to get to the next section.&nbsp; When all the trails are&nbsp; connected it will run the 240 miles Cincinnati-Cleveland. I prefer the street and road, especially on weekends near the cities, but I'm glad it's there. Love riding it on summer weekday evenings. Come on over, brothers and sisters. Google Ohio to Erie Trail.

Avatar
Twowheelsaregreat | 6 years ago
0 likes

Uckfeld to Lewes a la Heatmap

Note the route's inbetween the two black lines

I'd happily see a railway relaid here. It would mean bybye to the Lavender Line though like a Phoenix it shall rise again, under a new guise.

Avatar
cczmark | 6 years ago
2 likes

Won't happen. Don't lose any sleep on it.

Network Fail can't deliver what it already has on the table. Wastes money hand over fist. It would struggle to competently run a project which involved opening an envelope. Would be bogged down in feasibility studies, the 'grip' project lifecycle takes eons and it would be shelved as being "too much risk" - someone might cut themselves on the paper edge.   1 (only slightly)

Speaking from experience...  2

 

Avatar
DrG82 | 6 years ago
0 likes

The one line I'd like to see reinstated would be Carmarthen to Aberystwyth, and that would be to the detriment of a cycle path.

Currently, if you want to head from Swansea to Aberystwyth, by train you have to go via Cardiff and Shrewsbury and it takes ages and by car is also a chore as it's all tiny slow roads and takes about 2 hours to travel 70 miles. This is really strangling the West Wales economy.

Avatar
alansmurphy | 6 years ago
2 likes

All this story really confirms is that a relative of Mrs May or Boris has excess stock of track iron that can't be used on HS2...

Avatar
hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
0 likes

With the development of electric vehicles and hopefully autonomous vehicles, surely the time to invest in the railway has long passed. Scrap the railway and keep/improve the cycle paths - the health benefits will pay for any cost.

Avatar
Dnnnnnn replied to hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
1 like

hawkinspeter wrote:

With the development of electric vehicles and hopefully autonomous vehicles, surely the time to invest in the railway has long passed. Scrap the railway and keep/improve the cycle paths - the health benefits will pay for any cost.

AVs could undermine the case for some rail services but probably not major inter-city and commuter services - which is what railways are best at and private transport isn't suited to.

Ironically, it's probably the sorts of routes that are being talked about as potentially re-opening (i.e. not major inter-city or heavy commuter flows) which are most at risk from AVs. Which is yet another reason why the announcement is probably so much hot air.

But the future is hard to predict - the demise of the railways was widely accepted as inevitable 30 years  ago but the opposite has happened. Passenger numbers have doubled.

Avatar
CGT | 6 years ago
4 likes

When they re-opened the borders railway that ran south from Edinburgh it had been used as a cyclepath.
They didn't add another one alongside it. I think they missed a trick. I could easily imagine families taking the train from Edinburgh, getting off at a midpoint station, cycling along (the route is very beautiful), then getting a train back to the city a few stops later. Would have been good to boost tourism in the area and give people a quick, easy and safe way to get out on bikes in the countryside - which can't be a bad thing.

Some form of guidance that says that new railway lines should have cycle paths built alongside would be a good move you'd think. Since railway lines are generally pretty flat and trains help you get your bikes to/from countryside cycling destinations it would be a good way to get people into leisure cycling.

Avatar
Dnnnnnn replied to CGT | 6 years ago
2 likes

CGT wrote:

When they re-opened the borders railway that ran south from Edinburgh it had been used as a cyclepath.

That's Scotland though. They have been much more active in re-opening lines - not just the Borders route but Airdrie-Bathgate, Larkhall, Alloa. The Scottish Government spend lots more on transport than is the case down south (other than in London). I'm not sure any old lines (as opposed to the odd chord or connection) have been re-opened in England in the past 20 years.

Airdrie-Bathgate also had a cycle path on the trackbed but that's been rebuilt, mostly alongside the restored line, although not entirely. 

