Walkers in Alexandra Park.
Why HBC was wrong to veto the Alexandra Park cycle route
The proposed cycle route through Alexandra Park, intended to expand non motorised options for getting around town, eventually ran into fierce opposition. Even though the government approved new bylaws to accommodate the route, the proposal was narrowly voted down at full council last month. Anna Sabin, a keen cyclist, explains her disappointment and why she sees this decision as a backward step.
On 15 December, Hastings’ councillors voted, by a majority of one, not to allow a cycling route through Alexandra Park – which is immensely worrying.
There are existential reasons why every town needs a safe cycling network. The most serious is that cars are contributing about a quarter of the UK’s carbon emissions and we need good alternative means to get about and transport stuff, not sometime in the future, but now.
This means a transition from cars to public transport, bikes, trikes, cargo bikes, pedelecs and even tiny electric cars – but Hastings still has very few cyclists because there’s nowhere safe to ride except the seafront. Just in the last five years the roads either side of the park have seen 45 accidents, 17 of them serious.
Hastings Borough Council voted in 2016 for a shared path through the park from Silverhill to the Town Centre, which led the County Council Transport Authority to go to the expense of designing it. Safety and consideration for the park’s Grade II status were designed in. Where the path is steep at the top end there are staggered barriers to force cyclists to go slowly and where the path can be widened without harming trees, it is.
There are national standards for these things, the design met them and HBC said they would dedicate park rangers to monitoring it and educating the new users as necessary.
Six-year delay
Unfortunately, there was a delay of six years between the first positive decision and the most recent decision needed to change the old ‘no wheeling in the park’ bylaw. In that time, voices predicting catastrophe have grown ever louder and councillors have had dread of imagined fatalities dripped into their ears which has spooked enough of them to vote against what, six years previously, they had voted for.
Not much parking space left in Dordrecht Way by visitors to the park on Sunday morning.
It seems that everywhere change is proposed, in the form of cycle lanes, low traffic neighbourhoods, pedestrianised shopping streets or shared paths, a small but loud opposition foretells mayhem and injury. Written in the Hastings Observer, for instance: “Some cyclists are riding dangerously, far too fast, shouting at anyone who ‘gets in my way’ and causing a number of collisions, angry confrontations and near-misses”. Really? There are no fatalities recorded on shared paths in parks in Britain and no ‘incidents’ recorded from the shared route along Hastings seafront.
In the council chamber on 15 December, councillors described scenes of imperilled toddlers, entangled puppies and serious injury to the sight impaired. This is to focus on the wrong peril – the actual danger is that we don’t transition away from cars in towns because we cling to the habits we know.
Of course, on foot you’d rather not have faster cyclists intermittently wizzing/weaving/apologising past you. But a walker, of any size, shape or capability, sharing a path with cyclists is never in the same peril as a walker or cyclist sharing a road with car traffic. Cars are the killers however much their drivers wish they weren’t.
Sharing space
In the near future, we will be denying a proportion of public (road) space to cars and dedicating it instead to walkers, cyclists and public transport…which will take some doing. In the meantime, as active travellers, we’ll have to share space for a bit.
For harmony and fairness it would be good if Government could meet us all halfway, regulate the speed of electric scooters and provide fume-free waiting space at traffic lights so cyclists don’t have to ride the pavement to breathe non-toxic air. But, even without such measures, it remains true that a cyclist rides a machine a hundred times lighter than a car with an ability to avoid an obstacle or stop 100 times better than a driver’s.
What is more, vulnerability comes in many forms, and there are people who find a bike or trike a very much easier way to move than walking or getting on and off buses. I quote from a commentator who simply wrote on the Hastings Urban Bikes Facebook page: “As an older person with disabilities…I know a few people that ride bikes that have mobility issues.” Such people would find it very nice to be able to ride a shared route in the park. As would children riding to school, hospital staff riding to work and indeed anyone who can afford a bike but can’t afford a car.
Have we got a distorted idea of bike danger because cars have been such a danger to us for so many years? Every town has spent the last hundred years filling up with them but now the transition back has to start – and, as safe cycle routes through parks require much less adaptation than on roads, Hastings Greenway Group, Hastings Urban Bikes and progressive councillors will now have to spend time, effort and imagination getting this retrograde decision reversed.
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Glenn Haffenden and others are saying “it’s not safe for cyclists to be on roads”. But roads are open to cyclists, and we should insist on our right to use them. It would help if all cyclists rode safely and predictably, following the Highway Code, and made sure they are highly visible by using hi-vis clothing. This would help reduce the antagonism of some car drivers towards cyclists.
If we give up on roads what are we left with? Invading pedestrian space of course. It’s anti-social and can be dangerous. And by the way cyclists can use bus lanes, which cars can’t, so we should be pressing the County Council for more of these on main roads wherever possible.
