Kepax Bridge opens...but what next for Worcester?
On Thursday 5th December 2024 the new walking, wheeling and cycling bridge over the River Severn opened with a whimper in Worcester. The bridge is the single biggest improvement to active travel in the City of Worcester since the Diglis Bridge opened in 2014 (£1.8 million; less than £3.0 million in today’s money). In the intervening years the most impactful improvement has been to open a gate; (this particular active travel corridor fast becoming a car park).
The Arches active travel route in Worcester city centre, complete with van parked partially over the painted shared use bike / pedestrian sign on the floor
So why start with having a dig about a lack lustre ribbon cutting? A bit like other Worcestershire County Council (WCC) Highways ‘improvements’ in Worcester (see Sidbury and St Johns) this seems to be a huge wasted opportunity to make the most of the £16 million pound investment, and to join the dots with other active travel improvements, or to align it with the World Bike Bus Summit coming to Worcester in April 2025. I’ve personally contacted Marc Bayliss (County Cabinet Member for Highways) a number of times over recent weeks to discuss the opening, with the aim of making the most of the event to maximise publicity, with the aim of supporting the scheme within Worcester (including pushing Beryl Bikes), and shouting about Worcester to a wider audience (Active Travel England, Cycling UK, Sustrans); who knows? Maybe this helps with tapping into pots of money for more active travel improvements in the city? In the end I found out about the opening via the back door on Tuesday, via a Bike Worcester member who’d spotted something on Facebook (thanks Tim).
Hold on Dan, you jumped up little squirrel, why should you be kept in the loop? OK, fair point. I’m not a democratically elected Parish, City or County Councillor. But here’s the gig. This is a big deal for travelling by bike in the city. Bike Worcester provide a collective voice for the cycling community in the city, and aim to enable and encourage others to use a bike as a mode of transport, and I’m the current Chair. We are the experts in how to navigate Worcester by bike, including the barriers and challenges that are stopping other people doing the same. Collectively we provide thousands of volunteer hours each year to achieve these aims; to name a few Bike Bus, Bike Recycle, Close Pass reporting and road danger, Worcester Women Cycle, and Bikeability. We receive grant money from City Council, County Council and West Mercia PCC to support these activities. We are active members of the Worcestershire Active Travel Stakeholder Forum (WATSF), including the Worcester City sub group. I’m regularly contacted by local newspapers and radio to comment on active travel issues. We have Bike Worcester members who are elected to both City and County Councils. But perhaps the biggest point; had we been involved in the planning of the opening it would have been bigger, better, and reached a global audience (I’m not joking; had we had a group of school children simulating a Bike Bus our friend Coach Balto would have shared via his networks - FYI he’s recently been invited to the White House).
So yeah, this feels like a snub, I’m guessing because it is a snub. I've been snubbed. Bike Worcester have been snubbed. I’m a snubbee. I’m a recipient of an abundance of snubbery. I’m now a bona fida member of the snub club.
Cyclists, pedestrians and non-Black Pear runners queue behind a fence, out of sight and out of ear-shot of the bridge opening.
On finding out the opening was happening on Thursday I put a call into Marc and I asked if Bike Worcester folk could attend; he said yes. I was contacted by BBC Hereford and Worcester to record a few pieces for news reports, and was booked for a call on Thursday morning, with Marc Bayliss sat in the studio. I kept the comments upbeat and positive. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it in person to the opening (occasionally the day job gets in the way), but other Bike Worcester members did, with reports of being held behind fences for 45 minutes way off the bridge and out of ear-shot of proceedings while the official photographs and ribbon cutting took place. So not invited. My friend Lars attempted to walk the West side path along the river, but turned back due fallen branches and excessive mud; I know other people who have tried and failed to make it through since Thursday. As a result of Storm Darragh it will now be flooded.
Access, or more accurately, inaccess via the west side of the ‘figure of 8 loop’.
But why were Bike Worcester on the receiving end of a snubbing (and I’m interested in your thoughts in the comments)? Surely not party politics in preparation for the 2025 County elections (Simon and Marc were the only Councillors pictured with the ribbon and ribbon cutter) although city Council leader Lynn Denham was there, also present were Green Councillors Karen Lewing, Hannah Cooper, Tor Pingree and Matt Jenkins (all on bikes - trust they’ve all already ridden the Figure of 8 route and have provided appropriate feedback to City and County). Or is it simply a lack of vision and imagination from the County press office? Or are officers completely subservient to Councillor whims? Interesting the video of the first users was of the Black Pear Joggers. Good for them, but how did they get the gig; they’re not on the WATSF or Worcester subgroup? Maybe it’s a just a coincidence that I recognised Conservative County candidate Bertie Ballinger in the video. Hey ho.
Ribbon cutter and Olympic Gold Medallist swimmer Rebecca Redfern, pictured with Councillors Simon Geraghty and Marc Bayliss, and the Black Pear Joggers (Bertie Ballinger second from right of the joggers).