Avatar
HLaB replied to CGT | 6 years ago
0 likes

CGT wrote:

When they re-opened the borders railway that ran south from Edinburgh it had been used as a cyclepath.
They didn't add another one alongside it. I think they missed a trick. I could easily imagine families taking the train from Edinburgh, getting off at a midpoint station, cycling along (the route is very beautiful), then getting a train back to the city a few stops later. Would have been good to boost tourism in the area and give people a quick, easy and safe way to get out on bikes in the countryside - which can't be a bad thing.

Some form of guidance that says that new railway lines should have cycle paths built alongside would be a good move you'd think. Since railway lines are generally pretty flat and trains help you get your bikes to/from countryside cycling destinations it would be a good way to get people into leisure cycling.

I was just wondering what had happened there (the Borders rail line), yip it seems like they have  definitely missed a trick.  

OT About the time it got the go ahead cycling by I noticed someone had built a nice new house on the then to be reopened line :-o

Avatar
fenix | 6 years ago
0 likes

I can't see that those lines would make much difference. Which is probably why they were closed in the first place.

Oxford to Cambridge looks interesting but I doubt it's going to happen.

Avatar
brooksby replied to fenix | 6 years ago
0 likes

fenix wrote:

I can't see that those lines would make much difference. Which is probably why they were closed in the first place. Oxford to Cambridge looks interesting but I doubt it's going to happen.

Actually, reopening the Bristol to Portishead line will *really* screw up the cycle route into Portishead.  So that's one.

Avatar
fukawitribe replied to brooksby | 6 years ago
1 like
brooksby wrote:

fenix wrote:

I can't see that those lines would make much difference. Which is probably why they were closed in the first place. Oxford to Cambridge looks interesting but I doubt it's going to happen.

Actually, reopening the Bristol to Portishead line will *really* screw up the cycle route into Portishead.  So that's one.

Mind if I ask why ? Can't say I've ever bumped into the old line going there or back but then I tend to go over the M5 and in via the lanes that way.

Avatar
brooksby replied to fukawitribe | 6 years ago
0 likes

fukawitribe wrote:
brooksby wrote:

fenix wrote:

I can't see that those lines would make much difference. Which is probably why they were closed in the first place. Oxford to Cambridge looks interesting but I doubt it's going to happen.

Actually, reopening the Bristol to Portishead line will *really* screw up the cycle route into Portishead.  So that's one.

Mind if I ask why ? Can't say I've ever bumped into the old line going there or back but then I tend to go over the M5 and in via the lanes that way.

Large chunks of the route when you go from Pill, turn left instead of up onto the Avonmouth bridge, are built right next to the old tracks. And They have already started saying that it's far too close to an active line so the cycle route will need to be moved.  

Avatar
theironduck replied to brooksby | 6 years ago
0 likes

brooksby wrote:

Large chunks of the route when you go from Pill, turn left instead of up onto the Avonmouth bridge, are built right next to the old tracks. And They have already started saying that it's far too close to an active line so the cycle route will need to be moved.  

Do you have a link to where this has been discussed? 

The two obvious points of conflict are where the path goes under the Marsh Lane bridge and where it goes through the M5 bridge underpass.  The Marsh Lane section is easily bypassed (coming from Portishead you continue straight on, rather than turning right, which takes you across Marsh Lane before remerging with the path on the approach to the M5) and the M5 underpass route could be fairly easily re-routed under the span of the bridge towards the river (there is already a path that goes in that direction, it would just need about 50m of new path to cross the marsh to link it to Pill).  I don't know if there are any land-owner issues with these alternatives but, assuming no legal issues,  I don't think they would have much effect on travel times.  Are there other sections of the route that will be affected that I've forgotten?

Avatar
brooksby replied to theironduck | 6 years ago
0 likes

theironduck wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Large chunks of the route when you go from Pill, turn left instead of up onto the Avonmouth bridge, are built right next to the old tracks. And They have already started saying that it's far too close to an active line so the cycle route will need to be moved.  

Do you have a link to where this has been discussed? 

