A £4 million cycle lane along Hove seafront has been approved by Brighton & Hove Council’s cabinet.
The scheme involves removing one lane on the existing westbound side of the A259 Kingsway between Fourth Avenue and the Hove Street traffic lights, by the King Alfred Leisure Centre.
Between Hove Street and Wharf Road, by Hove Lagoon, there is a plan to widen the existing narrow cycle lane, which is on the pavement, to make it two-way.
But a year ago, shortly after Labour won a majority at the local elections, the council terminated the works contract and put the scheme on hold for a redesign.
The final total cost of preparatory work and terminating the contract held by RJ Dance has not been made public but there have been suggestions that it was a six-figure sum.
A report to councillors last June also put the price of the redesigned and upgraded scheme at just under £1 million.
At the time, Green opposition leader Steve Davis said that Labour’s proposed redesign of the scheme consisted of “champagne dreams on light ale money”.
The cycling campaign group Bricycles said this week that the cost of the new scheme was now four times higher than originally planned.
The cabinet hopes to part-fund the Hove cycle lane with national “active travel” funding of £1.2 million that was allocated to plans for the A259 Marine Parade, to the east of the Palace Pier. The council must find the other £2.8 million.
And more plans are in the pipeline for a £3 million extension of the cycle lane from Hove Lagoon to the border of Portslade and Southwick.
The aim is to join up with a proposed cycle lane on the Adur and West Sussex side of the border as part of the National Cycle Network route 2 from Dover, Kent, to St Austell, in Cornwall.
At Brighton Town Hall on Thursday (27 June), Labour councillor Trevor Muten, the cabinet member for transport, parking and the public realm, said that the redesign would make the proposed cycle lanes safer for pedestrians.
Councillor Muten said: “A year ago we set out to show leadership on active travel to demonstrate that this could be done better and safer and to move away from an all-too-often toxic polemic – a them and us between cyclists and motorists that many have experienced, in part fuelled by poor design and hurriedly installed cycleways, with wands in the road reducing traffic capacity and increasing congestion.
“We’ve seen three cycle lanes installed and then immediately changed (meaning) additional costs and a fourth removed altogether.
“A year ago, we stopped a scheme that continued with this approach, fuelling the polemic I described.
“We stopped taking out a whole traffic lane from the westbound only cyclists in front of Victoria Terrace and between Hove Street and the Lagoon, demarked using wands in the road, putting pedestrians between the east and westbound cycle lanes and all eastbound cyclists going along the often-busy shared-space promenade in front of the King Alfred.”
Councillor Muten said that the plans included a wider pavement along Victoria Terrace which would allow outdoor seating for cafés and more space for pedestrians.
PIC-YAY IMAGES
