Cycle track ‘sacrilege’
Thursday 3rd January 2013, 2:50PM GMT.
Mike Stevens, chairman of the St Helier Boat Owners Association who are strongly opposed to the plans
CHANGING the look of one of the town’s most historic harbours to allow for a cycle track would be ‘sacrilege’ and has ‘horrified’ the marine community, the chairman of the St Helier Boat Owners Association has said.
Mike Stevens says that a proposal by Transport and Technical Services to widen the
road past the slipways at the English and French Harbours to create the track would also result in a loss of car parking spaces.
TTS say that the £400,000 project would involve building new granite walls on
top of part of the existing slipways. The granite work would be in the same style as the existing walls and all the granite and slipway cobbles would be left intact behind and beneath the new structures.
But Mr Stevens believes that ‘hiding’ the original wall would be criminal. He is objecting to the scheme along with Doug Ford, a committee member of the Friends of the Maritime Museum, who said this week that the plans would not be in keeping with the area.
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The entire historic harbour has been hiden by monstorous buildings. Where was the opposition to the Cinema, Dandara, Radisson?
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Wrong harbour.
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but visible from the said harbour and close enough, and take in to account the insignificance of this project compared to the above mentioned.
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Compromise?
Perhaps investigate a raised path structure that can be fixed to the existing granite wall for support? It could be at the same height as the road surface and the wall maintains a barrier between vehicles and cycles.
It would still overhang the original slipways, but would leave them intact and the structure can be removed if required with minimal impact.
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Do nothing. Just accept that cycling is a passing fad which nearly died out at the end of the 1960s.The whole cycling, fitness, gym thing is trade driven anyway and those in the trade will eventually milk it all to death while the cyclists turn back into couch potatoes playing all day with tablet P.C.s, or their jobs will take most of them back to the mainland.
Why make any concessions for a handful of people who, if they know how to ride in traffic, will be perfectly safe in the normal traffic lane there. It’s no longer the main road to the east anyway, that was the whole point of the tunnel and Route du Fort.
If they aren’t happy in the road, make it lawful for them to ride on the pavement but strictly as secondary users giving way, including dismounting if needed, to pedestrians.
Pedestrians must be a rarity there anyway.
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Lets say that we bloke off the cycling track on the esplanade and you end up with all the pushbikes on the roads. Can you you than understand one of the purpose of a cycling track.
There is more chance for people to use a bike if there is a track , rather than no track at all, so the argument of the couch potato is pointless as you already given up.
Handful of people should reach the thousands though…
Can’t denied that it is expensive.They talked about buying and taking a house down at the cost of £800 000 which didn’t seem to bother many people at the time.
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preparations to making the area in to a marina
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ah the old waterfront residence ploy . converted warehouse , a stones throw from the idyllic moorings .
iconic buildings , buy off plan now , good returns .
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Its funny that the states can give TTS £400.000 to build a cycle track(Which is not needed or has been consulted),Yet property services can’t find the money to re-vamp the old folie Pub?
Who is spinning all this rubbish out of the states departments. The guy at TTS should be removed and so should the PR Consultants acting for these departments!!!!
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the people are the goverment these clowns just represent them it is up to you to decide what happens
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go on lets have a poll. i would say that most of the working public are against this kind of waste.
thats where your gst on food is going folks.
most have had to make some form of cut back to swollow the gst hike.
and yet the mad hatters tea party continues.
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‘..all the granite and slipway cobbles would be left intact behind and beneath the new structures’
Nobody will be having them away, like the granite from the old prison, then?
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And the old surface drainage granite paving gutters from the former abattoir..Perks of the job.
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Not needed at all, the road is perfectly good there at that area ( well as good as Jersey roads can be that is). A waste of time and taxpayers money.
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The logic behind this whole project defeats me. I cycle regularly but this is one section of road that really does not warrant a cycle lane, epecially not at such a vast expense. Why are we constantly told the States is in deficit and yet able to spend hundreds of thousands on silly projects? Are the lunatics really running the asylum?
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When the heck will states members listen to the public and say no to this madness.
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I support this, it is horrible cycling east thru the tunnel and its horrible cycling south on the new commercial buildings path as its extremely difficult to cross onto the road where the path ends at the top of the slip.
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Then do the sensible thing and use a car.
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I don’t own one and am glad to be free of the burden of insuring, maintaining, cleaning, fuelling, parking and being stuck in traffic in the thing!!!!!
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But you expect the other road users to pay for you to use the road. Roads don’t maintain themselves you know.
I would tax cyclists. If some can afford to spend thousands on their bikes then they can afford road tax!
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The road all the way road there is wide enough for a cycle track anyway; and if its a bit tight just reclaim a foot or two from the wide pavement on the other side.
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Theres a boat in the morning if you dont like it!
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Its not needed, end of!
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Really ?
There is about 70% of roads that i never use. They aren’t needed either…
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The States built a Cycle path out East and cyclists refuse to use it because its the wrong surface for their delicate bikes – how selfish to moan when the State actually try and do something for you – put it this way, if you live on a farm you dont buy a Sports car, if you cycle to work and a cycle path is available then dont whinge if yoy choice of bike isn’t suitable for the cycle path, that is your problem NOT the States !!! I’ll bet they wont use this either if it is built for some phoney reason or another, because in fact the hard core simply prefer to cycle on the roads and relish the disruption they cause and probably wont be satsified until cars are banned and all the roads are made cycle paths.
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Your logic is massively flawed…nice try at an analogy but totally missed the point. To follow up from your argument, the equivalent would be if you owned a sports car and they turned all the roads near your house into dirt roads. You’re not the clown that knocked me off my bike the other day are you…
On a separate point, totally pointless place for a cycle track, more amenities should be provided for cyclists in town, not where nobody cycles!
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Surely people who feel the need to cycle so frequently are aware of and used to the current roads as it is? As for any younger cyclists, cycling proficiencies do exist for a reason, funnily enough! Ridiculous amount of money on something entirely unnecessary.
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This is nothing to do with a cycle track.
There are plans to dump the ash waste and other waste inland up St Peters Valley in an old quarry. The road at this section, and part of the valley, needs to be widened to take the large trucks that will move back and forth daily. I don’t know why TTS have decided to dress it up as a cycle track cost when, in fact it is for heavy lorry infrastructure. Presumably it is so they can use the cycle track funding in a rather underhand way.
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good grief . they are going to poison the valley with toxic crud . were the plans published in the paper for questions and objections ?
can anyone else shed any light on this.
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Perhaps having all the cyclists take road tests, then they will be able to cycle safely and correctly. We can then put the proposed monies to good use by registering all the cyclists with a registration for every cycle.
This done the general public can then report all the misdemeanours by the cyclists. Chris above will then also be able to make sure that all his mates are correctly insured.
Until cyclists are legalised, registered and controlled should this vast expense be considered.
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Like that stopped over 2000 car related deaths in the UK last year!
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Agree it is about time cyclists learnt how to use the road properly! In my day if they had carried on like they do now they would have soon been taken off the road.
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Why are the b——ns wasting my tax money on this nonsense when there is already a wide enough pavement for pedestrians and cyclists together?
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Once again, we the people will have NO say. If any of US wants to add an extension to our houses or any small local firm employing local people wishes to develop a site, we have to pay through the nose for for consent which is always subject to a million and one conditions and never a simple matter…..but if the States or any wealthy outside contractor wants to develop any area of Jersey, it’s almost a dead certainty they will have the plans slide through “unopposed”….funny that.
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