Last year I wrote about a section of the A23 – a Highways England-administered road – that had been widened (or ‘upgraded’) from a four lane to a six lane road, matching the motorway-like nature of the rest of this road as it runs south from Crawley (an extension of the M23 motorway) to the south coast at Brighton.
The subject of that post was principally the cycling and walking facilities that had been built as part of those construction works.
Part of the parallel walking and cycling route, constructed next to the widened A23
Prior to construction (between 2011 and 2014) this road was essentially a complete no-go area for walking and cycling, with no alternative but to cycle on a carriageway with a 70mph speed limit, carrying nearly 70,000 vehicles a day. There is now an alternative that is – for the most part – very good.
As I write this, a similar construction project is underway on another Highways England road, a section of the A21 between Tunbridge and Pembury, on the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells. This road is not as busy as the A23, carrying nearly 40,000 vehicles per day, it involves converting a single carriageway road into a dualled four lane road, rather than a six lane road.
But it is very reminiscent, in that it involves adding a lane in each direction, and in the fact that parallel walking and cycling provision is being provided alongside this new ‘upgraded’ section of road. Again, like the A23, there was no cycling (or walking!) provision along the (single carriageway) pre-construction A21.
Definitely not a place for the fainthearted cycle user. Or anyone at all, really.
Last week Tunbridge Wells Bicycle User Group were invited to take a look at how construction of this parallel provision was coming along, with completion of the whole project due in September, and I was kindly invited along too.
The section of road being dualled, from a two-lane single carriageway, to four lanes
As you will see from the photographs that follow, the whole scheme is very much a work in progress. But the cycling and walking provision looks like it will be of a high standard.
Starting at the southern (Tunbridge Wells) end, the path runs northwards parallel to what will be a motor traffic slip road, joining the main A21.
The path here is something like 2.5-3m wide, which I think will be wide enough, especially given that, along this southern stretch, there will be parallel provision on the other side of the dual carriageway (but we didn’t get to see that, because of the nature of the construction work).
I suspect, going by what we saw, this will actually be the worst part of this path alongside the A21. The biggest issue here will be the proximity of the path to the carriageway; it certainly felt quite exposed walking along here, even with the lower traffic speeds on the A21 through the roadworks. There is definitely a need for some kind of barrier and (ideally) one that has some noise abatement function.
Further north, the path will be further way from the road.
Here we can see the new northbound carriageway, serving as a two-way A21 while construction takes places on the southbound carriageway, at the extreme right. We are walking on what is left of the old A21, which will form the foundations for the new path. The separation is much better here, although again it would be good to have something between the path and the road for more comfort.
Approximately one quarter of the way along the upgraded section of road, there is a an underbridge junction (helpfully marked as ‘underbridge’ on the map, above!), connecting up some rural lanes on the eastern side of the road. This bit of road also serves as the access point, off the A21, for the existing houses along the former road.
The road is (deliberately) bendy, to slow drivers down as they enter this new environment. The path will continue northwards alongside it, without interruption, although we were told it will be slightly narrower here, and closer to the road. The photograph above shows approximately where it will go, to the left of the road. There will (theoretically) be very little motor traffic here, and a lower speed too, so this proximity is not too much of a problem.
If you continue cycling north, you will then be using the former A21 road, which we walked along.
This will now serve as the access road for the handful of houses (four or so) along this old section of the A21 – you can see one of them to the left, in the photograph above. Although people who live here will now have slightly longer car journeys (this ‘service road’ will be a dead end to motor traffic, meaning they will have to drive back to the previous junction to join the A21) these residents will have a much better environment, living next to a very quiet lane instead of next to a fast, busy trunk road carrying 37,000 vehicles a day.
The same location (with matching telegraph pole) in 2014, courtesy of Streetview.
I shot a short video at this spot to give some idea of the change in nature of this road. You can still hear the A21, behind the bank, but it’s possible to talk quietly, and hear birdsong.
This service road continues northwards, running in parallel to the new road. For me the most impressive part of the new route is this cutting.
Again, we see motor traffic running in two directions on what will be the northbound carriageway. Meanwhile we are walking on what will become the dead-end service road, or cycle path (it will be gated at approximately this location, to stop drivers using it to continue northbound). Clearly, an enormous amount of ‘extra’ earth has been removed here to create a wide path, with good separation from the new A21.
Looking back southwards, as a construction vehicle follows us
Walking towards Tonbridge on what will be the walking and cycling route, fenced away from the new A21
The path will also be fenced off from the A21; we could see the fence under construction as we walked northwards.
In the distance here is the extent of the route we were able to walk; construction is still taking place. But even so we were able to get within a few hundred metres of the junction to the south of Tonbridge; this will form a very useful link between the two towns, which are only about four miles apart.
The real problem is going to be ensuring that Kent County Council (and the local borough councils) manage to build routes of this quality right into their town centres. This route will only connect up the outskirts of both towns; for people to cycle between them, they need the same high standard of facility along the length of their journey. If they have to battle along motor-traffic dominated roads just to reach this new path, then its potential will not even be remotely fulfilled.
Of course, in one sense it is relatively easy to build cycling infrastructure alongside this kind of road scheme. For a start it is something of a blank slate; the cycling infrastructure can simply be delivered with the project. And in addition there aren’t the kinds of issues that make building cycle routes in urban areas more problematic. To take just one example, there aren’t many junctions to deal with – the cycleway simply runs alongside the road. These are problems that will have to be overcome at a local level.
