St Albans Cycle Campaign (STACC)
STACC campaigns for people cycling in St Albans and the surrounding area, including Harpenden, Redbourn, London Colney, Wheathampstead & Sandridge:
To encourage cycle usage in the St Albans District
To promote cycling to play a more significant role in a balanced transport system for the St Albans District
To support, assist and influence to local authorities responsible for managing the transport system in the St Albans District.
Our approach is to work co-operatively with key bodies such as the local authorities whilst lobbying for better funding and provision for cyclists with particular regard to cycle paths & routes, lower speed limits & cycle-parking.
Latest News (and member actions in red!)
Herts Cycle Facility Register
Herts County Council has made available to the public a Cycle-Facility Register, an online graphics information system (GIS) which allows you to see the following cycle-route facilities:
in the county, with the ability to make anonymous comments about them and view already posted comments. In this context, no facility means a signed route with no special measures to assist or increase prominence of cyclists; the website contains a full illustrated explanation of all the above terms and how to post and read comments. This GIS is designed to help you understand what infrastructure is available for cycling and what is planned. It also provides the way to suggest missing parts of the network which can be considered for future works. HCC hope to build a better idea of the roads and paths with defects of concern to cyclists, and indeed errors in classification, and we urge you make use of the system to help them do this.
Marlborough Road
Construction work continues on the active-travel project to improve walking & cycling facilities in the area round Marlborough Road, St Albans. The photograph shows the current view from Marlborough Road looking across London Road to Keyfield Terrace. The scheme will include permanent traffic lights with cycle and pedestrian phases here, and the green boxes are to provide for cyclists wishing to make a two-stage right turn from London Road. More about two-stage right turns in the Highway Code at Rule 75. They are an option, you may make the turns in one stage if you wish, Highway Code Rule 61 confirms. Two-stage layouts are also described in LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design, section 10.6.28 - 32.
Woollams Development
New proposals have now been made for the development of Woollam Park (the rugby ground by the Harpenden Road) for housing. The land is owned by St Albans School, by the Abbey. Public exhibitions were held on the 3rd & 4th September, but if you missed them you can see the online versions of the exhibition boards here. Two of the claims made by the developers are:
New pedestrian & cycling infrastructure into the city centre
A new bridleway linking this part of St Albans to the Hertfordshire Way & Heartwood Forest
The former appears to be improvements to existing paths, such as resurfacing woodland paths & providing signalled cycle crossings over major roads to ease the passage of cycles, and the latter is the conversion of an existing informal grassy path from the west side of the railway bridge over Sandridgebury Lane, heading north alongside the railway line to Ayres End Lane. A welcome proposal is the closure to motor traffic, but not cycles, along the very narrow section of Valley Road by STAGS. However, there will still be a route for motors through the new estate from Sandridgebury Lane which ends at proposed new traffic lights on the Harpenden Road (at the current entrance to Woollam Fields). STACC are concerned that this will make Sandridgebury Lane even more of a rat run than it is already, even though the developers claim that they can put in measures to limit the traffic flow through the new estate.
Path by Sandridge Scout Hut
In the August newsletter we requested completed evidence forms from STACC members showing continual use over 20 years of the path by Sandridge scout hut so it can be claimed as a public bridleway. The short path links Sandridgebury Lane to the bridleway from Sandridge to Ayres End Lane, and its classification as a public bridleway would preclude the owner, or a future owner, erecting a barrier preventing through passage. As you would expect, equestrians from the nearby riding stables are also requesting completed evidence forms from horse riders. STACC have now received 5 completed forms, which is good but we would like more. If you can help us do this, please do so by downloading this form, printing, completing (a guide for this is here), and sending or delivering it to:
Steve Brazier, 5 The Limes, St Albans, AL1 4AT
Victoria Street
The aspiration to improve Victoria Street goes back at least 15 years, but there is an impetus to get on with it now due to:
collisions at the Alma Road junction
It is a BSIP (Bus Service Improvement Plan) priority route
route carrying lots of walking and cycling traffic
identified in Draft Local Plan
funding is available - but is dependent on there being public support.
The last point is important: the ideas for what could be done are to come from the public instead of initial proposals from the District and County Councils, and public engagement will be in October.
