A Ride Through the Park

Pride Park

Pride Park is former railway land that was converted into a commercial park in the late 1990s. It’s bounded by railway lines on its southern and western sides and by the River Derwent to the North and East encompassing an area of over 100ha.

It’s principally low density/low rise office blocks, car dealerships, it has a handful of chain hotels & places to eat, is home to Derby County Football Club and has a number of leisure facilities including a velodrome.

It has a Milton Keynes-eque layout with straight & wide single-carriageway roads laid out in a grid. Junctions are in the form of wide-splay roundabouts and there are only four crossing points for active travel users that are protected with traffic lights. All these features do is encourage speed along Pride Park’s roads. With the exception of the side roads, Royal Way and Riverside Road which are 30mph, the main through-routes are 40mph.

It’s a car-centric development and therefore unlikely to be an inviting space for people on bikes. But a quick glance at the cycle map of Derby and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Pride Park is a cycleway heaven, a mini-Holland if you like. Cycle infrastructure on both sides of the roads and National Cycle Network route 6 (The riverside path) running along the periphery. What’s not to love?

The view on the ground

But what do the cycleways actually look like on the ground? I’ll generally ignore the riverside path for this article as it’s pros and cons are well-argued on our Facebook forum but instead focus on the green lines which, according to the Deby City Cycle map, are “Traffic-free cycle paths”.

Sharing is caring.

The first observation is that the routes are all shared-use paths. Not just any shared-use path, but narrow shared-use paths. Shared-use paths are usually adequate where pedestrians and cycles volumes are low. With the exception of football match days or Derby College opening & closing times, pedestrian footfall is just that, part in thanks to the low-density layout or Pride Park. A limited presence of people, however, can make an area less inviting for users particularly at night.

Street furniture.

Footways and cycleways are a convenient dumping ground for various items including telecoms cabinets, waste bins, signposts and lighting columns which are placed directly in or immediately adjacent the footway. These not only narrow the absolute width of cycleway, but also reduce the effective or useable width.

Discontinuous Routes

Along Riverside Road there is no priority over entrances to businesses so unless you have the abilities of an owl to turn your neck at every junction, it’s quicker, more convenient and probably safer to stay on the road. On the same road there are no fewer than 9 entrances to businesses in less than 600m of road. A deviation from the most direct route is required at each junction as deprioritised crossing are often off the desire line. If all these breaks in continuous cycleway were represented accurately on the cycle map it would a dashed green line along its length.

Bell Mouth Junctions

Bell mouth junctions are designed with motor vehicles in mind. They allow cars to take corners at speed and long vehicles, with their wider swept path, to safely enter and exit roads without driving over the pavement. The loser here is the active traveller particularly if you’re crossing the road in question. The winning contender for the widest bell mouth junction on Pride Park goes to the Derby Arena (velodrome). At a whopping 60m wide, it would take around 30 seconds to cross it in one go. Even with the traffic island, it’s still a risky crossing with approaching road vehicles invariably exceeding the 30mph limit.

Roundabouts and islands

You’ll note from the cycle map that the green lines break at every roundabout – Another way of describing breaks in cycleway provision is “You’re on your own here, buddy. Best of luck!” The routes that require negotiating the roundabout flares could, in effect, be deemed as unusable by many active travellers as you need to be prepared to break into a short sprint when crossing.

As noted earlier, there are only four traffic light-controlled crossings in Pride Park – three are 2-stage crossings adjacent to roundabouts and on a stagger. Where a staggered crossing is present an intermediate island is provided but is often narrow and bounded by pedestrian railings which make turning anything larger than a standard bike an ordeal or even impossible.

Core A6 route:

The A6 runs through Pride Park as it forms the principal route towards the inner ring road and City Centre. It doesn’t have side roads off it between the roundabouts (With the exception of the recently built petrol station and builder’s merchants). This is a small bonus as there are no frequent changes in priorities to negotiate. There’s a grass verge separating the shared use path and the main road which provides a decent buffer from passing traffic.

Accessing Pride Park

There are three ways in and out of Pride Park if you’re in a motor vehicle.

1. To the Northwest over the railway on Pride Parkway to the Cockpit and City Centre
2. To the East along Derwent Parade over the river to the Wyvern and the A52
3. To the South towards the roundabout with London Road and Ascot Drive.

For the active traveller, there is a plethora of cut-throughs to access the core routes in and around Pride Park but essentially there are no fewer than six ways in or out. Great, take that car users! But there’s a catch. Well, lots of catches.

1. City Centre

To access Pride Park at the Northwest you must use the Riverside Path under the railway line – There are two bridges next to each other here. One is well-lit but has steps up one side so no good for people on bikes and the other is narrow but lit although not brilliantly. Neither option is particularly appealing especially at night. As the most direct route for the City Centre this is a real barrier for vulnerable, if not most users.

