Cambridge City Deal

[LocalEditorCambridge]

There's just about a month left to fill in a questionnaire about the proposed plans to deal with congestion in Cambridge.

I've linked the details here for anyone interested or affected and obviously this thread is a chance to discuss & ask questions. It will impact anyone who drives or cycles during peak times.

details of plans

link to survey

recent article in Cambridge news

another article with details of deal

Plans include closing during peak times

Grange Road
Queen's Road
East Road
Coldham's Lane
Mill Road
Hills Road

The road closures would be an absolute disaster for anyone living in the surrounding streets (eg the streets on the 'town' side of Mill Road between Mill Rd and Hills Rd, and some of the streets on the other side of Hill Road) because they will be turned into rat runs. If you look at the maps in the plans, you can see street where they expect traffic to rise by >50% in the peak periods when the major roads are closed. This is one of the local residents' assocoations responses

Anyone who lives in the central-ish bits of Cambridge should take a close look at the plans and comment if they think they might be affected.

It is so important that people understand what is being proposed and make their views heard. The definition of peak hours is 7am to 10am and 4pm to 6.30pm - so for 5 1/2 hours a day you will not be able to drive on the roads listed but will be expected to either sit in jams on the remaining road infrastructure (eg Brooklands Ave is predicted to experience a 50% increase in traffic volumes) or carve your way through residential side roads.

The City Deal team will tell you that they have to 'do something' to deal with the projected increases in journeys into Cambridge prompted by all the growth they are encouraging. What they won't tell you is how this is supposed to work practically, day to day, on the ground for parents with complicated school/nursery/work runs; carers trying to visit dependent and vulnerable clients; tradesmen who need to get to jobs or supply depots early; those with limited mobility who can't just hop on a bike or a bus; and those travelling in from outside the city with non-existent public transport options.

Groups such as Smarter Cambridge Transport and Cambridge Connect have proposed alternatives to the City Deal's plans but it's hard for them to get the same visibility as the City Deal's campaign, which is pitched in a very misleading way - "Want quicker, more reliable bus journeys?" - well, who wouldn't sign up to that. But the cost to thousands of residents in Cambridge and beyond will be utter misery.

Please do take the time to find out what's being proposed and respond to the consultation. Sorry for the rant but people need to know about this!

Coldham's Lane?? Does that mean the Retail Park and Asda are out of bounds by car? And Parkside Pools, and the Grafton Centre?

I can't see enough resolution on their crappy mappy to tell exactly where the zones fall, but that does seem a bit extreme if so.

Tingaling, you are right to be concerned. People are being asked to approve through a set of measures without any proper guidance as to where the control points will actually be placed. But the one on Hills Road, for example, will definitely be south of the Catholic church so no access will be possible to Parkside Pool via Gonville Place. Just think through the places you go before 10am or between 4pm and 6.30pm and ask yourself how you would be get to them if the roads listed above were effectively severed and there wasn't a way through.

This is not the solution for all the reasons DorothyParker mentions. Surely the parking charge at the park and ride sites should be scrapped, more cycle paths should be created and more frequent and cheaper buses.

Cheaper buses would be a joy, but the main reason I seem to trundle into Cambridge by car is to deliver DS's damn tuba.

They don't like tubas on buses, they don't.

My main concerns are that:

• they consulted business leaders (who perhaps mostly don't/didn't do the childcare in their families) but I don't think they have consulted family groups.
• they probably subscribe to the view that driving children to school is a 'luxury' rather than a necessary part of most people's drive to work.

I don't think they will really understand the needs of people driving 2+ small people to swimming, or ballet, or to hospital etc on journeys that aren't easily on a bus route (I.e. aren't from suburbs to the centre) or aren't easily done by bike.

So the more families that comment the better!

I live outside Cambridge and don't go in very often, but people like me will not have a clue what's hit us when we pop in for an appointment or get stuck trying to get home in time for the nursery pick up. It sounds like utter carnage.

If you look at the bottom of this page

www.gccitydeal.co.uk/citydeal/homepage/8/pccp

on the City Deal website you will find a link to the FAQ document. This is a screenshot of part of it. Just unbelievable. You won't even be able to drive to your own house without a detour! The City Deal's own consultants estimate that there will be a 50% increase in traffic on alternative routes like Brooklands Avenue and Cherry Hinton Road. And there will be no exemptions for taxis, who will have to re-route thus forcing prices up even further. Seriously, what do they expect people to do? And of course the City Deal project has no control over what services Stagecoach chooses to run, and how much it chooses to charge for them, so cannot ensure that there will be a viable affordable public transport alternative. This is supposed to be a city of smart people - I despair.

