Kentish Express Ashford & District
Cycle lanes were an unwelcome addition to town
I found it incredible that the Ashford cycle scheme was implemented without anything like adequate consultation with local businesses.
As a cyclist, cycling in Ashford would have remained dangerous despite the scheme - and may have even become more dangerous.
Related to this, cycling into the town centre, which I have tried, is hindered by a lack of secure and safe locations for parking cycles.
Apart from safety, a large number of businesses in Ashford town remain in a distressed state. This is evidenced by a number of closures. Restricting traffic access to the town centre would have only exacerbated the declining footfall and purchasing power in the town.
David Burdon
I am an enthusiastic cyclist and I am not 100% against cycle lanes as such, but I am against bad and ill-thought-out cycle lanes.
I have witnessed the death of three cyclists, and serious injuries to others.
Cycle lanes (well designed) should be of major benefit to the community.
Every adult cyclist you see out and about will probably indicate that there is one less car on the road, and in the car park, and less patients occupying a bed in our hospitals.
Ashford is ill served with practical cycleways, cycleways that are as safe as can reasonably be expected for young and old, say eight-year-old to 88.
A year or two ago my wife and I cycled to Berlin amongst other places.
The moment one sets foot in Holland you find yourself in a cycling paradise; we did not encounter one dangerous or difficult hurdle, nor did we through Germany.
Amongst a sea of school children or a large group of elderly, silverhaired cyclists, out for a coffee, etc.
Kent Highways often get their crash barriers wrongly positioned, increasing the danger instead of reducing it.
They don’t listen.
In the event of specific crash, they could be sued for making a situation worse for pedestrians and maybe cyclists too.
A lot needs doing.
Ted Prangnell
Having recently discovered, to my chagrin, the new Ashford cycle lanes, I feel I must make comment.
The introduction of the illthought-out scheme seriously impacted the traffic flow along the affected roads, and the impact of the congestion caused also impacted the roads feeding into the scheme. At peak traffic flow times these roads are congested as a norm without the added restrictions. I noted that the traffic signals along the route had been turned off and bagged. This meant traffic had to ‘sort itself out’ at the junctions, leading to confusion, conflict and anger as to who had right of way, therefore again seriously impacting on free traffic flow. Had consideration been given by Kent Highways to pedestrians with visual, physical and agerelated impairments?
It would appear not.
By turning off the traffic signals, the pedestrian crossing facilities at the junctions had also been removed, leading to potential vehicle/pedestrian conflict.
The number of cyclists using the new cycle lanes was in fact minimal.
It felt like we were robbing Peter to pay Paul, with no winners.
Had consideration been given to the impact of the scheme on traffic flow around the town when the M20 was closed, for whatever reason, between Junctions 9 and 10?
While traffic is signed to use Simone Weil Avenue, Canterbury Road and Willesborough Road etc as a diversion route, motorway traffic still uses the town centre ring-road to get to and from the M20 as drivers get lost and confused and follow their sat-navs.
In these difficult times, people are trying to survive and carry on, as much as is possible, with their lives. Life at the moment is stressful enough without additional problems like the cycle scheme being heaped upon them. It seemed like this was a hastily concocted and ill-thought-out scheme introduced to spend the government ‘give away’ money. Keith Butler
Re the Ashford Covid-19 pop-up cycle lanes, I understand they had been funded by the Covid Emergency Active Travel fund, and were introduced under an ETRO (Experimental Traffic Regulation Order) as a temporary measure and on a trial basis, and that Kent County Council had asked for feedback.
First, road safety appeared to be a secondary concern.
For example, to walk to school our daughter had to cross the Ashford ring-road with no traffic signals.
This significantly increased the risk and reduced safety because the traffic was no longer told to stop for pedestrians crossing the road, but, because of the lack of traffic signals, the speed of the traffic appeared to increase and became more dangerous.
The safe alternative was to drive her to school, but that would increase traffic needlessly. Moreover, because there were no signals for traffic it became a ‘free-for-all’ at junctions, and I witnessed many near-misses as drivers did not give way to each other.
