Tour of the new Cycling City projects

As work on the latest phase of Cycling City projects nears completion we took a few hours out to see some of Bristol's newest cycle paths.

Our tour of Bristol took in eight infrastructure projects in the west, south and east of the city and saw us clock up over 36km of mostly traffic-free miles.

Starting from College Green in the centre of Bristol we headed west along the harbourside to see phase one of the new cycle path along Cumberland Basin Road.

This 250m stretch of path connects Bristol's harbourside with a cycle track that runs alongside the Portway. The new section (shown below) gives cyclists a safer route out to the north of the city. 

Turning back on ourselves we headed towards the Create Centre to find the next Cycling City path on the other side of Ashton Avenue Bridge.

This path, known as the Brunel Way crossing allows cyclists to avoid cycling on the dual carriageway, instead giving them a traffic-free route towards the housing development on the site of the former Megabowl complex. Once this housing development is complete cyclists will be able to cycle straight through to Clanage Road, at the bottom of Ashton Court.

However, as the housing development is still under construction we took a series of underpasses to get to Clanage Road and then took a right turn to see the other end of the Connect 2 Clanage Road cycle path that runs past Bedminster Cricket Club, some allotments and a stone masons yard (see pics below).

Once this route is finished it will give residents of Ashton Vale and students at UWE's Bower Ashton campus a safer way to get to their destinations. Plus it will provide safe access for families wishing to visit Ashton Court by foot or bicycle.

Heading south from here we cycled along the road through Bedminster to get to the start of the Hartcliffe Way cycle route, which starts on the left hand side of the road before a crossing facility takes cyclists onto the right hand side of the road and up towards the retail stores at Hartcliffe's Imperial Retail Park.

No time for shopping though, we'd only completed a third of the journey. 

Instead we took a cycle path behind the retail centre and popped out on the other side of Hengrove Way which took us to Whitchurch Lane and onto Hawkfield Road and Hawkfield Business Park - the site of Somerfield House. This, in turn, lead us through to Hengrove Park, which is the site of a skills academy, hospital and leisure centre, all currently under construction.

Following some interesting map interpretations we eventually made our way along Church Road to Whitchurch where we picked up Sustrans NCN route 3 (otherwise known as the Whitchurch link), which has just been improved to make its surface suitable for all types of bicycles. (The picture below shows the improved exit to the path at Manston Close, close to the A37.) We followed this route all the way to Arnos Vale Cemetery and crossed the A4 to pick up Whitby Road.

At this point, with lunchtime looming and stomachs rumbling, we were faced with our steepest climb of the day - Netham Road and Blackswarth Road - but it was worth it for the lunchtime stop at a pub on Church Road.

At this point we'd cycled about 15 miles so a hearty meal and a cool drink helped us tackle the remaining leg of the journey.

After lunch we set off again through St George's Park (making sure to try out our road bikes on the BMX course) to see the junction improvements made to link St George's Park to Bristol-Bath Railway Path.

Before we arrived on the Railway Path we passed The Limes Nursery School (one of over 30 Bike It schools in Bristol) and saw a surprising number of bikes parked in the playground. The numbers of children cycling to nursery schools has trebled over the last two years and this school is a great example of those increasing numbers.

Once on the Railway Path we headed north-east to see the new lighting on the path and the new link to Ridgeway playing fields.  At this point we bumped into Nick Long, a local resident.

Nick told us that "the path has made a big difference. I used to either cycle along Whitehall Road or cycle up to Hockeys Lane to get on the Railway Path." Nick's regular journey is now a lot quicker and safer thanks to this new link.

We turned back on ourselves here and continued up the Railway Path to Alcove Road where we crossed the A432 and took Elmgrove Road into Eastville Park. It took us less than a hundred metres before we saw how the previously rough, bumpy path had been transformed into a smooth, Tarmaced path to either take cyclists and pedestrians north to UWE or south to the Eastgate Shopping Centre and Frome Greenway.

We headed south and cycled back into town along the Greenway, which is a route that Bristol City Council are seeking your views on for their improvement plans.

We cycled parallel to the M32 and Newfoundland Way for half a kilometre before coming out in Cabot Circus, allowing us to cross over into Castle Park and along Baldwin Street. Baldwin Street is another that Bristol City Council are looking to improve in 2010/11.

In total we clocked up 36.6km in a touch over three hours and covered less than half of the new Cycling City infrastructure projects. We'll be heading out again in the coming months to see the new projects in the north of the city.

In the meantime if you want to repeat our journey you can follow our route at this link (wrong turnings and unnecessary diversions not shown!).