Active Travel Strategy Consultation

This is our response to the draft strategy. Feel free to use any of these points iun your own response. Respond by email to LocalTransportPlan@westnorthants.gov.uk by 27 January.

Overview

This Draft Active Travel Strategy reads like a set of aspirations – it is not a plan with specific steps and milestones. The previous council published aspirational documents too – they did not succeed in getting more people cycling and walking – in fact Northampton is becoming more car-dominated every day.

We need a plan that shows a real willingness to change the town for the better, with specific steps as to how this will be achieved.

Here’s what we need to include in the plan:

1. The key results from the council’s own 2021 survey that showed a large majority of people want more priority given to walking and cycling.
2. An audit of all road junctions to identify the ones that deter people from walking or cycling, so that a prioritised plan can be made for their improvement. Schools could be asked to help with this.
3. A commitment for all new shared-use pavements to be built to the same standards as the one in Summerhouse Road, including keeping the same level at side-road junctions, and giving path users priority over road users.
4. A commitment to ensure that all new housing developments are connected to existing walking and cycling paths.
5. A commitment to sign up to Vision Zero (like our neighbours in Oxfordshire). This will bring real targeted focus to increase 20mph limits in built-up areas, which has proved a massive success in saving lives in Wales, London, Oslo, and many other places around the world.
6. A commitment to improve pavement surfaces, especially those on school routes.
7. A commitment to remove unlawful physical barriers that prevent people who use wheelchairs and mobility scooters from using many of our paths.
8. A commitment to grit paths on key walking and cycling routes, and to add additional lighting where necessary.
9. The School Street policy is very vague. It needs dates of when the pilot will be completed and when more will be rolled out.
10. For every pound spent (revenue and capital) on roads, a commitment to spend the same amount on walking and cycling routes. This would show that the plan is a real plan and not just an aspirational document.
11. A commitment to allow 2-way cycling on all one-way streets, unless there are very exceptional circumstances.
12. A commitment to install bollards at key locations to prevent pavement parking. Starting near schools.
13. A commitment to review the sequence of all pelican and toucan crossings and greatly reduce the waiting times for people who are crossing.
14. A commitment to remove all out-of-date signs, to create a map of the key walking and cycling routes across the town, and signpost these routes.

These are our top 14 items to add to the plan. More more ideas, see our Charter. Email your response by 27 January to LocalTransportPlan@westnorthants.gov.uk.