A34 Chilton Slips – If you like Roundabouts………

As well as a cyclist I am also a car driver from Abingdon. Whilst the lack of cycling provision is clearly not good (building new infrastructure is the time to include new provision for the least cost), North facing slips at this interchange make a lot of sense to me. Another effect they will have is removing traffic (including some HGVs) that goes from site down to the rowstock roundabout and on to the Milton interchange. For those who cycle along that route (myself included in the summer), I imagine that will be welcome.

Even if you would never use the southbound drop off Hagbourne hill or go back up it (as I never do – when I cycle!) it is still a problem. I use the cycle route track over the hill on the way into work and cut through Chilton village and along the flinty hill track on the way back (so the steep bits are dowwnhill both ways). It will be a bit of a trial to get across to Chilton village with this proposal and turning right into the village a nightmare. As you say the climb from Upton will see an increase in fast traffic as well. Worse, I can’t see any real scope in the plan to improve this situation, unless a condition of the development was the improvement (hard surface) of the Sustrans route from the top of Hagbourne hill down to the site. This would improve the situation a lot.

Having been an Abingdon cyclist too, I agree with GRyall – loss for some cyclists *will* be gain for others….

I don’t think either of us suggested stopping the scheme (certainly not me)! I thing it is difficult to see how much you can do on the roundabouts (other than tweaking) so I was suggesting a lateral thinking approach of making the Sustrans route viable for all. Doesn’t help Chiltonians much though.

Providing a better route from Abingdon to the site for cars will, hopefully, mean that cycling in from Abingdon via Drayton/Steventon will become safer. The downside, as it stands, is that getting over Hagbourne Hill on a road bike will become significantly more dangerous. The solution, as mentioned in an earlier post, is to push for an upgrade of the N44 from Hagbourne Hill down to the campus, and/or the proposed roundabouts to have provision for cyclists, perhaps even a bridge, built in. So HarBUG should be supportive of the proposal, provided that the neccessary upgrades are made to the cycling network.

Agree with all the above three posts.

Still no cycling provision for those of us who head in from the South and have to run the gauntlet on the A34 between the West Ilsley and Chilton junctions.

I’d also like to see more (official) provision for cycling links to the South, too. The 2 roundabouts proposed seem quite “asymmetric” which makes it harder for observation & road positioning if you’re taking the long route round the circle. I also don’t quite buy the argument that adding the extra slip road will alleviate pressure elsewhere. History tends to suggest that increasing road capacity anywhere just creates more traffic. Of course if the same logic were applied to cycling provision…

Peter_Boo: Unofficially (and apparently by permission of the landowner to commuters on site) several of us use the farmer’s track across the field linking the road down from West Ilsley/Bury Down to the road alongside Chilton School. This is mostly an unmetalled track, but is a bit muddy in places and you need good lights to ride it in the dark. I ride it on a normal road bike but with 25c Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres (and mudguards) and just about get away with it.

Has anyone ever examined the idea of upgrading the track and hence providing a viable, all-weather link between Harwell and Newbury?

I see from the government websites that the A34 Chilton scheme Local Pinch Point fund application was announced as successful in Tranche 4 on 13 December. We can therefore assume that the scheme will press on at a reasonable pace while the money is available! This will mean probably pretty much as on the plans with no opportunity for changes and other improvements. There are many routes and many problems but cycling from here to Chilton village (and thence to Didcot in my case) will undoubtedly go from “bit unpleasant” to “extremely unpleasant”