Not my usual style of video – but a recent cycle to Airedale Hospital made me think about the differences in the quantity and quality of cycling infrastructure in West Yorkshire compared to other places I have cycled; towns and cities in Ireland, Holland and Germany – even compared to Hull.
The differences are fairly dramatic and despite Keighley and the Aire Valley having some very flat roads – we don’t seem to have as much cycling infrastructure as other parts of the world.
Hope you enjoy the video. Thoughts are very welcome. Especially as the new build of Airedale Hospital will impact staff car parks as they go through different phases of build – and may mean NHS staff will need to use public transport and active travel or cycle more to Steeton.
As for the road surfaces – that is probably a topic for another day or video….
#cycling
#bradford
#keighley
#cyclinginfrastructure
#activetraveleng
Hi everyone. Uh what a lovely courteous driver. Thank you for that. Today is a video with a bit of a difference. Normally it’s bike packing adventures, some mountain bike road rides or some local cycling where I’m training for stuff. But today is a quick look at cycling infrastructure. Um cuz having cycled in Ireland, Holland and Germany, um it’s amazing how different the cycling infrastructure is um in different countries. I am starting in Crossroads in West Yorkshire and I’m about to travel 66 6 and 1 half miles to Steen and that includes uh the A629 which is a main route between Heathley and Halifax and it also includes um the alternative to the A629. It’s the old road I think it’s the B6265 uh between Keithley and Skippton. Um, and there is a major bypass and dual carriageway out that way as well. Trying to put this into context, I’ve used population as a good surrogate for I suppose number of people cycling. Appreciate West Yorkshire is quite hilly. So you will end up with a smaller percentage of people who are cycling around this area. But um, you know, Bradford district, the Bradford Metropolitan District area is about 560,000 people. And actually that compares with the population of Dublin city, not the greater Dublin area, which is actually 590,000. And the greater Dublin area, if you include all the suburbs around the M50, etc., it’s about uh 1.2 million. Um Halifax has got I think 74,000 people or 88,000 people. Keith who’s got 57,000 people and Skippton the other end of this route um into the B6265 um has got about 15,000 people. So in doing the comparison what I’ll try and do is um show similar but or maybe even smaller towns in other areas and what the cycling infrastructure is like there. We’re now entering Keithley in West Yorkshire. Population 57,000. And interestingly, we haven’t seen any sight infrastructure at all yet by it being quite a main road between and very wide road between um Halifax and Keithley. We are coming up on our first section of cycling infrastructure. It’s one of the advanced stop lines which allows cyclists to get ahead of stop traffic at traffic lights and then if they’re turning right they’ve but uh otherwise it’s here kind of spot the cycling infrastructure on this route really play a game of that. This next section probably isn’t a fair comparison cuz it’s uh shown samples of the cycling infrastructure in Dublin um along the keys absolute center of the city. However, this bit is actually Lucan. Um, and Lucan is a population of 57,000, same as um, Keithley basically. So, this is segregated um, lanes and, you know, leading into advanced stop lines as well. We are now back in the center of Keithley. This is South Street. Still no cycling infrastructure. And we’re coming up to one of the main roundabouts in the town. This is High Street and we’re now about to turn on to North Street. Now, I do appreciate that it’s um hard to put cycling infrastructure into small little villages, you know, narrow roads, etc. But, um North Street’s actually four lanes wide. Um, plenty of space to to be able to probably take a little bit of room for cyclists and put a cycle in down the middle of it or on the side of it. Um, it does get a bit narrow at this section. Um, nice to see another fellow cyclist. Now, this is one of the real advantages of active travel. Um, I’ve spoken to this guy a few times when we’re commuting together um to just a little bit of chitchat. Um, but it definitely makes the whole thing more personable. This is now the last roundabout before we go on to the B6265. So let’s have a quick look at how Hull with a population of 289,000 people have done with their cycling infrastructure. Um it was reasonably good but quite patchy. Um but there was dedicated you know bus and bike lanes but nothing compares Rotterdam and the cycling is once again completely segregated actually the bikes are right of way coming into junctions as a cyclist said to me on a train from uh Keithley to leads to get here all the gear and got talking to me said he toured around the Netherlands And you’ve never felt so safe on a bike. [Music] So here [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Every generation outside seen grandparents, parents, children. It’s that old one from the Tom Hanks movie. If you build it, they will come. Need to remember where you pass your bike when you come to the train station here. [Music] I don’t know. [Music] The Dutch even have solutions for little country narrow roads where you know car goes down the middle, pedestrian or bike lane either side. Um, and then if there’s multiple cars, obviously they can there is enough room to pass, but they need to uh be mindful of who’s on the the bike lanes, etc. Right, back in BLY, it’s time for me to take the front and uh help my uh my fellow commuter. Let him draft behind me for a little