Connecting Derby Ride

One of our shortest ever rides today, but quite significant, relative to what normally happens here in Derby on a Wednesday afternoon.  Four of us rode most of the way around the new Inner Ring Road, missing out only those parts, such as St. Alkmund's Way, which are neither new, nor really suitable for cycling. There are better alternatives for those on two wheels.
So just to prove it, here we are on Mercian Way, beside the publicity sign, which technophobes will notice it is  made of of LEDs powered by solar cells mounted on the top. Must pop back at dusk to see if the lights go out then, or if it has battery back-up. Photo by Mavis Ratcliffe.

And an appropriate place to park my bike.

But to more important things, namely the road itself, which has transformed the area such that at times, one has to look around for landmarks to get one's bearings. There are large new roundabouts/junctions where the road crosses Uttoxeter Road, Abbey Street, and Burton Road/Normanton Road.  Gerard Street has been severed.  Three metre wide cycle and pedestrian paths plus lots of Toucan crossings.  One or two possible dodgy places for cyclists, but these may not seem so bad when we get used to them.  Overall it seems quite well thought out, but we wait to see how the traffic changes, and also to see who is the first pedestrian to get run over on the new road.  A few candidates about today. 

Mercian Way was opened by simply removing the cones to allow a 1936 Austin Seven to be driven down from the Burton Road junction and shortly afterwards, vehicles came from all directions and the road was absorbed by the morass of Derby's regular traffic.

From there we went to see other parts of the Connecting Derby Project, firstly the Morledge, still under construction and recently narrowed significantly. To our delight we see that the extremely wide pavement  by the Courthouse will be a shared path, and the pathway through to the River Gardens and R6 of the NCN is widened to become another shared path. It was such previously, but convoluted and very narrow.

So overall, not a bad job by Derby City Council, but even today we expect to get something pretty decent for 36 million quid.

View looking down towards the Uttoxeter Road roundabout.

And a view of the Abbey Street junction looking uphill towards the Burton Road/Normanton roundabout.

All that is required now is a training course to educate Derby's pedestrians not to walk in the cycle lanes.

A forlorn hope I fear!

BBC East Midlands TV were there to record the event, so it should be on tonight's Midlands News providing it is what they call "a slow news day", that is to say that nothing of greater importance has happened in the world today.