How would traffic get out of the Grand Arcade parking in those peak hours? Would it have to be round the side of Parker's Piece and round Mill Road to get out to the West?

I would guess: St Andrews St, Park Terrace, Parkside, Lensfield Road, Trumpington Road double mini-roundabouts, Fen Causeway, Barton Road. How many accidents do you think there'll be at the mini-roundabouts in the first week the control points are in operation?

I didn't twig that Lensfield Road would still be passable.

I imagine the private schools in the Grange Road area will have problems.

Those mini-roundabouts seem to attract drives who seem to never have seen a roundabout before. I have no idea why drivers struggle so much with them.

This clearly isn't the answer. It will just snare the city up even more and heighten tempers. I think the businesses should be encourage to have more flexible hours - such as the Colleges - as that will help ease congestion. Perhaps the private schools should have to have regular shuttle buses that circuit the city too, as the traffic is so much better when the schoolchildren are off. We can't make parts of the city into no go areas, it will make life a misery for people who live in adjacent roads.

Flexible hours for staff, so not everyone is trying to get in for 9am and leave at 5pm.

How would traffic get out of the Grand Arcade parking in those peak hours? Would it have to be round the side of Parker's Piece and round Mill Road to get out to the West?

Not Mill Road - at least some of the options include 'controlling' Mill Road, too. The whole thing would be a disaster.

If you are concerned about this idiotic plan, please respond to the consultation. Please also pressure your county councillor about this (because it's roads, it's a county not a city issue). The county councillors are up for re-election next spring and it might be worth making it clear to them that the position they take on this will influence your vote. Several of the county councillors in the wards that would be worst affected are already going to be looking ahead nervously to the elections because, as Labour people, they are going to be worrying about a swing back to the Lib Dems. This should mean that they're in a more responsive mood than ususal...

Father, sorry to correct you but this is being proposed by the City Deal - the stitch up of City, South Cambs and the County, funded by central government money. Decisions such as these are made by the three men who have voting rights on the City Deal Executive Board - Lewis Herbert for the City Council, Francis Burkitt for South Cambs and Ian Bates for the County Council, with non-voting participants from Cambridge University and the LEP www.gccitydeal.co.uk/citydeal/info/6/home/4/about_the_greater_cambridge_city_deal/3 Both city and county councils have voluntarily ceded significant powers to the City Deal mechanism. So by all means lobby your city or county councillor but be aware that sadly they have no direct means of influencing the outcome (and no direct means of being held accountable).

The only way of making your voice heard under this incredibly undemocratic set up is to ensure that the consultation process receives thousands of statements of opposition. And even that might not be enough - over 3000 people signed the petition objecting to the City Deal's plans for massacring Milton Road to accommodate bus lanes (loss of trees, compulsory purchase of gardens, closures to the local road network, division of the community by four-lane highway), yet the project is still pressing ahead.

Thank you for that correction, that's very helpful. Also a good idea to write to Lewis Herbert directly, I'd have thought - particularly if you live in Coleridge ward, where he is one of the councillors.

I have no concern about private schools being affected by this - I once made the mistake of trying to get the P&R bus from town to Trumpington at school kicking out time and it took ages to get path St Faiths etc where parking is allowed in the bus lane. However Cambridge traffic is a nightmare and the reason I do the bulk of my shopping on line and try to visit as little as possible.

The charge for the P&R parking was the final straw. Why we can't have fleets of Boris bikes at the P&R sites I don't know - park and cycle would be perfect. If I had the cash, I would buy a folding bike to stick in the boot of the car. The P&R just doesn't work if you have children - more hassle, more expensive and at peak times you have to wait for space on a bus.

I'd also like to see more attention given to radial journeys - my commute is to the south of the City and the villages are rat runs and the A505 is solid.

I can't believe they're going to start trialling the road closures next summer. The closures are being justified by improvements to bus cycle etc, but none of these will be in place by then!

And with the buses being overcrowded, unreliable, taking longer and increasingly expensive - they are currently not a viable alternative.

I can't imagine local business owners being thrilled about the 4 hours or so of reduced trading time either.

Place marking to share with DH - thank you for the details DorothyParker

Bump.