Comment by Bea Rogers — Monday, Jan 16, 2023 @ 11:05
Well, it’s been interesting participating in this discussion. There is an at least partially coherent expression of a desire by some for fewer cars, improved public transportation and better cycling facilities. My support those goals remains unchanged.
However, what remains utterly incoherent is that pro-cycling groups seek to achieve change by projecting their misery on to pedestrians and other park users. Their response to objectors ranges from outright dismissal of their lived experience to rambling invocations of antidemocratic Gretatics.
I reckon most people will still think the Council made the right call.
Comment by JC Hart — Friday, Jan 13, 2023 @ 14:27
Just looked at the proposed map (https://www.hastings.gov.uk/…/Alexandra_Park_Cycle… ). The planned route seems illogical. It weaves all over the lower park – why? Why not just close the pavement to pedestrians on the north side of the park on St Helens Road from Dordrecht Road to the roundabout and dedicate that pavement to cyclists – with clear crossing points for pedestrians to enter the park. I’ve not followed earlier debates on this matter and I’m fully in favour of a Green route but the proposed route appears to have serious downsides.
Comment by Ian Bunch — Friday, Jan 13, 2023 @ 12:00
It’s a shame they voted down the route. Hastings needs more safe cycling options. It could do with fewer cars and more safe and green space for pedestrians too. I’m all for a gold-standard, purpose built cycle network. But let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Cyclists and pedestrians share paths perfectly safely in many other towns and cities. This route would have been a step in the right direction. I hope those who opposed it will work to find other ways to make this town more safer and more welcoming for cyclists and walkers alike.
Comment by Peter — Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 @ 17:32
No, Anna, we should “do our bit” too – but this particular idea is not it when it’s a safe space for pedestrians etc. I was just pointing out a sense of perspective.
Comment by DAR — Wednesday, Jan 11, 2023 @ 11:01
OK – so, according to those commentators who are ‘appalled’ or otherwise distraught, the democratic process has ‘failed’ as the Council has reached the ‘wrong’ decision on this occasion.
How would they like this ‘mistake’ to be ‘corrected’ and can those who disagree use the same method to reverse a revised decision in the future?
Comment by JC Hart — Wednesday, Jan 11, 2023 @ 08:54
DAR – so we can carry on blamelessly driving cars in town and heating uninsulated homes as long as China is still making our clothes, electrics and toys?
Comment by Anna Sabin — Tuesday, Jan 10, 2023 @ 13:26
Anna is absolutely right. I am appalled at this retrograde step by HBC which will set us back years in our attempts to get people out of their cars and onto greener forms of transport. How anyone can deny that it is up to us all to do our bit to combat climate change is beyond me, and that if that includes sharing our park with responsible and properly managed cycle use then how can that even be compared in scale to the dangers of rising sea levels and the destruction of the natural world. With our bus services in utter chaos, people are looking for alternative forms of transport but roads choked with cars and impatient drivers behind the wheel are not an attractive prospect. HBC could have shown its commitment to providing that alternative and to a greener future, instead it pandered to scaremongering and shortsightedness. So disappointing.
Comment by Ruby Cox — Tuesday, Jan 10, 2023 @ 13:26
People (rightly) worried about climate change are shooting at the wrong target(s) here. Britain’s contributions to the problem are minimal; the real culprits are countries like China.
Comment by DAR — Monday, Jan 9, 2023 @ 12:20
I have been on many shared cycle/pedestrian routes – London canal paths, Sustrans routes in Bath, Bristol, Devon etc – and have never experienced or witnessed any problems.
I’m sure there were similar hysterical responses in Hastings when the seafront cycle path was first proposed. Although I’m not denying that there probably are occasional anti-social incidents, I use the seafront a lot as a pedestrian and have never found any problems with dual-use. What actual evidence exists for all these dangerous/rude cyclists? Hastings is so far behind many other areas of the UK when it comes to actively encouraging and facilitating cycling.
Comment by Jill Fricker — Sunday, Jan 8, 2023 @ 22:59
Russle: you seem to acknowledge that the idiots are out there. Why therefore accommodate them? Pedestrians in the Park shouldn’t have to worry about fast people on wheels. (Prams and wheelchairs are fine.) It’s a place of relaxation — not ‘a duty to take care’, or being tense about the next boy racer on two wheels. You might as well advocate a free fox in a free henroost.
Comment by Bernard McGinley — Sunday, Jan 8, 2023 @ 21:35
Glenn, it was Anna Sabin who wrote this article, not HOT.
