Scary Places on Official Cycle Routes - No 1. Vogue Gyratory on Route 90 in Brighton

The Vogue Gyratory in Brighton is a classic cyclists nightmare. Named for an old blue movie cinema that used to be on the site, the gyratory was built in the 1980s with no provision for cyclists. Yet it is on a main traffic artery Brighton to the Universities and Lewes - and on official Regional Cycle Route 90.

Left filtering cars cut across your path as you cycle to Lewes & Uni on Regional Cycle Route 90

As you cycle north along the Regional Cycle Route 90, which follows the main Lewes Road connecting London to Brighton, the cycle lane disappears and you find yourself on a multilane gyratory. You are cycling uphill, and have to cross left filtering traffic in order stay in the middle lane and get to the exit where route 90 continues. In the middle of this is a traffic light where advance advance stop lines for cyclists have been painted.

You can negotiate this gyratory with an assertive attitude, but as an official cycle route, surely it should be safe for intermediate level cyclists? Remembering we are encouraging school children to cycle to school.

Brighton's city council has won a £4.5m grant to develop sustainable transport along this route, aka Lewes Road Corridor. But it does little to address this unfriendly Gyratory, except for proposing 'green wave' priority for cyclists at the traffic lights. Really, a separate cycle lane is needed, not minor provisions such as the proposed 'green wave'.

We need a new city plan to undo the damage of decades of planning exclusively for motorcars.

Painted lines and green waves alone don't make things safer for cyclists and pedestrians - this gyratory is a short distance from the underpass where a cyclist was killed in a collision with a van only a year ago, also on cycle route 90, while cycling along the cycle lane.

More on the Lewes Road sustainable transport project on my blog

Brighton's £6.3m Lewes Road sustainable transport bid includes a direct bus-to-railway link and electric bicycles - but can it solve the problem?

24 May 2011. Brighton and Hove City Council yesterday published details of its £6.3m bid for funding for a sustainable transport project in the Lewes Road Corridor. The bid is widely supported as a step in the right direction, though there are concerns it does not go far enough.

The bid, made on 18 April, seeks funding of £4m from the Department for Transport (DfT) Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF), with additional funding of £2.3m from local stakeholders including the bus and train companies, Sussex University and the council's own Local Transport Plan. If successful, the bid funds will be applied to capital and revenue projects over the period 2011-2015.

The bid application includes letters of support from major stakeholders including the Brighton and Hove Buses and Southern Rail, the Universities and several community organisations including Lewes Clean Air Campaign.

In January this year the DfT announced the £560m LSTF, intended to encourage Local Authorities to make plans to promote sustainable transport. Brighton and Hove's application was submitted to the DfT 18 April to meet the DfT deadline for the first round of funding ("Tranche 1"), for projects up to £5m. Winning bids will be announced end of June. A second round of bids for up to £5m closes 6 June (Tranche 2). Then there is another round for projects up to £50m. Deadline for expressions of interest for this is also 6 June.

Links to download details of Brighton's bid can be found at the end of this article.

Is the plan any good?
Cycle campaigners said that the application was prepared in a short time by the council planners, and there was insufficient time for community consultation.

Lewes Clean Air Campaign spokesperson Duncan Blinkhorn said: "Lewes Road for Clean Air / Bike Train are a community partner in this bid. We support it because we want to see real progress toward this route being a sustainable transport route which can have a positive impact on local health, well-being as well as the global threats of climate change from significant reductions in emissions of CO2, air polutants and noise.

He added: "We have some concerns that the bid lacks sufficient ambition and offers little in the way of practical steps to improve cycling but we hope that these things can be developed more a later stage."

Major elements of the proposal include publicity to promote cycling, walking and public transport, bus stop improvements including weather cover and "real time" bus information displays, and improved access to the South Downs National Park, including signage and resurfacing of routes and improvement of access including rights of way.

This is all to be welcomed. However, in the absence of a citywide sustainable transport plan, it will be hard to improve the problems of slow public transport links with other parts of the city, and dangerous cycle routes into town.

In particular, the publicity-promotion of cycling seems optimistic, without provision of safe cycling routes around such obstacles and pinch points as the Underpass, Vogue Gyratory and the Level.

The report does acknowledge: "The poor surrounding cycling and pedestrian facilities mean parents and carers are reluctant to let their children walk or cycle which also contributes to a lost opportunity to improve health."

The local improvements might encourage more people to use the South Downs National Park, but will it encourage more people to cycle and walk to work and school?

To ease congestion we want people to use cars less. To do that, we need to make sustainable transport the mode of choice: prioritise public transport, so becomes as fast to get the train station by bus as it is by car; make walking and cycling safe and attractive.

