Infra Team

Grey Street – #SpaceForDistancing

22nd August 2020 Infra Team Uncategorised

Newcastle City Council has now put in place the temporary measures on Grey Street. The changes are a huge improvement, befitting of its reputation as one of Britain’s finest streets. We congratulate the Council on the work they are doing to improve the city centre by including vital provision for cycling. We would like to see how this scheme is intended to fit into a wider network plan and hope that the Council will soon outline how it will connect this scheme to the John Dobson Street cycleway, the Tyne Bridge, the Central Station and links out to the east[…]

Queen Victoria Road – July Update #SpaceForDistancing

18th July 2020 Infra Team Uncategorised

In June we gave our opinions on the temporary scheme that the council put in place on Queen Victoria Road. Click here for that article. The council have continued to review the scheme and have now improved it. The changes have led to the cycleway now being one lane in each direction with the flow of traffic, and the installation of poles to separate the cycle lanes from motor traffic. Both these changes are great improvements. The move to with flow cycle lanes was one of our suggestions when we looked at the initial measures in June. This change makes[…]

Shopping Streets #SpaceForDistancing

17th July 2020 Infra Team Uncategorised

In a previous post we outlined recently confirmed funding and government guidance for local authorities to enable the creation of safe walking and cycling space in response to COVID-19. Newcastle council has now published the first of its plans for #SpaceForDistancing in neighbourhood shopping streets. Four of its five shopping streets proposals have been announced, leaving Shields Road in Byker still to come. You can see the plans and provide feedback by following the links below: Adelaide Terrace West Road Gosforth High Street Chillingham Road Shields Road General Feedback If you go shopping at any of these streets, we recommend[…]

Newcastle Bridge Filters #SpaceForDistancing

10th July 2020 Infra Team Uncategorised

Some good news! Newcastle City Council has announced plans to filter a number of bridges across the city as part of its Covid-19 response. Click here for their article. We welcome the news that Newcastle is to trial the removal of through motor traffic on five bridges across the city. We think these filters are a fantastic first step towards creating low traffic neighbourhoods, making Newcastle a more liveable city and enabling more journeys to be made on foot or by cycle. The five bridges will be filtered using temporary measures. The bridges are: Salters Bridge – At the eastern[…]

Queen Victoria Road #SpaceForDistancing

9th June 2020 Infra Team News

Newcastle City Council have rolled out their first emergency Covid-19 related scheme on Queen Victoria Road, outside the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI). We would like to congratulate the council on this for two key reasons: The speed at which the scheme has been rolled out. The removal of car parking to create space for cycling. The cycle route runs directly in front of the RVI, providing a link between Exhibition Park to the north and Leazes Park to the south. It provides a much needed link for key workers at the hospital. The measures are not just limited to a[…]

Retail Core Proposals – Our Response

28th January 2020 Infra Team Consultation replies

The council are currently seeking views on changes to the main retail area of the city centre, covering Blackett Street, Northumberland Street and the surrounding streets. The information on the scheme is available here: https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/our-city/transport-improvements/city-centre-improvements/transforming-our-city . If you also wish to provide personal feedback to the council, time is limited as the survey is only available until Friday 31st January. Our Response We are delighted to see that the Council is finally looking at making more improvements to the city centre. What has been shared for engagement has many positives, but for cycling there seem to be a number of[…]

Cycle Safari: Elswick and Benwell

14th November 2019 Infra Team Event, News, Politics

It is with great pleasure that this year we were able to start running our cycle safaris again. For those who don’t know what this means – no we are not going looking for lions! But we do hope to spot a few new zebras on our streets. The aim of the safaris is to check out potential routes where we would like to see protected cycle lanes in the future, and to review new infrastructure on some routes previously identified. On 6th July this year we had the pleasure of cycling along the new cycle route on Elswick Road[…]

Consultation reply – Newcastle Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP)

3rd January 2019 Infra Team Consultation replies

Newcastle City Council is currently (until the 8th March 2019) seeking views on Walking and Cycling across the city as part of the development of the Local Cycling and Walking Infrasructure Plan (LCWIP). The details can be found on the following link: https://newcastlewalkingcyclingroutes.commonplace.is/ We wrote a response directly to the council which has been reproduced here:- Having read the information on the LCWIP commonplace and looked at the provided map of routes, we thought it best to respond directly, as the commonplace map would not be suitable for a response of this type. Please consider this our (NewCycling) response to the[…]

Creating an Inclusive Cycling Network – The Main Network

26th June 2018 Infra Team Uncategorised

In the previous article we covered the basics of how to create a cycle network. In this article we will look at the main cycle network and how this can be designed using the techniques outlined in CROW. Planning the network The main cycling network should create a grid of routes around 400m apart. From CROW: Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic (page 64): Cohesion is the most elementary requirement for a main cycle network. … A simplified indicator for the extent of cohesion within the built environment is the grid size of the main cycle network. A grid size of[…]

Creating an Inclusive Cycling Network

20th October 2017 Infra Team Uncategorised

We want to see Newcastle become a #city4kids where people raise a family and choose to stay. This means that the council has to start planning and building an inclusive cycle network that support the diverse range of people living in Newcastle and cater for the day to day activities citizens routinely get up to. Over a number of upcoming articles we will take a more detailed look at the different elements that make up a well designed inclusive cycling network and show how the council should start planning for these. In this article we provide an overview of the features[…]