Boris Johnson calls for cycle path alongside HS2 high speed railway line

[[[[[ Er...see paragraph 7. "a new cycling and walking route" What fun, with pedestrian hikers dodging bikers, and bikers swerving to avoid walkers (and their dogs)....sounds just like yer local park, dunnit?
P.R.

That cycle track is not right. There are no pylons, gantries or lamp posts in the middle of it.

'Artist''s impression

I wish I could photoshop, but I can imagine the artists impression;

Train track then 6 inches of chevrons then a 2 foot cycle track, fence, with spikes.

And it will come with a prize for staying on your bike whilst a 800m train blasts past you at 300kph

But they do have a clue what they are doing when it comes to anything other than "motoring", sweet fuck all.

You can't picture it because it won't happen.

I can picture the first day of operation of HS2 and you go to Leeds to buy a ticket to London - first class ticket and you get a seat at the front of the train, buy a second class and you get a seat at the back, third class and they give you a bike

More bullshit, HS2 will never get built, neither will this, just pie in sky rubbish.

If you think any decent quality cycle paths will ever be built in the "uk" you are kidding yourself.

They are going to have to build a service road anyway to get all the site traffic to HS2 as they build it, left in place it could be a full width metaled road purely for cyclists running the full length of the west coast line. What they don't want to do is get Sustrans involved as the half arsed approach to cycle routes they implement is neither use nor ornament. But then again that's 50 percent of charities, lots of well meaning people working for them for free while a few leftie managers take home a nice fat salary. The Ho Chi Minh trail is easier to ride down than the sodding Sustrans network.

This could be absolutely fantastic - but only if they did it properly. If it is sustrans style "blue signposts and FA else" then why bother.

On the other hand - if you could cycle from London to Brum without interacting with cars then it could be fantastic.

There is a huge demand for lesure cycling and with the right facilities it could become a huge industry/opportunity. If it was car free then it would be possible to take children on the route.

Just the other day I was in the Chilterns on the first sunny day of the year, the number of cyclists out was huge (group ever hundred metres or so). Shame that the pleasure cyclists were on the more major road when there are so many nice back roads, and the traffic was heavier due to a closed road... and by tragic coincidence there was a TT event, result: mayehem!

There is a real demand for proper lesure cycling facilities, if they did this properly it could be combined into segregated commuter facilities nearer towns during the week.

Shame they will balls it up though....

If we are going to have HS2 though, it makes sense to put a cycle route alongside.

There is a bigger picture though, if everytime a new rail or road route is built cycling is taken into consideration then that's a massive step forward, so this is a chance to blaze a trail and make something that's not too good a little better.

HS2 is not needed so scrap it and spend the money on cycling infrastructure across the country. £45 billion, or whatever the HS2 cost is, would go a long way.....

Personally I think the UK needs more offroad 'intercity' cycle routes (like the lovely Bath<->Bristol), so I can see a lot to commend this idea. Railway lines usually have the gentle gradients that make long distance cycling much easier. Worried it might turn into a bus lane too tho...

"people could travel to stations without having to pay for car parking,"
That really depends on how affordable the HS2 line is. When a ticket on London-Midland now is often more than the equivalent journey's fuel costs why would anyone but a regular commuter leave a car behind to take the train? I expect HS2 will be a high-cost business travel line anyway, I don't see it adding to local village life..
Hugely in favour of rail networks here in theory, but they can't get it right with the ones we have when it comes to cost and cycle use.

"the HS2 train line will destroy huge areas of ancient woodland and habitats in areas of outstanding natural beauty" Unfortunately this is true.

Wow! Bungee straps at the ready!

Nahhh……… it will be crap. 70 miles of something like the Guided Bus Way in Cambridgeshire would be awesome with NO FLOODING but it will never happen. HS2 is an environmental disaster so they are not pushing the environmental benefits of cycling as a sustainable means of transport as the HS2 train line will destroy huge areas of ancient woodland and habitats in areas of outstanding natural beauty. Criminal.

Ps BJ is a plank.

Quote:

To help meet our ambition for cycling, we will conduct a feasibility study into the creation of a new cycling and walking route broadly following the High Speed 2 (HS2) corridor.

hmm, does this mean a proper path, or somewhere within 10miles and using back roads, gravel bridleways, etc etc.

If your going to do it, do it PROPERLY!