The Canals and River Trust consulted on the sharing of towpaths by differnt users and a mooted Code of Practice
I completed a response on behalf of CycleSheffield. The towpath from Meadowhall to Rotherham has been paved for use a cycle path (LSTF 1 funding) and the SY bid for the next round of LSTF 2 funding included a proposal to turn the canal route from the Canal Basin to Meadowhall into a cyclable towpath. The development officer at the Canal Basin thinks that it would help develop that quarter, as will the development of the Castlegate site and the plans to turn Gibraltar St/West Bar/Castlegate from a grey to a green route – more details about this at Cycle Forum in Sep 2014
The Canal & River Trust has just published the findings from its consultation on Sharing Towpaths.
This link will take you to the completed consultation page where you can view the output report and consultation responses.
We are extremely grateful to you and everyone who took the time to respond to our consultation and participate in our workshops, we received well over 2,000 responses which have given us a lot of information to consider. We are currently reviewing all of these to inform our recommendations and next steps.
Our recommendations will be published later in the Autumn and I will email you again with links to these once they are available.
So the link will take you to the summary data from which the CRT will produce some recommendations for the use and development of the canal towpaths.
I’ve only skimmed it but please note that there are pros and cons with respect to the use of the towpaths by cyclists.
There is a tension between using the towpaths for commuting as opposed to leisure cycling.
There is a notable concern about the speeds and manners of some people who cycle.
There is a recognition that some people are inconsiderate wherever they are, i.e. canals, per se, do not produce anti-social behaviour.
Mick
Not sure I see the point of making the canal towpath more cyclable. We already have the five weirs walk as a leisure route between the city centre and Meadowhall, (with an access route only a few yards from the canal basin) while the two main roads between these centres are crying out for some decent cycling infrastructure as are many other key routes in the city, There could be mileage in making the towpath a bit safer for everyone but the focus should be on key utility routes.
Simon
I agree. But this was a proposal by SCC to whoever was pulling the South Yorks/ShfCityRegion LocalSustainableTransportFund bid together.
WE can ask for clarification at next Cycle Forum but I’m pretty sure that is what Paul Sullivan said.
I refer you to this http://www.cyclesheffield.org.uk/2014/07/31/green-routes-urban-routes-and-what-should-we-focus-on-in-the-lower-don-valley/
and nobody has siad we have got the intention wrong.