We urge you you to take part in this and persuade your friends and families to also express support for improving Victoria Street.
The aim of this style of engagement is to shape the design with community input and thereby harness support for the project ('buy-in'). There will be sessions/displays at the library, the market, the museum and the railway station, and there will be a 'business breakfast'. The public engagement is in October, HCC are meeting first with stakeholders like STACC to help inform the engagement. Indeed, members of the STACC committee had a meeting with officials of Herts County Council in late August to discuss ideas for public-realm improvements to Victoria Street. (Of course, the public realm has already been improved by the demolition of the derelict old police station and the construction of Jubilee Square.)
This is a could-have list from that meeting, some examples to get you thinking of features the community might like to have:
Tree and flower planting, Benches, cycle parking
Wider footways, Better crossings
Protected cycleways on uphills
Filtering to reduce through-traffic, Better loading arrangements
Better bus stops, Road-safety measures
Story / heritage features
Pothole and flytipping reporting!
Hertfordshire Highways Fault Reporting is the page to go to if you see a pothole and want it fixed. Potholes more than 50mm deep tend to be fixed quickly and those deeper than 100mm are fixed very quickly. Smaller potholes tend to be 'noted'.
Other faults tend to be less swiftly dealt with, if at all. STACC continues to raise our concern that carriageway faults such as potholes get sorted while mud or vegetation on cycling and walking routes are put 'under review by local engineers' until they quietly drop off the system. Our contacts at Hertfordshire Highways are aware of this shortcoming in the asset management system, and their message to us is KEEP REPORTING IT. This will help them make the case for improvements to the system. Contacting your County Councillor about a particular problem can also help to move things along.
Alternatively, call up a mapping app while you are in situ and take a screenshot of your location. Another option is to make use of What3Words. Here's a short video to simplify reporting of potholes (also works for fly tips and other issues) by using the What3Words app, which puts the three word location identifier onto the photo.
You can then make a report to the relevant local authority..... ah, but which authority is that, and how to contact them? Symondshyde Lane is in Welwyn Hatfield, not St Albans.
Well, there's an app for that... we suggest ClearWaste or FixMyStreet, which use the location that you supply to work out which local authority your report should be sent to. If you have time, you can make the report in situ when you take the photos; the app knows where you are when you do this so you don't have to tell it. You may find the flytip has already been reported.
You may have known of another app specifically for pot-holes, called FillThatHole that was created by Cycling UK. This app is no longer available, but a website with the same name that interfaces to FixMyStreet has taken its place.
Wanted - Bikes, locks, lights and helmets
Do you have adult men's bikes in good condition and any helmets, bike locks, or lights that can be given to local asylum seekers?
Before being given a bike, the asylum seekers need to pass a Bikeability course, the cost of which is covered by Herts County Council. All the bikes are checked over by Andy Brock of Herts Welcomes Refugees before being given out.
If you can help, please contact Nick Clarke, clarkefamily2004@yahoo.co.uk, 01727 855026.
Acronyms, Links and other useful stuff
We try not to use abbreviations in our website and newsletters, at least not without prior explanation; however some do slip through the net so here is a list of those we commonly use:
ATF – Active Travel Fund – government money for local authorities. link
CMS – Countryside Management Service (part of HCC) link
CRoW – Countryside & Rights of Way (HCC & CMS)
DfT – Department for Transport – link to the public support-for-cycling survey
EATF – Emergency Active Travel Fund, link
GAP – Greenspace Action Plan, link
GTP – Growth and Transport Plan, drawn up by HCC, link
HCC – Hertfordshire County Council, link
LTN 1/20 – Cycle-infrastructure design issued by DfT, link
MMP – Maintenance and Management Plan – a follow-on from GAPs & last for 10 years
SAA – St Albans Abbey railway station, link
SAC – St Albans City railway station, link
SADC – St Albans District Council, link
SFRI – Strategic Rail-Freight Interchange, link
TRO – Traffic-Regulation Order, link; ETRO is an Experimental TRO, link.
VRRA – Verulam Road Residents Association, link
WMP – Widen My Path, CycleStreets website to suggest improvements, link