Traffic ‘wands’ to stay on East Road in Cambridge – for now

Councillors have voted to extend a trial of the protected cycle lanes on parts of East Road in Cambridge.

The lanes, sectioned off by flexible traffic ‘wands’, will stay in place until works start to reconfigure the road during The Grafton redevelopment, following a vote at a meeting of Cambridgeshire County Council’s highways and transport committee on Tuesday (December 5).

The scheme has attracted complaints over increased congestion and difficulties for emergency services.

However, cycling charity Camcycle has praised it for making cycling more appealing on the road.

Neil Mackay, owner of Mackay’s hardware store on East Road, told the committee of difficulties he had witnessed for emergency services vehicles.

He said: “After receiving feedback from both myself and others, the project team came up with the idea to try and overcome the considerable delays caused by the experiment on the East Road to emergency services. Every other magic wand was removed so that in theory, cars could pass through into the cycle superhighway. The vast majority of drivers simply do not do that. I did actually film one car pass through the wands. The result was it blocked the cycle superhighway just as an ambulance drove over the wands into the cycle superhighway, bringing it to an emergency stop.

“I went to ask the fire station commander if they ever took alternative longer routes to an incident rather than transit along East Road. His answer was yes – regularly. This fact alone justifies the removal of the congestion causing wands and the return of the dual carriageway.”

However, Cllr Alex Beckett, chair of the committee, said he had spoken with the commander of Blue Watch at Cambridge Fire Station and said he was satisfied that the discovery that emergency vehicles were able to drive over the wands had made a difference to journeys.

He said: “Obviously we had a lot of concerns about the fire brigade so Cllr Shailer and I actually went and met the watch commander the other day. It was really interesting to hear their input and what they had to say about it. And their opinions are actually very mixed. They like the knockdown cones now and the fact that they can literally drive over them. So if they can get to the wands and if the cars don’t end up going into (the cycle lane) it means they then have a straight run to the junction. So from that point, it speeds them up. The slight problem is getting to those wands and that sometimes it can lead to extra traffic on the way.”

The scheme also included closing a layby on East Road to improve the transition onto the carriageway from the underpass and to discourage people from cycling on the footpath. This closure was made permanent by the committee.

The temporary scheme was implemented by the use of an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order. No decision about making the traffic wands permanent will take place until the redevelopment of The Grafton shopping centre is considered.

There have been no collisions involving cyclists since the installation of the scheme in October 2022, compared with five collisions in the previous three years.

A representative of cycling charity Camcycle told the meeting: “The East Road scheme aligned with the future highway schemes approved as part of The Grafton centre redevelopment has improved safety and make journeys more attractive.”

However, the committee received many complaints about the scheme, including that “the scheme is causing significant increased congestion which is lengthening journey times and is detrimental to the environment and local businesses”.

The council also received complaints that the scheme had been deliberately imposed to increase congestion in order to justify a congestion charge. Cllr Beckett denied this and called it a “conspiracy theory”.