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Council blames "design error" as new 30m-long cycle lane blocked by lamppost causes ridiculeHalifax cycle lane (image credit: Amjid Khan/Twitter)

Council blames "design error" as new 30m-long cycle lane blocked by lamppost causes ridicule

"There are good examples of cycling infrastructure around the country, sadly this isn’t one of them"...
by Dan Alexander
Tue, Nov 08, 2022 17:29
35

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."

Cycle lane
Halifax
Dan Alexander

Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. 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 joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.

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35 comments

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hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
2 likes

brooksby wrote:

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...

I rarely see clothes in shops that appeal to me so I tend to do all my clothes shopping online. That way you have a much bigger choice and finding the right size isn't too difficult once you have experience with different sizing from other countries (e.g. U.S. clothing can be too big and asian clothing can be too small). The biggest issue is that shops like TKMaxx don't organise the clothes according to animal genus

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JustTryingToGet... replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
3 likes
hawkinspeter wrote:

bobbinogs wrote:

...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.

Could probably scratch around somewhere not too far from here to find plenty of surly old cyclists that would provide an opinion for free....

Getting alignment in opinions from surly old cyclists... Well that is another matter entirely 😉

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chrisonabike replied to JustTryingToGetFromAtoB | 1 year ago
3 likes

Ooh!  I know!  I know this one!  Could we find lots of blogs by said surly old cyclists all over the internet?

Once the government has run trials to see "if the internet works" that is.  Which should be approaching completion in about n+50 years, if it's anything like provision for cycling.

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eburtthebike replied to chrisonabike | 1 year ago
4 likes

chrisonatrike wrote:

Ooh!  I know!  I know this one!  Could we find lots of blogs by said surly old cyclists all over the internet?

Once the government has run trials to see "if the internet works" that is.  Which should be approaching completion in about n+50 years, if it's anything like provision for cycling.

You don't want to rush these things, especially if you have no intention of actually implementing them.  But you do want the kudos for proposing those measures so you endlessly produce plans, strategies, and have great sounding but utterly ineffectual organisations like the ill-fated, unlamented English Regions Cycling Development Team.

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chrisonabike replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
1 like

The dusty todo list of "let's find out if cycling works" / "throw some crumbs to non-drivers" (very abbreviated version - I'm sure others can add more):

1930s cycle paths (actually just for "getting the bikes out of the way of the car" but survivors are often better than our modern attempts).

New Towns - Stevenage, Milton Keynes, to some extent Livingston etc.

National Cycling Strategy

Covid-era "spaces for people" e.g. in Edinburgh

Hopefully Active Travel England, the Road Safety Investigation Branch and the All Party Cycling and Walking group's reports ([1] [2]) don't join them as more coffee-coasters and desk-levellers of history.

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