The two obvious points of conflict are where the path goes under the Marsh Lane bridge and where it goes through the M5 bridge underpass.  The Marsh Lane section is easily bypassed (coming from Portishead you continue straight on, rather than turning right, which takes you across Marsh Lane before remerging with the path on the approach to the M5) and the M5 underpass route could be fairly easily re-routed under the span of the bridge towards the river (there is already a path that goes in that direction, it would just need about 50m of new path to cross the marsh to link it to Pill).  I don't know if there are any land-owner issues with these alternatives but, assuming no legal issues,  I don't think they would have much effect on travel times.  Are there other sections of the route that will be affected that I've forgotten?

Its something I've picked up from the local news, I'll have a look and see if I can find links.

Mainly, its the section where it goes under the motorway: do you really think that They will want to spend actual genuine money on cyclists to build a new section of cycle lane across the Pill Foreshore (which is a nature reserve, IIRC).

Avatar
theironduck replied to brooksby | 6 years ago
0 likes

brooksby wrote:

Its something I've picked up from the local news, I'll have a look and see if I can find links.

Cheers, I had wondered if an assessment had been done on the impact to the cycle path. 

brooksby wrote:

Mainly, its the section where it goes under the motorway: do you really think that They will want to spend actual genuine money on cyclists to build a new section of cycle lane across the Pill Foreshore (which is a nature reserve, IIRC).

Given the ever-inflating cost in hyper-pounds of reopening the railway (if it ever happens) the price of a bit of bike track (which would also serve peds, dog walkers and horse riders) is pretty minimal so, cynicism aside, I'm vaguely hopeful.  I can't find much about the Pill Foreshore nature reserve but I wonder where it starts?  There is already a freight railway going through that area as well as the current footpath so it's hardly pristine.

In the worst case you would be able to take Marsh Lane into Pill and then drop down to the pick up the path again as it heads to Ham Green.  It might actually be quicker to go that way but it is on-road.

Avatar
Awavey replied to fenix | 6 years ago
2 likes

fenix wrote:

I can't see that those lines would make much difference. Which is probably why they were closed in the first place. Oxford to Cambridge looks interesting but I doubt it's going to happen.

Oxford to Cambridge is definitely happening, its been on the governments stated DfT strategic plans for several years now, and only last week the budget shovelled some more funding at it, so you could argue its just reannouncing things theyve already announced.

The western section, which will be Oxford to Bedford, should be complete by 2024, and then its joining Bedford upto Cambridge, which is currently in consultation, but the link is expected to be very beneficial for freight services serving the ports in East Anglia, so theres perhaps more of a commercial push behind it, to get it done, than mere lets provide some new train track.

Avatar
davel replied to fenix | 6 years ago
2 likes
fenix wrote:

I can't see that those lines would make much difference. Which is probably why they were closed in the first place.

Anyone wishing to understand the complexities and agenda of the Beeching and Marples era, why the car is now king, and why public transport is woeful pretty much everywhere need not search out the treatises on the subject. Fenix has summed up one of the great scandals of the modernisation of the UK in 21 words.

Avatar
exilegareth replied to fenix | 6 years ago
1 like

fenix wrote:

I can't see that those lines would make much difference. Which is probably why they were closed in the first place. Oxford to Cambridge looks interesting but I doubt it's going to happen.

There speaks a man who's never had to get a bus from Ashington or Blyth to Newcastle so they can get a train to anywhere else....

 

Avatar
fenix replied to exilegareth | 6 years ago
0 likes

exilegareth wrote:

fenix wrote:

I can't see that those lines would make much difference. Which is probably why they were closed in the first place. Oxford to Cambridge looks interesting but I doubt it's going to happen.

There speaks a man who's never had to get a bus from Ashington or Blyth to Newcastle so they can get a train to anywhere else....

 

 

Fair enough.  I think I've only been to Newcastle the once anyway.   1

Avatar
Woldsman | 6 years ago
1 like

Ah. Via Twitter: 

“Map of rail routes that could be reopened under Chris Grayling’s plan – The Times”

 

Avatar
Bmblbzzz replied to Woldsman | 6 years ago
1 like

Woldsman wrote:

Ah. Via Twitter: 

“Map of rail routes that could be reopened under Chris Grayling’s plan – The Times”

 

Note that due to the GRIP process (can't remember the acronym, but 8 or 9 stages of decisions about decisions, basically) which is applied to rail projects, and the tough benefit:cost ratio (and the way it's calculated), "planned" does not mean any more than "a document exists". 

