Given the morning commuter traffic, how long would it take to drive from east side of Queen Edith's Way to High Street (A1134)? (via Long Road)

[dadster12345]

I've heard that there are large queues of commuter traffic in the morning in Cambridge (8-9).

I was wondering whether it would be feasible to live on the eastern edge of Queen Edith's Way and to drive my kids to school at the Perse Prep.

Be interested to hear how long it would be likely to take make the trip to the school by car or bike and then back home (from where I will be most likely working).

Basically I want to make it back in time for 9am (it looks doable but I don't know just how bad these traffic jams are).

Bike.

Please don't add to Cambridge traffic congestion if you can avoid it. Cycle paths are good & wide along that route. Your DCs can be in trailer / tag-along / own bike.

I'm all for cycling but along Long Road? There is no cycle path - just the footpath - and in places it appears quite narrow. Its not ideal is it?

Please don't even think about driving, you will be condemning yourself and your children to a life of misery. Morning and evening traffic is heavy and will get substantially worse in the next year as Papworth and AZ open on the Biomed Campus. Cycling along Load Road isn't great but it's a shared use facility and plenty of Perse and St Faith's families do it every day. And it would be helpful if, instead of retreating into your car, you actually lobbied the County Council to upgrade the infrastructure. It's on their to do list - make sufficient noise and they might prioritise it

Maybe you should read this too www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/05/uk-parents-worryingly-unaware-of-damage-air-pollution-is-doing-children

The cycle path on Long Road is completely fine, and plenty wide enough. Long Road is gridlock for cars in the morning, you'd be completely mad to even try it. To be honest, cycling is the only way to ensure consistency of journey times in Cambridge.

Of course it's feasible, you just leave earlier and travel for longer.

We travel in from the west. It's about 14 miles and sometimes take 30mins sometimes takes over 1hr. Such is life. We don't have public transport and can't cycle, so we just get up earlier.

However, I would investigate cycling before you rule it out, or could you get a bus?

Better to live in Trumpington maybe? Though you then have the same problem reverse when they go to the upper school.

Before I knew I was moving to Cambridge someone said to me that its good for cycling. It appears that its certainly more advanced than other towns, but its a shame that there aren't more improvements, especially along Long Road. Surely they should be building some routes over the railway line for cyclists? There's a huge amount of suburban and office development in the south of the city - is there a plan for ensuring that all these new people are going to be able to move around - or is it a case of get them all in first, let them worry about how they are going to commute second?

It seems as if road is likely to be choc-a-bloc. I don't want to cause any more pollution, I hate pollution, but neither, by cycling, do I want to be breathing it all in with my daughter.

Do you know what their plans are?

Probably more accurate to describe them as an aspiration than a formulated plan. Lobbying can drive projects up the to do list, I got the County Council to spend £100k or more on improvements to Long Road in 2012, so it's better than it was though still inadequate in places. Re the inhaling pollution concern, the research indicates that kids breathe more polluted air sitting in a car in traffic than they do biking or walking.

And in response to your question about why there is a lag between development going in and the supporting infrastructure being provided, it's because we have a local government mess of hard-to-believe proportions. City Council fights County Council fights Greater Cambridge Partnership fights Combined Authority, plus finance is in short supply and no-one wants to take the rap for unpopular decisions eg introducing congestion charging. We're probably about 10 years behind where we need to be, eg Cambridge South station being delivered mid 2020s, years after the big employers have moved into the Biomed Campus. #DontBelieveTheHype ought to be our city's motto right now.
Happy to fill in more of the background if you are interested - DM me.

Got your DM but don't seem able to reply. This is what I was wanting to say:

I will certainly try to help! First questions would be:
Why are you moving here?
Is there anywhere you have to access or be near? (Perse Prep by the sound of it)
How do you (all) feel about cycling and walking? How old are the children?
Will you be combining the school run with other journeys?
What else matters to you? (I saw your q about Holbrook Road playground)

I live v close to Addenbrooke's, been here for 20 years and am conscious of the extreme growing pains the city is going through. If you are moving from, say, London it might still feel fine to you, but Cambridge suburbs are no longer the Rupert Brooke idyll people hope for ...

If you DM me an email address, we can move off this annoying platform

In Cambridge, is it OK for kids to cycle on the pavements?

Depends how old they are. 8 or under, I'd say yes.

I understand from this map that its legitimate for adults to cycle along some of the paths ccc-live.storage.googleapis.com/upload/www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/travel-roads-and-parking/Cambridge%2018%20V3.pdf?inline=true

Most of the pavements on that route are shared cycle/pedestrian paths, so you should be fine.

Cycle Streets can be a useful app for suggesting routes, especially if you're new.