Comment by Nick Terdre — Sunday, Jan 8, 2023 @ 18:31
Well done Hastings Online Times for writing this. I couldn’t agree with you more hence why I voted for this. I said it on the night of the vote Hastings is 20 years behind on active travel. We are in a climate emergency and should be doing everything we can to encourage less car use. Unfortunately with how busy roads are it’s not safe for cyclists to be on roads and we need better cycling facilities which this would of provided. Complete shame not only for cyclists but for Hastings. This will be a decision people will look back on in years to come and think the people that voted against it were crazy!
Comment by Cllr Glenn Haffenden — Sunday, Jan 8, 2023 @ 18:17
I don’t understand the concern over these proposals. People must live together and learn to live together. Idiots will always be idiots but not to include a cycle route for fear of them is simply letting the idiots win. If there is a cycle route through the park then pedestrians have as much a duty to take care as cyclists. If both cyclists and pedestrians exercise reasonable care then there isn’t a problem.
Comment by Russle — Sunday, Jan 8, 2023 @ 15:33
PS: While Catherine Taylor’s climate apocalyptics add some welcome comedy to the discussion, the stench of statism seeps through the “whiff o’ the field” that accompanies her argument.
Pedestrian park users should rest assured that their valiant defence of our precious shared spaces against two-wheeled hostiles will by no means contribute to “rising sea levels, wildfires, heat waves and global crop failure”.
Comment by JC Hart — Saturday, Jan 7, 2023 @ 13:00
Anna – we don’t avert unnatural climate change by deploying bicycles to invade parks intended for pedestrians. While our individual and collective choices all contribute, real change beyond the usual posturing and signalling of virtue, demands strategic initiatives, including acute economic pressure on the most irresponsible nation states.
I haven’t seen any proposal to prevent or discourage children from independently walking and cycling to school or anywhere else, so long as they abide by the rules that apply to all.
Comment by JC Hart — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 20:59
The proposed cycle route through the park is not only harmful to users of the park but has also harmed the case for providing proper cycle infrastructure by proposing an ill conceived scheme that harms a well loved public space. The park is not the right place to build a cycle path. The path should be built following the verges on Upper and Lower park road as a dedicated separate use cycle path.
Anna Sabin states the case for ” removing on-street parking and handing road space over to cycling and bus lanes. ” I fully agree with this. HOWEVER the proposed cycle path in the park is the exact opposite. It sacrifice the park in order to preserve the use of the nearby roads for exclusive car usage and prioritising car parking spaces over the need for a seperate, safe and effective cycle path.
Comment by Christopher Hurrell — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 18:46
Hastings is already experiencing the direct effects of the climate changing. The flooding in the town centre before xmas together with those pumps blocking the pavement at Pelham are stark warnings.
Reducing emissions of carbon dioxide is a policy of the British Govt. Hastings BC has passed a Climate Emergency Declaration.
Hastings residents must begin to come together to address how we collectively will change our transport system. It will mean fewer private motor cars on our roads.
Cycling is a low carbon emitting option. We are all affected by the over heating planet. We all need to act. Now.
A cycle path through the park is a small concession. I urge residents of Hastings to consider this when weighing the evidence of rising sea levels, wildfires, heat waves and global crop failure against the inconvenience of having a shared cycle path.
Comment by Catherine Taylor — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 18:44
Separation of cyclists etc from pedestrians is needed for the safety of all. The seafront cycle lane needs alterations to make it safe, with litter bins etc and cycle stands sited to separate the two; the lane also needs to be made wider. I have seen inconsiderate behaviour by both cyclists and pedestrians –
– a couple walking along the cycle track, then one of them notices a cycle painted on it, and says ‘it’s a cycle track’ but they continue walking along it;
– a man with a dog on a long lead, the man being on the south side of the cycle track, the dog on its north side, and the lead stretched tight between them across the cycle track at about a foot above it
– a youth on a bike, but not on the cycle track, come up behind a woman pedestrian and hit her with his handlebar in the back, quite hard; words were exchanged, his not being printable. She could easily have been knocked down and seriously injured. Would the cyclist have stopped and left his contact details, as the law requires? I don’t think so, and I doubt if the woman reported him to the police.
There are other safety issues that do not seem to have been given any thought:
– would a woman on her own feel safe cycling through the park after dark, whether lighting is provided or not? And I would point out that in the winter months it is dark before 5.30pm, home time for many workers who might wish to travel to work by bike
– adequate lighting needs to be provided after dark, wherever a cycle track goes; the same applies to footpaths, and CCTV (preferably monitored) should be installed.
The seafront’s popularity shows the potential for good cycle provision. This should be done first, whilst more consideration is given to the safety issues around having proposed new cycleways.
Comment by Heather Grief — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 17:50
JC Hart – how do you think we should avert climate change? And do you think it important that our public space should allow for children to independently walk and cycle to school?