That said, it is very encouraging that a scheme that was developed many years ago is coming to fruition with what looks like a very useful piece of cycle provision embedded within it. Even within the last few years, Highways England have been moving forwards on the design of cycling infrastructure, so it is good to see something of this quality that dates from before those improvements. Highways England standards like IAN 195/16 – Cycle Traffic and the Strategic Road Network – represent one of the best avenues for ensuring that cycling is properly designed into our road network, at every level.
The challenge is going to be ensuring that provision of this quality is built into the existing Highways England (and regional equivalent) road network, not just into new schemes like this one, and even more importantly, ensuring it happens outside of the Highways England road network – where these new routes bump against the remit of local authorities who may have little or no experience, enthusiasm, or funding. If that doesn’t happen, then routes like this one will be isolated and underused – a waste of their potential, which would be a great pity.
My thanks to TWBUG, and to Alison from Balfour Beatty and Tom from Highways England for showing us around.
As Easy As Riding A Bike 
Is it built to Ian? Doesn’t it predate it? Edges look very iffy
Maybe it predates the IAN, I don’t know, but it’s certainly SRN:
Click to access s160588_Network_Man.pdf
Likely not. The website says construction started in September 2015 – detailed design will probably have started about nine months to a year before that. In 2014, IIRC, there were the first mutterings of a new DfT cycling standard which would be issued ‘soon’, but no details of its contents*.
*I tell a lie, first I heard of the IAN was at the SoRSA conference in summer 2015.
Yes, almost certain that this scheme would not have been influenced by IAN 195/16. It’s a combination of a clued-up team at Highways England and Balfour Beatty, and good campaigning from TWBUG. The good news is that IAN 195/16 will ensure that this kind of quality is built-in to future schemes.
There has been NMU provision in DMRB only marginally more crap than this new IAN for years/ decades. I occasionally spot tiny fragments of stuff which has been built using it—i.e. relatively new, bare minimum quantity, mediocre quality. This is probably just another one of those ‘schemes’. Why be optimistic that the IAN represents a step-change up from that?
Will there be any signage on these new tracks/ service roads to indicate to those of us who are not locals or forensic cartographers that this will be a continuously surfaced, wide, unobstructed, direct, long-term maintained, priority-retaining cycle route which actually does rejoin the A21 at the other end? It is a pity that the photographs do not show what each end shall look like from primary/ secondary position in lane 1 on approach. How are we supposed to tell that it’s not just the historically typical HA bollocks of [non-exhaustive]:
•a stopped-up property access (with dead-end sign far into the distance),
•an unwanted massive diversion to the middle of nowhere and an enormous headache trying to find the way back on course afterwards,
•no more than one inadequate opportunity to get onto it from each direction,
•disappearing at random for every new gantry support or WHY,
•becoming a 500 mm wide mud/ gravel footpath overgrown with vegetation once out-of-sight (e.g. A20 Dover–Folkstone);
…where through cyclists are expected to stay on the dual carriageway if they want to actually get to their destination sometime today—optionally with an as-yet-unannounced cycling prohibition further along?
This is really encouraging. On proximity to the carriageway – yes, that was my initial concern. It’s quite scary to have HGVs and other traffic rushing by little over a metre away! One momentary distraction and they could be ploughing across the path… The other issue is that when it’s wet you’re in for a major soaking from the neighbouring traffic. Some might say you’ll get wet anyway but only when you’ve experienced it do you appreciate the power of an HGV-tsunami.
Pingback: A visit to a Highways England cycling & walking scheme – the A21 dualling) As Easy As Riding A B ike
Looks good. I wish they’d done something like this when they dualled the A419/A417 from Swindon to Cheltenham 20-odd years ago.
Offbeat(?) thought: those householders will benefit from an improved environment. In time their house prices and council taxes will rise to match. Is this taken into account under Benefit:Cost Analysis?
As usual, Mark, an informative and thought-provoking post. The Tunbridge Wells Bicycle Users Group had several meetings with Highways England and their contractors, Balfour Beatty, who (to their credit) took on board several improvements which we suggested – crucially concerning the surfacing, which is tarmac but was to have been crushed aggregate.
Great to read this, I don’t suppose i will ever cycle in that area, but its great to know these sort of schemes are happening. Thanks for posting such a comprehensive description. I cycled yesterday alongside a road like that in the wet on a protected path. heavy traffic all doing 60 ish mph downhill ( 50 mph limit) . The path was only 50cm from the road, but that 50cm included a hard barrier. I can’t say it was enjoyable due to the noise – it felt dangerous even though it wasn’t!
the project sound to be productive…can you please provide the budget details also??
To what end? It’d probably be effectively invisible amongst all the zeroes on the dualling bill. HA now have income spewing out of their ears since Gideon Osborne hypothecated motor VED for its operating costs at the expense of non-SRN, in England at least. Even as an arm’s-length company, you can probably still go and inspect their accounts if you really want.
How much of a cynic would I have to be to suspect that some portion of the land acquisition, earthworks and over-engineering (depth/ strength?) shown have been done with an eye on the option for future widening of carriageway to D3(M) and allocated to the cycling budget nonetheless? After all, as the body of the post hints, there shall probably be limited ‘demand’ for the dedicated cycle infrastructure if it doesn’t connect to anything significant…
Oh, look—some motoring campaigners have already added it to their list of ‘motorways’ (before the dualling’s even been finished?) 😠.
what worries me about the proximity of the cycle tracks to the highway and the lack of real barriers is the propensity for motons to use it to park in…