Progress Roundup

Newton Fields: 2012 Harvest and GWR

We started this partly to investigate how easy it would be to link Bath Spa University's Newton Park campus and the Bristol to Bath railway path.

We found that a straight route across the fields is physically simple, cost effective and would meet the needs of users - but to build it requires commitment, resources, and collaborative work between the landowner, the tenant farmer, the local authority and an organisation such as Sustrans, who build routes like these.

Given that this involves multiple agencies, it's no suprise that we've not yet met with success. However, the campaign's not fruitless:

• We've spoken with the landowner's agent. We believe the landowner is happy with the principle of this route, albeit with a bit of a diversion round a field-end to avoid the expense of  renegotiating the lease with the tenant farmer.
• We've spoken with Sustrans, to establish some basic costs.
• We've raised this option with the local authority's councillors.
• The campaign has raised awareness how anyone wanting to do something as simple as cycle the four miles from the centre of Bath to the University's campus at Newton Park is met by a series of obstacles. Despite the short distance, the nature of the road network begs them to travel by car. 
• We've also found that the needs of people cycling from the Bristol direction aren't met at all well - the fast single carriageway A4 is intimidating.

We've even uncovered accounts from people who set off along the high quality Bath to Bristol Sustrans path for the first time heading for the University - assuming the route would surely throw off a spur to an obvious destination like Newton Park - and talked to several people from Saltford for whom the busy A4 is a complete blocker to cycling to Newton Park.

Also, there's now a cycling promotion group started by students - it uses a Facebook page - Bike2BSU. This group is committed to promote cycling for transport to Newton Park.

Many undergraduates are at University for just 3 years, which is why a scheme with a delivery timescale of less than two years is naturally more engaging to them.

Routes to Bath Spa University: Developments

The local authority's now committed to action on building a link between the University's Newton Park campus and the Bristol to Bath path. Their preferred option is to improve the current footpath along the dual carriageway, and then a ramp at what we've discovered is called 'Twerton Fork'.

Money from a new source - central government's local sustainable transport fund - will help pay for that.

Corston Pavement

When complete, a route alongside the dual carriageway will certainly help encourage people to cycle, though it won't be the best option for people arriving from the Bristol direction. It involves some substantial engineering so it will not be a quick win, though some of the work will be complete in this financial year.

The local authority is also committed to improving the crossing points at the Globe roundabout and also the immediate approach to the Bath Spa University entrance - something that will help everyone who uses that road. This aspect of the work is scheduled for the near future.

A Walkthrough of the Options

At the start of September 2012, the president of the students union, the University's environmental officer and others representing various interest groups walked the length of the dual carriageway route and returned via a section of the Bristol to Bath path, this to help inform a series of meetings with the local authority. The physical simplicity of the 'Globe connector' option very much impressed itself on all present ...

Two Postscripts

Early Blackberry

We've discovered that the blackberries growing alongside the Bristol to Bath path taste a lot better than the ones alongside the dual carriageway.

Work to complete the Two Tunnels route is well underway. If you're a third year student at Bath Spa University, you'll be able to use it before you graduate. We very much wish that the same could apply to a route to the Newton Park campus ...

Globe Connector Revisited

The Avon Valley and its transport links west of Bath. Select for a bigger version

2012. A year on - another Bath Cycling Summit under the city's belt, and what of a connecting link from the Globe roundabout to the Bristol to Bath path?

Well, nothing on the ground yet, though useful conversations have been had. For his part, the land agent has agreed to support, in principle, a route, somewhat on the originally proposed alignment - albeit one with a dog-leg in it to work round the headland of the field next to the river to meet the needs of farming the land there.

Every Picture Tells a Story

The photo above is an overview which almost shows what may become the 'Globe Connector' route in the far distance - it's a view west across a piece of land, part of the Duchy of Cornwall estate, that hosts a lot of the area's transport infrastructure. I've included it to emphasise the demands that transport links make on the land here, what has been accommodated, and what more might be put in place. Here's a list:

• On the left, what was one of the area's turnpike roads and is now the dual carriageway A4 with its footpath alongside.
• Emerging from beneath the A4, Brunel's London to Bristol Railway. To the left it's in a cutting that sliced through what turned out to be a roman villa, and in the middle distance, it's on that sweeping embankment formed in small part from the spoil heaps of several coal mines, including the one sited on what's now the 'Globe' pub itself. (This early example of recycling removed much evidence of mining from the valley here)
• Twenty years later, the Midland Railway built their Bath branch, to give the city a fast link to the midlands. It's that straight line of trees heading for the horizon on the right of the view.
• The level stretch of land in the centre of the view is the site of a one-time proposed wartime connection between the lines of the two railway companies that served Bath. It's rumoured that the route of this proposal was actually marked out with pegs across the meadows here, but the connection itself remained unbuilt.
• In the closing years of WW2, the flat stretch of land in Newton Meadows was briefly considered as a future site for an airport to serve Bath, after which the 'Rail connection idea' resurfaced as part of a plan to consolidate Bath's two railway stations into one.
•  In the nineteen sixties, the old turnpike road was doubled to form the dual carriageway that's survived unaltered to the present day. It's the pride of the local authority's highways department, and somewhat intimidating if you're on a bike.
• Again in the sixties, Bath lost its fast rail link to the midlands - and within Bath itself the route of the line was rapidly blocked by the odd bit of piecemeal redevelopment. Sustrans was eventually successful in converting the old alignment from Bristol as far as the edge of the city, forming the Bristol to Bath railway path.

So, if you ride a cycle, you might ask 'Is there a transport route for me?' - to which the answer is 'Yes, but if you're heading for, say, Bath Spa University, it doesn't go to your destination'. Indeed, on leaving the edge of Bath the first place at which the Bath to Bristol path touches down is Saltford, being an old railway route, it quite reasonably ignores Newton St Loe, Corston and the road junctions there.

Cycle Routes to Bath Spa University

When planning a cycle route to Bath Spa University's Newton Park campus, a (quick) question that the local authority might ponder will be which of the following is better:

• A cycle path alongside the existing A4
• A connection with the existing Bath-Bristol path

Should a connection to it be built, the Bath to Bristol path then has three big strengths.

• As a route, it's a lot more pleasant than the Lower Bristol Road
• It separates people on bikes from those in cars - it even takes them beneath the junctions at the east end of the A4 dual carriageway.
• It delivers people, in a relatively traffic free way, to Bath's other rising star, the Two Tunnels route. Hence, network benefits in the form of (mostly) segregated cycling routes between the city centre, its major suburb, and one of its university campuses.
  

Funding, anyone?

It happens that as of July 2012, B&NES has landed funding for sustainable transport routes from central government. The local authority already has proposals that are to benefit from the fund. Hence, this is a very good time to keep this idea in circulation.