Just before Christmas, the City Council announced a three year plan to improve the walking and cycling infrastructure along the length of the Eastern road (south of the A27 only) with the first phase to start soon, funded by the Government’s Active Travel Fund through which they were awarded around £450,000.
They are also collecting opinions and ideas from the public for future stages of the project through a survey. PCF have made a number of suggestions across the years and continue to lobby and input ideas while ensuring that whatever is designed meets the new national guidance that launched last year.
The top three items on our list would be:
- Widening the path to accommodate people cycling and walking
- it should be designed to meet future demand, not just the current level of use, even though that is higher than 12 months ago.
- Separate paths / tracks for different users so it is clear where each user group should be.
- If it is to act as a way to enable commuter cycle traffic and therefore change people’s travel modes, it needs to be direct and easily recognisable as a bi-directional cycle lane so even those not currently using can see the advantage of it.
- Reducing the speed limit of the road to 40mph
- 50mph is an unacceptable speed with the existing path adjacent to the traffic lane.
- Government guidance in LTN 1/20 states there should be a minimum buffer zone of 1.5m between a 50mph carriageway and cycle track. This reduces to a minimum of half a metre at 40mph, and there is just not the space along the route to fit a wider path and 1.5 m buffer, so the risk has to be managed by reducing the speed limit.
- Enforcement is also required as we already see many instances of excessive speed from vehicles in both directions.
A much larger project which will need specific project funding due to its cost would be widening the bridge at the northern end, something we have constantly called for and which was highlighted inadequate in the draft PCC LCWIP.
You can find the survey here: https://travel.portsmouth.gov.uk/schemes/eastern_road_phase1/ and the closing date is 8th February 2021.
In addition to the survey on the page above, the council are asking for ideas for improvements to be added to the Widen My Path website. This does not have to start and end with the Eastern Road route as the site was also used to canvas opinions on potential schemes across the city under the 2020 Emergency Active Travel funding rounds. It is important to be aware of the other schemes that are already listed as it is possible that schemes that attract the most support will be deemed to be more popular than others.
With that in mind, take some time to look at the other schemes suggested on the map and ‘upvote’ those that resemble your ideas rather than adding a new request. If a location is chosen for progress we will be keeping an eye on the design and feedback relevant ideas or thoughts to be considered if they align with what is possible. Have a look around the city and see what has already been suggested at Widen My Path Portsmouth