Secondly, increase in environmental damage due to pollution was apparently not a concern either.
The affect on traffic at all points of entry to Ashford was negative; all of the pop-up junctions, e.g. Mace Lane, became bottlenecks with long lines of traffic waiting to access the reduced number of lanes.
Which meant more cars and lorries idling while queuing and expanding the cloud of pollution more widely through the town. Finally, I did not see anyone cycle in the lanes, not one, ever.
Nor did anyone else I know. We continued to see plenty of people cycle on the pavements next to the entire lanes, but not in the lanes themselves.
Perhaps I’m wrong, and that’s all just subjective... but what data did Kent County Council have that objectively measured the use of these lanes by cyclists? In summary, the pop-up cycle lanes were not being used at all... but had a large negative impact on safety for pedestrians and vehicles, and had increased volumes of concentrated traffic (i.e. tailbacks to bottlenecks) making journeys longer and significantly increased the impact of pollution though the town.
Stuart Fotheringham
As a keen cyclist, even I was perplexed by Ashford's shortlived 'Covid-19 cycle lanes' experiment.
I personally think that public money offered for encouraging cycling could be much better spent elsewhere and I recently sent a batch of ideas to both the council and our local MP
including the idea of having radial routes between the major villages and the town centre.
In addition to Routes 17 (Charing), 18 (Wye, Shadoxhurst and Tenterden) and 11 (Woodchurch and Appledore), it would be cheap to consistently blue-sign the route via Willesborough to Sevington, over the new bridge across the A2070, and on via Mersham / Stock Lane Bridge to Brabourne Lees.
Another very good cycle route runs south from the station past the outlet, on to Park Farm beside the railway and through the estate to Church Hill, Kingsnorth.
This too could then use existing roads to reach Hamstreet, either via Bond Lane / past Homelands or via Bliby / Brisley – another ‘spoke’ for the cost of a few blue signs.
A further ‘spoke’ could be from Singleton to Great Chart, Daniel’s Water, Bethersden and on to Smarden and Headcorn via the lanes.
Among other ideas I had were improving road signage for the town which has actually been reduced over the years, and having boards for pedestrians illustrating where all the shops are located around the town as it’s easy for visitors to wrongly assume that we simply don’t have chains like M&S or Argos any more.
There are plenty more ideas on my blog post if you Google ‘Ashford, Kent – Portrait of a Town.’ I hope they at least get considered.
Adam Colton
I must write to express my concerns about the cycle lanes.
I have lived in Ashford for more than 35 years and have seen the introduction of previous schemes over the years which have been intended to improve and manage traffic flow within Ashford town centre including the controversial ‘shared space’ scheme which, although unpopular at first, did eventually appear to have been a success.
However, it would appear the cycle lanes were met with a hugely negative reaction.
As a driver, I found using the new scheme did not appear to offer any benefits either to drivers or cyclists.
I did not see any cyclists using the designated lanes, however I did see many cars weaving in and out of the cycle lanes overtaking other vehicles which were using the single-car lane on the inside, thereby creating dangerous driving conditions.
It appeared that car drivers were either uncertain of which lanes they could use but also
deliberately ignoring the lanes.
In addition, following the removal of the traffic signals, the busy junction between Station Road and Mace Lane became a hazardous and challenging place for drivers who were trying to negotiate the three-way traffic system.
As a pedestrian, I also found the removal of the traffic signals created an extremely unsafe environment at a number of pedestrian crossing places in the town, although I am fit and able I found crossing the road to be a difficult experience and I can only imagine how unsafe I would feel if I had mobility problems or sensory impairment.
I would also like to question how the council can justify the cost of installing such a scheme under the current circumstances when financial pressure is being felt by the local council which is already vastly overspent on its annual budget.
If the scheme was intended to make roads safer for cyclists who are in the minority and who already have access to other cycle routes within Ashford, then it appeared to come at a very high cost in terms of safety and convenience for the majority of other road users and pedestrians. Teresa Bartram
What do you think? Write to letters@thekmgroup.co.uk