Avatar
Drinfinity | 6 years ago
3 likes

I'd love to see the Woodhead line through the tunnels to Sheffield reopen. My Grandad used to work that line, and I saw the last trains pulling the track up. Not a Beeching job though, and has a reservoir dam extension in the way now. 

Would be cheaper than getting the Monsal viaduct approved for mainline traffic again though, I think our kids will be able to ride it for a few years yet .

I'd be surprised if much comes of this soon. The Ordsall Chord was thought up in 1979, and again in 2010, and it's just about to be finished @ £85m. 

Avatar
Deeferdonk replied to Drinfinity | 6 years ago
0 likes

Drinfinity wrote:

I'd love to see the Woodhead line through the tunnels to Sheffield reopen. My Grandad used to work that line, and I saw the last trains pulling the track up. Not a Beeching job though, and has a reservoir dam extension in the way now. 

The woodhead tunnel has been filled with 400kV cables by National Grid in recent years. These replace cables that ran through the adjacent Victorian tunnels which were becoming structurally unsafe. So would be a choice between transport links or electricity, or spending a helluva lot of money to get both...i.e won't happen!

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
2 likes

There's a single track that goes almost from the centre of Hull to the East coast that you can cycle on but it's rank in the city itself, barriers that virtually mean you have to get off, crosses main roads with no priority and then dissapears completely with no signage to the city centre. When it goes outside the city boundary the surface is poor, the exits to cross country roads are crap and with 60mph limits are still hazardous.

Frankly there's no way in a hundred years could it ever be put back to rail use and simply wouldn't be in any case as the East riding is very sparsely populated so though it could reduce car use it would be massively expensive for relatively few numbers. 

That Hull is so flat and also compact, cycle lanes along the main roads/old railway lines would have being perfect but they spent £90m on 4 miles from the city centre to the big works to the East of the city with no real benefit (though they reckon 1.9:1 including a hefty 'safety' benefit that is clearly nonsense) it didn't even save time for motorists compared to the old road.

Infrastructure spend is out of control and in totally the wrong areas/modes, whilst I'm not opposed to more trains the cost is astronomical, how much os HS2, £50 billion and yet it doesn't actually save any time for many potential users, the nodes for the stations along the way will take more car journeys for punters to get to them and cause more pollution.

Can you imagine £50Billion spent on cycling infra!!

Take back one side of existing through and main roads in towns and city centres thus saving a shit ton of money and it meeting the recommended width easily and have one way systems for motors, make it as difficult as possible for motorists and and change the whole road layout. Build 3 metre wide lanes along trunk roads and old railway lines are then no longer needed at all, they are a quiet day out purely for leisure.

Avatar
emishi55 replied to BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
2 likes

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

....Can you imagine £50Billion spent on cycling infra!!

 

Take back one side of existing through and main roads in towns and city centres thus saving a shit ton of money and it meeting the recommended width easily and have one way systems for motors, make it as difficult as possible for motorists and and change the whole road layout. Build 3 metre wide lanes along trunk roads and old railway lines are then no longer needed at all, they are a quiet day out purely for leisure.

 

Excellent suggestions.

This is how lanes have been co-opted for some of the London bike lanes - Camden's Royal College Street and Tavistock Place (the latter still currently under threat until an independent adjudicator write up his report in the new year following an expensive public enquiry -

thanks to a certain Mr hotellier and pals for that!!)

 

CS6, running north south, is massively oversubscribed, and as a two way track, in dire need of following the same treatment as Tavistock Place ie turning this lane into one way for cyclists, and taking a 'motor lane' on the other side to be the other direction cycle lane.

Leaving a single lane for motorists crossing Blackfriars Bridge would as you have suggested, "deter motorists" - something needed in bucket loads in London right now.

