Campaigners accuse council of “ignoring evidence” after allowing traffic on bus and cycle lane which halved collision numbers and reduced journey times

A cycling campaign has blasted the Norfolk County Council after it announced that a mostly popular bus and cycle lane, which had been responsible for improving journey times and significantly reducing collisions, would only operate for limited hours during the day, after which motor vehicle drivers would be allowed to use it.

The bus and cycle lane in question are on Cromer Road and Aylsham Road in Norwich, with Norwich Cycling Campaign’s Peter Silburn accusing the council of “ignoring” its own evidence and treating the safety of cyclists based on a political ideology involving succumbing to the whims of the minority that had been in opposition to the bus lanes since its inception.

The lane, which operates 24/7 and is accessible to cyclists and bus drivers going southwards on Cromer Road and those going northwards on Aylsham Road, was installed in 2021, sparking some controversy after more than 400 local residents and shopkeepers raised concerns about the £400,000 project, such as removing parking to conceive the lane.

Three years on, former Norwich North MP, Conservative Chloe Smith, along with district and county councillor Shelagh Gurney, raised concerns about the bus and bike lane, triggering a review. The review would however conclude that bus journey times and reliability improved.

Meanwhile, it also found out that the bus lane had reduced the collision rates by 75 per cent and 50 per cent on Cromer Road and Aylsham Road, respectively.

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Despite the data, Graham Plant, the Conservative-controlled council’s cabinet member for highways, infrastructure and transport has used his powers to change the hours of the lane’s operation from round-the-clock to only from 7am to 7pm, reports the Eastern Daily Press.

This means that the bus lane will operate from 7am to 7pm, however, other traffic users besides bus drivers and cyclists will able to use it outside of those times, initially on a temporary basis.

The council stated the Department for Transport’s latest directive, which outlines that bus lanes should not operate when no bus services were running, or when traffic would not delay them, and that they should only be used 24 hours when there are night buses running and there is “significant congestion”, when making this decision.

Graham Plant, Member for Highways, was yesterday asked at Cabinet if the new government’s more supportive approach to active travel would result in any changes to the way Norfolk CC views active travel.

His response was that the existing guidance from DfT remains in place. 1/3

— Norwich Cycling Campaign (@NorwichCycling) September 3, 2024

Peter Silburn, chairman of the Norwich Cycling Campaign, said that the group was “very concerned” and feared accidents will rise. He said: “Bus lanes are not cycle infrastructure, but on busy roads like this they can provide some protection for cyclists, although to be of any use they must operate for 24 hours.

“There is nothing to be gained from these changes. There is strong evidence, however, that the accident rate has dropped significantly since the introduction of the bus lane. Reducing hours of operation would inevitably result in the accident rate increasing.”

Green city councillor Liam Calvert said: "Mr Plant is ignoring evidence of his own experts who have pointed out many benefits of the bus lanes, which include reduced journey times for drivers and passengers and improved safety for all road users."

A council spokeswoman said: "We’re running this trial to monitor how reducing the hours the bus lane operates affects road users. This trial has the full support of local council members and was proposed as a result of feedback from them and the local community.

“Once evidence has been collected, a decision will be made on whether hours of operation should be changed permanently.”

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The Norwich Cycling Campaign is also raising awareness about the proposed bus lane changes on Angel Road, with the group saying that the “bus improvement” schemes put forward by the council do little to improve things for buses whilst making things worse for cyclists.

They called the scheme planned for Angel Road-Waterloo Road junction in Norwich as the “latest in a series of questionable projects from Norfolk County Council, dressed up as a bus improvement scheme”.

Derek Williams from the campaign said: “This junction has long been one of the problem areas on the Pedalways network, a place we’ve been hoping for improvements. But as difficult junctions go, it does have some level of provision, in that the Yellow Pedalway heading south has its own painted lane at the junction (which is difficult to see from the map above because a car is blocking it). There is also a centre island on Angel Road at the junction which also gives some protection to cyclists.

“Either traffic heading away from the city will want to turn right onto Waterloo Road, in which case it will back up as it waits for a gap in the oncoming traffic, causing delays which don’t exist at the moment, defeating the whole point of the plan.

“Or the main flow of the traffic will transfer onto Angel Road and the Yellow Pedalway. The result of that will be more traffic heading along Angel Road and Catton Grove Road, undoing the traffic reduction effort of the past few years.”

Proposed plans for Angel Road and Waterloo Road junction, Norwich (Norfolk County Council)

“The most obvious comment is it’s not the improvement we’d hoped to see,” he added. “The problem with changing the traffic flow to help buses is that it also works to improve journeys by car, unless of course it’s bus-only infrastructure such as bus lanes.

“This is the main criticism with this plan – and others being proposed by Norfolk County Council. No thought has been given to the Pedalways which cross at this important intersection in what can be considerd simply a scheme to improve things for motor traffic.”

The campaign group has laid it out on the council on several occasions in the past, primarily for voluntarily ignoring cyclists when building new infrastructure. In March, it slammed the council’s suggestion that cyclists avoid a busy junction which is not “designated as a pedalway” and instead stick to other routes, after it ignored cyclists’ plea for additional infrastructure in the wake of a new bus scheme, with fears that cycling is being made “more dangerous by design”.

In September last year, Plant had taken the decision to disband a committee of councillors which met publicly to discuss highways projects, replacing it instead with a steering group that will hold meetings in private, as meetings of the Transport for Norwich joint committee were all too often mired in controversy. Cyclists had lambasted the decision, calling it “outrageous” and that the perceived lack of transparency will “erode public trust”.