National and European Experts are helping develop West Yorkshire’s new cycling and walking infrastructure plans
New walking infrastructure plans for Keighley, Halifax, Dewsbury, and Wakefield and at Harehills in Leeds, and new cycling network plans in south Bradford, Brighouse, east Huddersfield, north-east Leeds, and the north and south of Wakefield are being created.
Who is developing the plans?
National and European experts are helping to develop the plans to improve conditions for people travelling by bike or on foot at key locations across the region, building on the work already underway through the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s £60m CityConnect programme aimed at encouraging more people to cycle and walk.
West Yorkshire’s five districts are leading work to identify standalone plans in their areas.
What are the plans?
The region’s 20-year Transport Strategy has a target of increasing the number of trips made by cycling by 300% over the next 10 years. It also recommends resources be identified to deliver the work.
Schemes identified in the first phase are being developed with Netherlands-based mobility specialists Mobycon, UK walking charity Living Streets, and consultants Steer.
Current infrastructure, planned housing and employment sites, health inequalities, people’s propensity to cycle and opportunities to deliver improvements through existing projects such as the CityConnect programme, the West Yorkshire-plus Transport Fund and Connecting Leeds, are being taken into account.
Stakeholders from local community groups, councillors and officers are involved in developing plans including at workshops led by Mobycon and walking street audits led by Living Streets, with further engagement planned in the future.
Cllr Peter McBride, Kirklees Council Cabinet Member for Economy and Infrastructure said:
“Kirklees Council fully encourages more of its residents to use alternative modes of transport. We are working closely with our partners to build suitable infrastructure for both cycle users and pedestrians.
This requires a multi-agency approach to ensure we support people’s transitions from their traditional means of transport. ”
What work has been done so far?
Working in partnership with Leeds and Bradford Councils, the Combined Authority’s CityConnect team has completed the award-winning 23km Bradford Leeds Cycle Superhighway, which connects two of our major cities with a route segregated from traffic.
Since opening in July 2016, the Cycle Superhighway has been used for more than 845,000 journeys, connecting people with opportunities for work, training and leisure. Ongoing works to extend this network of segregated cycling routes through Bradford and Leeds city centre are due to be completed by summer 2019.
Communities across West Yorkshire and York are seeing the benefits of new, high quality cycling and walking infrastructure, including the Castleford Wakefield Greenway and a series of canal towpath upgrades in Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale, with construction work currently underway on Scarborough Bridge in York.
Want to find out more?
Details of cycle routes across West Yorkshire and tips on cycling and walking can be found on the CityConnect website at https://cyclecityconnect.co.uk and there are updates from @CityConnect1 on Twitter and the City Connect Facebook page.
In November 2017, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority Transport Committee approved £100,000 expenditure for the development of the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan and in November 2017 the Combined Authority received £86,000 of Department for Transport revenue grant funding for the work.