Cycling on Bridge Street back on council agenda

Public acceptance shouldn’t be a priority when deciding on new bike routes, a Peterborough City Council (PCC) focus group has said.

The group, made up of PCC staff, councillor sand local cyclingcampaign sand charities, agreed that this metric should be removed from the council's decision-making processes when it comes to cycling policy.

Chair Cllr Heather Skibsted (Greens) explained at a PCC meeting that the group arrived at this recommendation because it felt public acceptance “shouldn’t be a barrier to building cycle paths that comply with regulations”.

“We know that people can be resistant to change,” she continued, “but in order to be more radical and serious about enabling these cycle routes we can’t allow this to direct our plans”.

Public acceptance is currently one of the metrics considered when prioritising which bike routes to implement in the council's cycling policy.

Removing this was one of several proposals the focus group made to the council’ s environment scrutiny committee, which also included new cycle routes that should be considered for development.

Among them is a 'Peterborough circular’ taking cyclists around the city's perimeter and across Bridge Street.

But Cllr Graham Casey (Conservatives) questioned how“realistic” it is to have people

cycling separately from all the foot fall on the busy city centre street.

CllrJudyF ox( Peterborough First) also raised concerns over cyclists riding too quickly along the street and almost knocking into people which CllrJohnF ox (Peterborough First) put down

to a lack of enforcement.

Cllr Skibsted said that this issue could be addressed by having clear marcations which would make the street a shared walking and cycling route.

She added that it' s" imperative" to make cycling more attractive as it has fallen by six percent in Peterborough since 2017 when the council has said it will double it by 2025.

Other routes the group proposed include a route between the the railway station and the city centre and a route between the railway station and the rowing lake to the west of the city.

It added that new projects would be funded by money the council receives from the Department for Transport (DfT) via the Cambridgeshire and PeterboroughCombined Authority( C PC A ).

The group also made several other recommendations such as developing a cycling strategy specifically for rural areas and planting more trees along cycle paths.

All were accepted without amendment, except that obstacles to cyclists such as staggered barriers and traffic signals which give priority to cars over bikes should be removed throughout the city.

Cllr Casey said that people “zooming along” on motorbikes and illegal electric scooters would be able to use cycle paths “with impunity” if barriers were removed and that they can stop children cycling into roads.

Trevor McSparron, from the Peterborough Cycle Forumcampaign group, responded that it’s a“misconception” barriers stop motorbikes and that they in fact enable them by stopping police from being able to catch up with them and that they“inhibit active travel ”.

Cllr Casey made the recommendation that councillors should be consulted before barriers are removed.

The recommendations will now be passed to PC C’ scab in et.

Cycling on Bridge Street has been a controversial subject for many years.