This is the kind of conversion that need not be so costly (at least compared to the equiavlent stuff for motors), yet would be quite straightforward to put in.

It should form a standard or template that should be considered as policy throughout London and the UK.

This and putting in shuttle coach hubs on theoutskirts of cities with a priority motorway lane (that perhaps this time round the Labour government could leave in place - remembering John Prescott's words about 'failing' - and the TV top gear buffoon fnhaa fnhaaing his little socks off when the lane was finally removed).

 

Some real feasible ideas need to be put out there, as the (hopefully) government in waiting need to show an awareness and readiness to make the essential changes across the place; (and they will need to be shown they can be trusted to discuss, liase with campaigners/advisors; act upon and implement measures rather than get elected and spend the first year and a half of their term in office doing very little - apart from cancelling shovel-ready bike schemes, and spending large quantities of money on a commissioner* to 'tell us how good cycling is')

  *No. Funnily enough I'm not talking about Gilligan or Boardman (!) 

 

To return to the point, London (and elsehwhere is in need of bigger thinking.

People won't get involved to spend a decade on more on one or two piecemeal schemes - only to have their hopes dashed by the political system allowing groups of pro-rat-runners, spouting off and scaring weakminded authorities. 

There need to be campaigns on a large scale now. Enough people need to express their being 'car-sick' (to coin Lyn Sloman's book title). And enough people need to put forward schemes for transforming entire towns and cities - confing traffic to a motor grid - or 'though traffic grid'.

As George Monbiot pointed out in today's Guardian article  :

Dirty air is killing our children. Why does the government let this happen?

 (with reference to schools trying to prevent school drop-off parents foulling the air around schools and deterring active transportation among children):

 

  • Without this intervention, headteachers all over the country have to take on the issue one car at a time. Add up their efforts and you’re likely to find that this pointless replication runs into hundreds – perhaps thousands – of times the public labour that government action would require. If there is one group of people whose time is both stretched and socially valuable, it is headteachers.
  • Some schools have lobbied their councils for traffic restriction orders, generally without success. But why should we have to fight the same battle borough by borough for our children’s health? Why should their lung capacity be subject to a postcode lottery?

 

Regarding the originl article here - and trains. I tend to have mixed feelings about restoring old lines.

Yes it would be great to have a working network (though as others here have now shown, this seems to far from the intention).

But generally I think it's preferable to take away from road space, or instal new rail way lines instead of new roads.

 

(sorry that went on a bit)     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Avatar
Woldsman | 6 years ago
1 like

Maybe it’s because Sustrans hasn’t needed to greatly develop the disused railway lines near me - there are so many existing quiet roads to choose from - but I don’t see this as a huge threat to cyclists in my part of the world: the Yorkshire Wolds. 

The Yorkshire Wolds Cycle Route is flooded in this photograph. Above it the Hudson Way bridge - at Kiplingcotes between Beverley and Market Weighton - seems over-engineered as a cycle path. Certainly I’ve never had the urge to use it.  I’m not sure it would be greatly missed by cyclists if it were to revert to its original purpose. Maybe horse riders currently make greater use of it than cyclists. Dunno. 

Anyway, despite it being mentioned on the local new tonight I can’t see it being reopened as a railway line. The local council is all about “dualling” the A1079 and has a thing for widening A roads in general. 

 

Avatar
Simboid | 6 years ago
12 likes

If  this ever does come to anything it will be decades away and happen in very few locations. We are skint and looking at staying that way for a long time.

Shame really as I'd happily sacrifice these shared use, dog-on-extending-lead-filled, mugging hotspots that seem to be the permanent residence of our expanding homeless population for a decent rail network that did more than simply connect big cities.

Would help with road congestion too.

Avatar
Dnnnnnn replied to Simboid | 6 years ago
5 likes

Simboid wrote:

If  this ever does come to anything it will be decades away and happen in very few locations. We are skint and looking at staying that way for a long time.

I think you're right on the mark. I suspect this is largely spin and unlikely to lead to much action. Announcements, and even route studies, about the future are a cheap way to distract from today's hard realities.

Pages

Latest Comments