Was That the TDF Peloton Arriving in Winterbourne Stoke?

Since the summer solstice there has been precious little to report on the A303.  Stories of any substance have been hard to find and we had resorted to searching the internet for anything interesting.  We wondered just how many stories on the A303 had been initiated by Wiltshire Council since the start of the year, sitting in all their pontificatorial splendour in Trowbridge?  Given that the A303 is the major east-west trunk road in the south of the county, given its importance to the local economy and especially given the fact HMG are currently looking at the feasibility of improving the A303 through the county, you might expect some fairly regular stories to emerge.  Stories saying just how important this work was and how the county council was 100% behind it.  You might expect such stories but you would be gravely disappointed, there's not been a single one, nada, nothing, bugger-all.  Either Wiltshire Council, as some claim, are overly focussed on the north of the county, or they are determined to kowtow to central government when it comes to the A303.  There was a time when Wiltshire Council and Wiltshire councillors had a bit of backbone.  For whatever reason, they seem to be becoming invertebrates.

On Monday evening, the Winterbourne Stoke Parish Council held its regular meeting.  Lots of things on the agenda and several of them related to the A303 and surrounding roads.  As ever, the meeting was good humoured and purposeful and at the end of it, all the Parish Councillors were going wander down through the village to look at the playpark.

As we came to cross the A303, back into the village we saw a sight that made our blood run cold.  There was a convoy of around 30 to 40 cyclists riding down the A303 from the direction of Longbarrow Roundabout and Stonehenge, all in high-visibility jackets and most riding line astern. It looked like the Tour de France peloton had taken a wrong turn and finished up in Wiltshire. Way too many yellow jerseys to work out which one was Vincenzo Nibali winning yet another mountain stage!  As they got closer, there was a collective holding of breath as several vans passed them.  Regular users of the A303 are only to well aware that the road is barely wide enough to allow vehicles to pass in opposite directions.  It's way too narrow to allow overtaking.  Thankfully, at 9:15pm on a Monday evening, traffic is light and the riders survived long-enough for some of them to pull off the road at the end of Church Street.

We crossed the road to see if we could help them as it was clear that they were lost.  We couldn't work out their nationality, Japanese perhaps, but one of their number explained they were heading for the Stonehenge Campsite, about a mile away.  Clearly, the A303 had not quite been the road they had been expecting and a few of them looked a wee bit shaken.  We never did find out where they had cycled from.

It does raise another point about the A303 in this part of the West Country; it is a tourist area and people want to mover around the landscape on foot, on bikes and on horseback, as well as in and on motorised vehicles.  We hope that the government have sufficient foresight to construct a byway for this type of user.  One that runs alongside a dualled A303, but separated from it by barriers.  It should run from Amesbury (and ideally well east of Amesbury in time) all the way to Devon and Cornwall.  Such a facility would be welcomed by the many tourists, local, national and international, who flock to this area and put so much into the local economy.

It's interesting that such foresight was missing from the Wiltshire Council Local Transport Plan Cycling Strategy 2011-2026.

Another example of a missed opportunity by Wiltshire Council, where everyone matters, but where everything moves with slug-like velocity.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Why an obscure reference to Chapter 7 of Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Pink Floyd's debut album from 1967 you might ask?  A good question, and one for which there is a good answer - Well,  an answer at least.

I suppose the Wind in the Willows reference is only fair given the fact that the A303 has been making passable attempts to imitate a river for the past few weeks and you can frequently find examples of Badger, Ratty, Mr Toad and other characters lying immobile and festering by the side of it. 

In this case though, the reference really is to Pink Floyd.  First, they are my favourite band and any excuse I can think of to listen to their music has to be leapt at.  Second. I was reading some Tweets from another STAG member, @tragicyclist - a keen cyclist.  He and his friends had been complaining about the lack of cycle lanes.  Although I ride mountain bikes,  I'd avoided a road back because the prospect of riding on the A303, to get out of the village, is terrifying.   However, for all sorts of reasons, I now have a road bike, and that got me to thinking of Pink Floyd and the Piper at the Gates of Dawn in particular.  The final track on side 2 of the UK version of the album is Bike.

I've got a bike.
You can ride it if you like.
It's got a basket, a bell that rings,
and things to make it look good.
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.

That's all a very convoluted way of getting to the real point about this post.  If we are going to spend a King's Ransom dualing the A303/A358/A30 corridor, why not be really imaginative?  This is meant to be the Highway to the Sun, after all; especially when it is not being the Highway to Hell.

Why not take the opportunity of creating a purpose built cycleway and footpath at the same time?

It could be shared with pedestrians and, given the wealth of interesting things along the course of the A303, could make a walking or cycling holiday in its own right.   Now I don't mean painting a narrow strip down the side of the A303 and assuming that cars and lorries will stay out of it.

They won't!  In any event - mixing pedestrians and cyclists with traffic travelling at 70-90mph isn't a particularly bright idea. 

I don't even think it would be sensible to set a cycleway/pedestrian lane directly alongside the carriageway - too clos, too noisy and still way too intimidating.  What I'd like to see is something like the cycleways around the outskirts of Oxford and in many European cities.

A cycleway and footpath physically separated from the road by a grass strip and, ideally, by an Armco barrier to stop accidental incursions by motor vehicles.  We have a once only opportunity with the A303 and any dualing activity that might happen and we should make as much of it as we can.  What do YOU think?