while. He likes the flat. It’s a big I like the flat, too. It’s the hills I struggle on. I know hills. Uh, you’re you’re built for hills there, aren’t you? I’m not. See you later. Okay, we’ve just done over 6 milesi along these two roads. Uh, very little cycling infrastructure and we’re coming up to Airdell Hospital, which has about 3,000 staff. So, you’re looking at, you know, one of the biggest employers in in the region. Um, a lot of those workers will be focused on health and um, yeah, I I don’t think many of them will commute. Um, I’m not surprised really given, you know, it doesn’t feel that safe along some of this road despite the fact that these roads are wide enough to probably have some cycle infrastructure, cycle lanes put into them. Please bear with me for the next bit because you’d question, is there a lot to be gained from doing the return journey? But actually I think there’s some interest and lessons here and uh that is by looking at some of the small existing amounts of infrastructure that are there and how they could be improved. Um and equally just doing a few more comparisons with either Ireland or Germany. Nobody does allow the Dutch so I’ll stop showing videos of slightly infrastructure. This is the B6265 uh between Skippton and Keithley. um quite a wide road and off to our left is a major um dual carriageway the A629 which connects um Keithley and Skippton as well. So this is the old road in effect. Um and while this road is probably wide enough um it’s interesting to see a a similar road in Ireland between Newbridge and Nace both towns of about 24,000 people 26,000 people. Um, but that’s actually got hard shoulders, uh, which can be used as bike lanes. We are just coming up on one of the only sections of cycling lane along this road. And if you ask me, it’s a little bit pointless because people live in these houses. They have to have a place to park. So, and that is what happens. You know, people park in the bike lane. So, which is kind of understandable. There’s even a disabled space in that bike lane we’ve just seen. So, it’s kind of pointless and a waste of money. Let’s also take a closer look at this little interesting piece of architecture. This seems to allow the bikes to go onto the footpath for a short period of time to avoid the traffic lights. But the only time you would want to go onto the path there is if the there was pedestrians waiting to cross and the lights had gone red. But then you are then forced to interact with the pedestrians which once again I think back to the point about the parking and the you know people who naturally park in it which annoys bikes and then the fact the bike lanes there will annoy the residents cuz they can’t park. I think any good cycling infrastructure has to address those different issues and and make sure everyone’s needs are taken into account for it to be successful. Okay, before we take any more lessons from Keithley’s infrastructure, let’s have a quick look at how they do it in different places in Germany. This is small village which seems to have segregated everything. Uh here’s a monster 307,000 so probably half the size of Bradford. Uh lots of cycling infrastructure although do appreciate this is more central in the city. We are in a small town or a village called Hiden Oldenor again. Good cycling infrastructure. This is now the outskirts of Betnos. You’re going to choose that semi right, but I’m going to go straight cuz I think I have seen another casting [Music] something. Is it me or am I starting to feel a bit like the poor cousin of uh Europe? Anyway, this is back in Keithley. Once again, very little cycling infrastructure, population 57,000. We’ve seen some of the smaller towns in uh in Germany and what they’ve got. So, you be here’s a bit of cycling infrastructure for us. Tiny bit. Uh one of these advanced stop lines again. And I think that’s it in Keithley. I do appreciate there is a main you know kind of a decent section between Keithley and Bradford um to lots of to kind of cycle lanes etc. They go all the way through Bingley um and through sold there etc. Um but yeah Keith does kind of feel like it’s really lacked investment in this area. If I had a limited budget and there was one section of road I could vest in in Keithley with some bike path, I think it would be here. Um, so when I’m coming down this road in the morning, uh, it’s or when anyone’s coming down this road downhill, um, your differential in speed between you and the car is quite small. You can probably do 25 30 mph down here. Um the bikes can Oh, sorry. The cars can go up to 40, but actually they don’t tend to. Um because there’s lots of speed cameras as well. So this would be uh the biggest impact is actually going uphill. So how do you deal with people who once again have to park outside their houses um and then on this side of the road? How do you try and protect the bikes um and give them some visual space to operate in? Um, and then make sure that the kind of cars, you know, cuz otherwise we would end up slowing the cars down a lot as we’re going up, you know, bikes slow down going uphill I can manage between 5 and 10 mph up here. Um, which if the cars are waiting behind me, there’s obviously going to get impatient. Um, so yeah, this is the single spot where I’d recommend um Bradford Council or Keithley Council if we ever get one um invested some money on a bike path around here. Thank you very much for listening to my ramblings for the last 15 minutes or so. Hopefully you found it useful. um an interesting comparison of um cycling lanes and infrastructure and roads and in different uh bits of Europe.
1 Comment
You’re were quick in the first part of the video – are you on a normal road bike or an e-bike?