Colney Lane roundabout “improvements”

A look at the new “enhanced” cycling and walking routes around the Colney Road roundabout, the only practical pedestrian and cycle route to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital from the city.

The project represents a serious downgrade of the access to the hospital for anyone not using a motor vehicle.

We show what the route used to be like in early 2023, before it was “improved” and what it’s like now. Norfolk County Council described these changes as an “enhancement” of the walking and cycling routes, nothing could be further from the truth.

The two new routes contain difficult and downright dangerous crossings of busy roads, totally unsuited to people with vision or mobility issues (this is on the access to the hospital remember) and a long standing and heavily used route is not catered for at all, leaving people to cross at a place made vastly more dangerous by these “improvements”.

The shared use pavements are far too narrow and the routes are indirect and not intuitive. There are also two bus stops located close to an official but third rate crossing point of a fast, busy main road, making it even more dangerous.

towards the end of 2024 norford County Council started work on improving the cony Lane roundabout this work also included enhancing pedestrian and cycle links Cony Lane roundabout has four traffic arms one feeds the main hospital access route another one is Cony Lane West the third is Cony Lane East and the fourth to Car Park Service Access Road the original route wasn’t perfect and could have done with an upgrade but it wasn’t bad the shared use path from the hospital runs down to the junction crossing the car park service access road which would Cross by way of the cental island both arms of this Junction had one lane of traffic so it was quite an easy Crossing there was then a short section of shared use path set back from the traffic on the roundabout which led to a similar Crossing of cogne Lane pedestrians and cyclists could then head east or west or across the UEA grounds following the Desir line route the purpose of the changes was to increase the volume of traffic Us in the roundabout which means wider approach Lanes this is especially true of Cony Lane East which was widened to four lanes three onto the roundabout and one off because of this the original walk in cycling route was closed and the two new new routes created one to the north of the roundabout and one to the South unfortunately nobody considered the informal desire line path across the UEA Sports ground a significant oversight as this route has been established for over 20 years and is a well-used path so let’s take a look at the various roots and how well they work first of all the northern route coming from the hospital instead of crossing the car park service road we now take a very sharp up left turn almost doubling back on ourselves onto a barely wide enough shared use path which runs along the side of the road this leads to an island crossing of the main hospital Access Road a Crossing which would be very difficult for anyone with vision or mobility issues judging the speed and direction of traffic coming off the roundabout can be difficult as can getting over the two lanes of traffic approaching the roundabout from there another short section of Sher juice path takes us to a tucan crossing over the Western arm of Cony Lane to join the pedal way route the tucon works very well and has a rapid response time you don’t have to wait long coming the other way we can see the problem with getting across the two traffic Lanes to add to the problems the view up the road to the right is obscured by a hedge we actually want to go right here toward the hospital but we can’t once across and again judging the traffic coming off the roundabout can be difficult We join the Narrow Path which takes us up to the dog leg turn into the route to the hospital this route is indirect and not at all intuitive this path is too narrow and the crossing of the junction should be at least a zebra if not a tuen so coming from the direction of cringleford we come down a hill towards the junction but the surface on this section of the purple pedal way is terrible as you can see and we arrive at the Crossing Point which is no more than two drop curbs this really is is not good enough traffic coming down the hill is going very quickly traffic coming off the roundabout is going very quickly and of course the traffic is moving in both directions now if you see on the other side of the road there’s a lady pushing a wheelchair watch as she tries to cross the road the just out of view to the left on right next to the drop curb is a bus stop this Crossing would be horrendous after dark you see we have this lady with a young disabled kid finally runs across the the road this just isn’t good they put a tucan Crossing on the western side of Coney Lane why didn’t they put one here as well the traffic is just as bad it’s just as difficult to get across I can only guess why somebody thought this would be sufficient as we go across you can see the unbelievable bus stop right on the crossing once we get across we have a very narrow section of cycle track only about 2 m wide this is nowhere near wide enough the narrow cycle track does widen out slightly as we come up to the crossing of the car Park and access road and then we can join the proper cycle track up to the hospital one of the clearest indicators of a bad design is when people don’t use it and this is the case with the sou route as we stated the desire line across the UEA grounds is long established and heavily used it’s been in constant use for 20 years or so yet the designers didn’t take it into account worse to get to it involves Crossing Cony Lane close to the four lane wide Junction which as we will see can be very dangerous it’s actually why they put the third rate drop curb tressing further along the road but lots of people do cross here the official Crossing offers nothing much in the way of safety and nothing in the way of convenience once cross here you’re straight into the desar line route if you’re heading towards UEA or the city this is the way you want to go it’s the most direct and quickest route coming the other way from the desire line route we come up onto Cony Lane and now we got to get across and all I can say is I was totally unaware of the black car until I nearly hit it now I’m an experienced rider I always look left and right as I emerge from a junction and because of that it wasn’t an [Applause] accident but there are three lanes of traffic here and it’s an extremely fast busy road which is is really really dangerous to get across this is almost a textbook example of terrible Highway design on the subject of bad planning we’ve got two bus stops to point out one of them is just upwind of the official Crossing Place of on con Lane East which are mentioned earlier this is just crazy no words to describe it on the other side of the road the pedal way which goes past the roundabout without Crossing it is also quite a busy route and you’ve got a bus stop on there which just blocks the cycle way at busy times this scheme may have improved things for drivers but it’s made cycling and walking to the hospital more dangerous