Some more detail about the bridge
After a fair amount of scrutiny and some delay (to be fair this is absolutely what I expect City and County Councillors to do when spending huge sums of public money) the scheme was approved by the Council’s Planning and Regulatory Committee on 28 September 2021, with construction starting in October 2023. Interestingly the briefing note(?) for the meeting estimates the cost to be £10-11 million. One of the delays was as a result in the permission being granted by WCC on the 6th July 2021, where concern was raised about the connectivity of the bridge to wider active travel links. I remember the meeting, and the concerns were legitimate (what’s the point in the bridge if there are no changes made on either side to the ‘network’*). Despite the valid concerns, in reality nothing changed with the wider network, and as such the delay is likely to have only achieved a delay and an increase in cost. C’est la vie.
The briefing note is an interesting read. With regard to user forecasts, the document references the Department for Transport Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (is this Gear Change?) “Walking and cycling can contribute towards economic performance by reducing congestion, supporting local businesses and more. The benefit to cost ratio of investments in walking and cycling are estimated to be ‘very high’ value for money”. Pity this can’t be applied to the many suggested low or zero cost active travel infrastructure improvements put forward by local active travel groups.
The report also states expected usage rates: ‘The proposed Kepax Bridge is forecast to have approximately 399,973 pedestrians per annum and approximately 120,406 [Ed. is this approximate?] cyclists per annum (opening year).’ Diglis Bridge and Sabrina Bridge have live counters to demonstrate the benefit; are similar counters installed at Kepax, and is there a plan to measure it’s impact on city congestion? If not, these predictions of usage become redundant. Why would we invest £16 million pounds in infrastructure justified by its impact elsewhere in the city, and not measure that impact?
A map of dangerous driving and road violence reported to the police by Bike Worcester members. The long thick line of reports on the left is Hallow Road, one of, if not the most prolific for close passes in Worcester.
Prior to the approval of the bridge’s construction Bike Worcester (along with others, not least Cycling UK) raised valid concerns over two points:
that the cost seemed excessive and that money could be spent with much greater impact on multiple schemes in the city or ‘active travel corridors’ identified in Local Transport Plan 4 to create modal shift and an increase an active travel rates
The connectivity on either side of the bridge (notably for cycling) needs to be addressed to maximise the usage of the bridge.
There have been no changes to connecting routes (notably for cycling) on either side of the bridge, and Bike Worcester have received no details of any plans for improvements via the WATSF; as such I conclude there are no plans to improve anything. The cycling route spits you out onto the A443 Hallow Road; connectivity to Hallow means sharing the road in a national speed limit area (a hot spot for close passes). This takes us to a really interesting theory we’ve developed at Bike Worcester HQ (we need a name for the theory; the Geraghty paradox?). Despite Kepax Bridge’s years of development and planning and expensive price tag, it’s actually politically cheap as chips, as the perception of councillors is that it doesn’t upset anyone. Compare this with other (much cheaper) cycling improvements, and Councillors (and candidates) will shrink into the shadows for fear of losing votes (see lack lustre city manifestos from 2024):
Reviewing TROs prohibiting cycling
Reviewing speed limits on roads
Provide additional crossing points (including use of side road zebras)
Adjust crossing timers to better favour people walking and wheeling
Removing on street parking
Introducing modal filters to create quiet active travel routes
Introducing contra flow cycling on one way streets
Introducing School Streets (temporary vehicle restrictions at school drop off and pick up times)
Dedicating a percentage of Highways budget to make the above happen
LISTEN TO LOCAL USERS WHEN IT COMES TO WHAT IS NEEDED TO INCREASE RATES OF ACTIVE TRAVEL..!
To be fair, Marc answered a loaded question from Alan Amos at a recent County Council meeting with the statement that the city centre TROs will be reviewed which will allow through routes for people cycling across the city, which is currently the biggest barrier to increasing cycling rates in the city. What we don’t know is when this review will happen. We’ve been waiting for several years for a review on 20 mph speed limits in the city centre (motion first raised in a County Council meeting in January 2021). We’re also due an LCWIP for Worcester (other LAs developed them years ago funded by Highways budgets; Worcester had to wait for external funding) but we’re unsure when it will be available for review (Evesham has had an unofficial draft for several years).
Marc Bayliss
Olive (and Dan Brothwell)
So I finally got to cross the bridge on Saturday morning on a walk with the dog (the lovely Olive). It’s fabulous, as expected, and will be a wonderful asset for the city, and will be already shifting equilibria of how people choose to travel. This morning I was going to cycle the frequently mentioned Figure of 8 route linking Diglis Sabrina and Kepax (The DSKFO8) and take some photos to highlight the fact that without other changes to the road network it’s not safely navigable by bike (see also Diglis to Sixways National Cycle Network active travel corridor). But I can’t. Because the riverside paths are underwater.
So in summary. Kepax opened this week. The opening was a damp squid. The West side path along the river is impassable. The West side cycling route is a close pass hot spot. Connectivity to Hallow is a 60 mph road. The figure of 8 route is underwater. There are no improvements to connecting routes on either side of the river.
I wonder if this has met the expectations of councillors and officers?
Finally, what will it take to get Marc Bayliss and Simon Geraghty on a bike?
Councillors Marc Bayliss (stoker) and Simon Geraghty’s (captain) photographs badly superimposed on a digital drawing of a tandem.
* a cycling network in Worcester does not exist