Comment by Anna Sabin — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 17:23
Anna – I think you’ll find parks and other sanctuaries pre-date the invention of both the motor car and the bicycle. Interesting proposal on “removing on-street parking” though: will that be in the next Socialist manifesto?
Comment by JC Hart — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 17:08
HBC councillors were under pressure to use money provided for this shared cycle route by early this year, or they would lose the money. I admire the way they resisted this pressure and voted not to build this poorly thought-out route which would have changed the park in ways beautifully described by others here. Keeping a space that is safe to meander on foot is vital to our wellbeing, and cyclists who also love the park can do so on foot too, pushing their bike through this unique pedestrian area.
The next task for the council is to coordinate a proper consultation process and stimulate sufficient funding for an excellent, safe cycle path through Hastings that leaves the park as it is. There are many much better routes for this than going through the park.
Comment by Charlotte Phillips — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 16:23
J C Hart writes – ‘undermining the few remaining corners of urban sanctuary has nothing to do with ‘progressiveness’ – which makes me want to ask him, what’s making our urban environment so in need sanctuaries?
I would say it’s cars. The roads aren’t safe or lovely enough to walk or cycle to the park…or to school or to the shops. If people are rich enough and the right age, they make their town trips by car which they leave on the road once they’ve arrived.
For the planet, health, wellbeing and equality, every town needs a walking and cycling network and bus services which complete journeys as fast as cars or faster. That means removing on-street parking and handing road space over to cycling and bus lanes. Would Hastings get behind that?
Comment by Anna Sabin — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 16:11
I also agree with Bernard McGinley.
Parks are not thoroughfares and they are not places where people on foot need to remain constantly vigilant about where they are walking, stopping or anything else they should be able to do without fear. Pedestrian park users need to be free to wander and dream, without having to ‘risk manage’ fast-moving vehicles and their often-abusive riders – and the same applies to other areas where cycling is forbidden (rules that are predictably poorly enforced by the authorities).
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with cyclist commuters getting up 15 minutes earlier and pushing their bikes through the park. However, this article demonstrates the arrogant dismissiveness that critics of the cycling cult have had quite enough of. Pedestrians’ experience of a rude and entitled minority of cyclists – which is all it takes to tarnish the many law-abiding and respectful among them – are disparaged as not credible.
Hopefully, HBC Councillors will continue to recognise that undermining the few remaining corners of urban sanctuary has nothing to do with ‘progressiveness’.
Comment by JC Hart — Friday, Jan 6, 2023 @ 11:12
Anna, 6 years is a long time in politics: just because “HBC” voted for a scheme then, doesn’t mean it WILL 6 years later. The council is a collection of elected individuals; those individuals are not all the same as 6 years ago – hence the change re: the decision. On balance, I think this is a victory for common sense.
Comment by DAR — Thursday, Jan 5, 2023 @ 15:12
Absolutely agree with Bernard MGinley, the little used footpath on Lower Park Road is the right place for a cycle track. Such obvious routes are scarce in hilly Hastings….
Comment by Judy Appleyard — Thursday, Jan 5, 2023 @ 08:46
marked cycle paths segregate people and cause controversy and confrontation when not observed, or deliberately ignored by pedestrians and cyclists. why cause bad feeling and mar a serene beauty spot, when the simplest option is to have a notice at every entrance warning cyclists of a 10mph zone and potential on-spot fine for speeding?
Comment by kendal — Thursday, Jan 5, 2023 @ 08:39
Yes, cycling a good idea but very poorly executed. Bernard is right, re-route along the west side of the park or maybe even something more radical….
the topography of the park would actually aid a one way cycle route raised above pedestrians and following the perimeter of the park. It would only need to be raised to door head height, could be of quite simple timber post and beam construction, and wind it’s way through the trees to make the route more interesting and slow down any speeders. What is more with some imagination it could become an exhibition route for local artists to show their work up in the
trees; imagine that with low power LED lighting! It might even become something of a tourist attraction but then, of course, pedestrians would want to walk the cycle route!
Comment by ken davis — Thursday, Jan 5, 2023 @ 07:45
Bernard McGinley – spot on.
Comment by neville austin — Wednesday, Jan 4, 2023 @ 23:03
HBC get a lot of flak – and deservedly – but on this occasion they made the right decision. The debate here isn’t cars v bikes, Alexandria Park is a haven for pedestrians and children and enjoyment — not cut-throughs for cyclists, some of them speedy self-righteous eco-warriors with zero knowledge of the Highway Code. ‘National standards’ don’t allow for that.
How many park rangers were proposed? Enforcement was always largely unfeasible.
I’m in favour of a cycle path but not this one. Why not redesign the route, from Bohemia along Park Road from Clarence Road? The parkside pavement is little used, as people prefer the Park.
Comment by Bernard McGinley — Wednesday, Jan 4, 2023 @ 16:09