There are some nods in this direction: a "green wave" on traffic lights in Vogue Gyratory will give sustainable transport priority. And a new direct bus service will allow residents to get to the station without having to change buses (extension of route 21). But overall journey times on buses are likely to remain long as buses struggle through congested streets. And a green wave for cyclists on Vogue Gyratory is unlikely to make it less intimidating. A cycle bypass is needed there, and cyclists still have to confront the Level...

Imagine a fast tram to the station,  and delightful cycling and walking routes... people leaving their cars at home or on the city outskirts. Am I dreaming? Actually, there used to be railway line running though the Vogue Gyratory, it was demolished only in 1984. Ultimately we will need to re-engineer the city to get where we want to go. That will help stimulate the economy as well.

For the time being, in my opinion, without an overall city plan that coordinates a sustainable transport policy, it will be hard for a local project like this Lewes Road Corridor bid to persuade substantial numbers of people to switch to sustainable transport for trips like work and school.

It is doubtful that more community consultation on this isolated project could have come up with better ideas - and in the end, the vocal spokesperson for Lewes Road Clean Air Campaign, Duncan Blinkhorn, gave the project his support.

In my opinion, the money would be better spent on making an integrated city plan - then we can make a start on some of the serious civil engineering obstacles - like Vogue Gyratory. And similar obstacles on Old Shoreham Road. So let's go for the big prize, the £50m bid.

In the meantime, this bid should be supported, not because it promises fundamental change - but because it is a step in the right direction, and an opportunity to focus the city's attention on what is needed to promote real modal shift toward sustainable transport. If it does not go ahead, we will lose the funding opportunity.

Bid Details
The application includes elements under the following headings:
SC1 – Personalised Travel Planning (PTP)
SC2 - Travel Planning (Universities)
SC3 - School Travel Planning
SC4 - Community Road Safety Campaign
SC5 - Electric Bikes Research and Promotion
TI1 - Links to South Downs National Park (SDNP)
TI2 - Traffic Signal Review and Upgrade
TI3 - Pedestrian Wayfinding Extension
TI4 - Bus Real Time Information (RTI) Extension and Upgrade to GPRS
TI5 - Rail Station Access Improvements
TI6 – Improved Bus Stop Waiting Environments
TI7 - Bus Service Improvements to Brighton Station

Download the full details of Brighton and Hove's "Lewes Road Corridor
2011-2014" LSTF Bid here:
http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1146323

OPINION: Will Brighton & Hove get away with scrapping the cycling dream and keeping the money?

Clock Tower Approaches

Audit and evaluation of The Cycle Demonstration Town by the seaside

Cycling England is set to close on March 31. But there may yet be a few twitches from the corpse of the body that was supposed to promote cycling in England. After it closes, the work of the monitoring and evaluating the work done in Cycle Cities and Towns, funded by Cycling England grants, will continue for some time.

So we’ve yet to hear the reports of what happened to Brighton and Hove’s Cycle Town scheme, where key components were scrapped.

Despite its apparent commitment to being a Cycling Town (link below), Brighton and Hove, where I live, is in the grip of a minority Tory council administration which in January declared its intention to “repeal” the city’s decade long commitment to promoting sustainable transport, and instead to combat “unfair penalisation of car drivers”.

Over the last year or so, the council has cancelled key elements in the plan for a network of protected cycle lanes that lay at the heart of the Cycling Demonstration Town scheme. The scheme was paid for by Cycling England grants and cost around of £4.5 million including partial grant matching from the city.

In February the Conservatives proposed a budget including plans to demolish The Drive Cycle Freeway in February - which cuts across the driveways of Tory heartland in Hove. Council Leader Mary Mears she said there were no fears the council would have to refund the money to Cycling England because “that quango is about to be abolished.”

Of course Mary Mears is mistaken. She will have to account for it because it is public money. But since her council now no longer has to answer to a “Non Departmental Public Body” like Cycling England, but rather to the Department of Transport under the political control of Liberal Democrat MP for the nearby town of Lewes, Secretary of State Norman Baker, one wonders whether the evaluation procedures applied will be as rigorous as they might have been when Cycling England was alive.

Cyclists in Brighton and Hove are incensed by the apparent diversion of resources intended for a cycling infrastructure that was supposed to encourage thousands of school children to cycle to school. Where are the protected cycle lanes planned for Old Shoreham Road and London Road? Where are The Drive’s safe interchanges and connections with the north of the city and the South Down’s National Park?

We draw scant comfort from the fact that the Department will continue to fund Bikeability (cycle training for children) for four years from 2011 – 2015, and to fund safe routes to school and Bike Club in 2011/12. These programmes encourage children to cycle to school, but I know from cycling The Old Shoreham Road myself that this is asking for trouble when there are no safe cycling lanes. Kids are forced to cycle along the pavement because it is too dangerous along the road. And cycle casualties are increasing in the city.

The council has cancelled the important backbone of protected cycle freeways, and instead painted white lines on the road or designated cycle lanes on peripheral routes, such as Madeira Drive, which is actually closed during peak summer periods. (more>>>)