SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Work on a £29m cycle superhighway linking Bradford and Leeds has officially begun.

The 14-mile (23km) route will run from Bradford city centre to Seacroft, in East Leeds.

The City Connect project, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, has been funded by an £18m cash award from the Department for Transport and £11m of local funding.

The scheme also includes resurfacing parts of the Leeds Liverpool canal.

Coordinators say they hope the cycle way will encourage more people to make short journeys by bike and improve access to employment, skills and education.

The project is jointly managed by West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Leeds City Council and Bradford Council.



Where are we going?

£11 million local funding for a bike ride.

So its stuff all the potholes which are damaging all our vehicles, its turn all the street lights out, its make all the old folks homeless.

And how in Gods name are they going to resurface the Canal?

Oh well as long as we are looking after the cyclists who can't ride on roads

I am worried to admit but I quite like the idea. I very much doubt that anybody who lives in Leeds or Bradford will travel between the two using this but it does, tome at least, sound sort-of fun. I like to use the Leeds-Liverpool canal towpath so I can't see not wanting to use this.
I understand the road problems but wonder whether they are a different budget?

A cycle superhighway has also today been announced for London. Its only going to be ten feet wide - the original plan was fourteen feet.
My other half thinks that 14ft would have been all the better to accommodate all the (edited for content) lycra clad ejits that fill the roads in January and February trying to lose some lard off their hams.
Cold harsh winds in March thins them out a bit. That and HGV's.

Excellent news, I'll be using it.

The section of the scheme that is being built on Barwick Rd / York Rd looks like a typical council exercise in poor execution of a basically sound idea, I'm afraid to say.

The first bit appears to be on a new path across existing verges from the Ring Rd, then it appears to wander onto the service road in front of the shops opposite Aldi, then looks to use the existing access road that runs parallel to York Rd, before popping back up onto where the verge is now, before becoming a "shared use" space on the existing footpath past the Shell garage and on through the traffic lights at Killingbeck.

Surely the whole point of a "Super Highway" is that it gets you where you want to go quickly and efficiently? I can't see that there would be too many leisure cyclists fancying a meander alongside a busy dual carriageway.

The trouble is, is that if it is a mishmash of different bits here and then wanders around over there, the serious cycling commuters are going to ignore it and stay on the main carriageway - similarly if it's not maintained / kept clear of rubbish, making the eye watering cost of £1 million per km seem a poor use of public funds.

Read this blog, posted by someone who knows more about these things than I do: https://departmentfortransport.wordpres ... u-will-be/

I'm also not sure where this leaves the odd bits of work that have been done alongside York Road at Swarcliffe and on the Seacroft side of the Windmill roundabout, which don't appear to have any connection to the rest of the scheme.

Unfortunately RD that whilst the scheme isnt ideally planned and laid out, in the finest tradition of LCC its the best we're going to get.

The CCC site is also a bit poor as the plans are split between the traditional detailed road designs we are used to, and some poor illustrative graphic versions that are lacking in detail.

Having observed the glacially slow pace of work taking place on the first section of the Keith Wakefield Super Highway, I can only assume that the council construction staff have secured a good hourly rate.
Work has been going on for 6 weeks or so and the short section between the Outer Ring Road and Killingbeck and it is nowhere near finished - only the first 50 yards appears to be in a usable state, with the rest of it nowhere near.
Worryingly it appears that the top surface is that low grip shiny black tarmac that the council seem to love to use (all very goid on a warm dry day, but a different story on a damp chilly morning...) and the road crossings look to leave a bit to be desired...

It took months just to do the Regent Street section last year

buffaloskinner wrote:It took months just to do the Regent Street section last year

Cheers for that information buffaloskinner . I had wondered what that work was for and only seeing it occasionally it did seem to go slow!

raveydavey wrote:Having observed the glacially slow pace of work taking place on the first section of the Keith Wakefield Super Highway, I can only assume that the council construction staff have secured a good hourly rate.
Work has been going on for 6 weeks or so and the short section between the Outer Ring Road and Killingbeck and it is nowhere near finished - only the first 50 yards appears to be in a usable state, with the rest of it nowhere near.
Worryingly it appears that the top surface is that low grip shiny black tarmac that the council seem to love to use (all very goid on a warm dry day, but a different story on a damp chilly morning...) and the road crossings look to leave a bit to be desired...

Is not specified in the design documents? I'm sure it was at one point not to use such rubbish surface.