Dear all,

Hertfordshire County Council have recently claimed in their LTP update that they had:

made improvements “designed to create easier, segregated access for buses, taxis, pedestrians and cyclists” at Hitchin Station.

We have protested at this statement since we had objected to the proposals for a poor quality pavement cycle track, but had been ignored. HCC in fact ignored all of our comments and suggestions, just as they had in 1999.

 

Our objections were based on the following:

L  The exit to the carriageway near the station entrance is dangerous – visibility is poor, made worse by vehicles queuing, and drivers will not be expecting anybody to be emerging from the pavement at this point. It is in fact the very worst point in the whole forecourt to join the carriageway.

L  Vehicles queue across the entrance to the “cycle path”, making it difficult to join and leave.

L  The path is too narrow for shared use, encroachment by vegetation from neighbouring properties will reduce width further. Because of the lack of space on the “pedestrian” side of the path, people will walk down the “cycle” side making passage impossible. Due to its nature, paths to railway stations are heavily used by pedestrians.

 

Our recommendation was to use the bus access to reach the cycle parking and have a short contraflow lane (or unsegregated contraflow cycling) to get from the cycle parking back to the entrance. Queuing vehicles and pedestrians would not be able to obstruct a contraflow lane, and it would join the main carriageway in a way that enjoyed good visibility. More details from the Hitchin campaign page of our website here.

 

HCC have justified their ignoring our comments by saying:

 

To date, First Capital Connect has received no complaints about the layout of the cycle path after conducting an on-site survey of cyclists regarding the cycle facilities at Hitchin with a 67% satisfaction rate.  The only issues that were raised were about security and the number of CCTV cameras (raised by 16% of the survey respondents). 

 

I would be grateful if station users could let me know whether they took part in any such survey, whether or not it asked for views about the access or whether you thought that you were being asked about the cycle parking (which has been improved). Were you comparing to the previous arrangement, which was, again, put in against our objections (we knew that people would park on top of it and it offered no means of getting back to the entrance from the cycle parking).

 

Any other thoughts / comments / views on the forecourt access would be welcomed. As would views on any other aspect of cycling in North Herts.

 

Regards
 
 
 
Alasdair DV Massie CEng MIStructE

CTC Right to Ride Representative, North Herts

CTC is Britain’s largest cycling organisation with 70,000 members. Formed in 1878 we have actively campaigned for better, safer roads, locally and nationally since our inception.

We have a large and active section for North Herts and Stevenage.

wwww.ctc.org.uk            www.northhertsctc.org.uk