I was at a regular meeting with Essex County Council last week and the Southend cycle Town Project manager (who actually works for a 3rd party consultant firm) was there for the first time. He branded me a troublemaker in front of the people who have known me for years.
So...
He was asked to give a short presentation on what's happening in Southend. Here is a summary from my notes (it's only a summary because Southend told me to put my pen down and stop making notes).
Southend has been awarded money to create a cycle town so we have four schemes underway.
Progress Road, Cuckoo Corner, Victoria Circus, City Beach.
All these schemes are implementing cycle facilities.
The total cost of these schemes is £25m, of which £3m is on cycling.
Now call me a cynic, but considering that the Cycle England money is £3.2m matched funding (SBC pay £3.2m and get another £3.2m from CE), doesn't this sound a lot like "we'll juggle the budget to say that we've spent £3m in order to get more funding revenue coming in"?
Let's look at the four schemes, where is £3m being spent on cycling?
Progress Road.
Current cycle path crosses Progress Road without a crossing. They are putting in 5 toucans so that a cyclist can press the button and cross lots of slip roads, as well as the eastbound A127 twice. This is a delay to cyclists, not an improvement. The driver for the scheme is to try to reduce queuing motor traffic.
Cuckoo Corner.
Roundabout is getting traffic lights and another traffic lane. The plans in the public domain show nothing else, although I did see one draft that showed partial cycle lanes at one point on the roundabout. The driver for the scheme is to try to reduce queuing motor traffic.
Victoria Circus.
Remove a well designed roundabout without queuing traffic and replace with a traffic lights T-Junction. Call this "shared space". Paint some cycle lanes.
City Beach.
Change the current road with a central reservation into a narrowed normal road, thus widening the pavement. Make this a shared use promenade. Bring the road surface up to be flush with the pavement to make it easier for irresponsible motorists to use the pavement for parking/bypassing a queue.