“But hey, I can just follow the roadway along Pride Parkway – there’s a pathway there, right?” –Sadly not. Instead, there’s a short narrow footway serving a bus stop and then soft verge for 300 metres before the bridge over the railway which does have a made-up footway of sorts.

2. Alvaston Park

At the opposite end of Pride Park, the Riverside path takes you under another section of the railway and into Alvaston Park – Although well-lit and adjacent to some residential properties, the park is not well-overlooked and is therefore a place where many would rather steer clear of late at night.

3. The Wyvern

If you want to head out towards the direction of the Wyvern, the A52 and Chequers Road cycleway then your ride will involve teetering on a narrow shared-use path with three lanes of traffic roaring past you. The path here measures as little as 1.8m in width between the barrier and the kerb. and that’s in the relatively new section that was installed as part of the A52 junction scheme.

Once over the bridge you’re in the Wyvern but not out of the woods yet – Multiple lanes of traffic must be negotiated if you’re heading out in the direction of Chaddesden. Whatever your destination, your best bet is to circumnavigate the roundabout in an anti-clockwise direction as there is no protected crossing heading into Costco/Tim Horton’s/M&S even though it’s the shortest route to Chequers Road.

4. Dead Man’s Lane

For the explorers amongst you who like to find little hidden routes in obscure places then the route from Orient Way through to Dead Man’s Lane behind the RTC business park is the route for you. It’s a little fiddly to find and negotiate your way along Orient way but a good cut-through to London Road and the Wilmorton. However, you feel a little bit hemmed in, sight lines are poor and it’s a bit dingy passing under the railway line particularly at night.

5. Ascot Drive Roundabout

The route to the roundabout on London Road/Ascot Drive over the railway line and past the City Point residential area is on wide shared-use paths on both sides of the road. While access here is good, on the Pride Park side there are no traffic light protected crossings at this end. Plan ahead and use the crossings outside the housing development.

6. Railway Station

It’s possible to access Pride Park via the railway station footbridge and it is staffed 24hours a day. The lifts are a little on the small side (I couldn’t fit a standard bike with panniers), you’ll be required to walk across the bridge and be prepared to charm the gate staff to let you through without a train ticket.

But it’s not all bad…

One plus point is that with the exception of the bridges and underpasses crossing the railway lines and the river and the many dropped kerbs and berms, the topography Pride Park is relatively flat so you can generally potter about the place with ease.

Plan Ahead

It might seem daft (and it is) but you have to plan ahead when traversing Pride Park. As there are a multitude of options for getting to the same place, you must consider which side of the road is best to travel on and where can you safely cross. If you know each nook and cranny well, you can plan in your head and generally get by. But if you have reduced mobility, are accompanying children or have a larger than standard bike, it may be necessary to jot down all the options before embarking on a trip. The following is an illustration of the considerations made by one our members for what should be a simple trip to a leisure facility with a young family.

Solutions

So, what measures could be adopted to improve the existing shared-used cycleways and the user experience of accessing and negotiating Pride Park on bike? This isn’t an exhaustive list of every possible intervention under the sun, but we will still get letters.

Prioritised Crossings

Across the side roads along Riverside Road, pedestrians and people on bikes technically have priority (in the eyes of the highway code) but it would take a brave person on foot or bike to assume drivers have read the updates and choose to comply with them. Physical interventions in the form of raised continuous cycle and footway, coloured tarmac, signage and white lining could be applied to emphasise the priorities.

Bridge the gaps

The North-western access to Pride has a “No Pedestrian access” sign on the approach from Siddals Road. As alluded to above, a paved route could easily be accommodated on the Roundhouse side of Pride Parkway and a crossing provided on Siddals Road

This would undoubtably allay many fears of cycling through secluded areas as it would be adequate for late-night users to safely negotiate. An added benefit is that it provides a dry route when the Derwent floods.

Calming the cul-de-sacs

The speed limits for side roads off roundabouts on the 40mph through routes could be reduced to 20mph – particularly outside Derby College’s roundhouse building around the back entrance to the railway station where students and office workers are often dodging cars that are dropping off passengers who are late for their train. Narrowing the roundabout flares from and to the side roads would also encourage drivers to reduce their speed.

Widen my path

Shared-use cycleways along the A6 and Derwent Parade could be widened, clutter could be moved aside (litter bins are an easy win here as there’s no complicated infrastructure below) – but repositioning of lighting columns gets a bit trickier and more expensive to implement.

Increased number of traffic light protected crossings.

As noted, Pride Park is light on safe crossings protected by traffic lights and they’re absent in their entirety at the southern end. With five arms emanating from the roundabout, many of which are 2-lanes, a safe passage across should be considered here.

Reallocate road space

All cycle lane proposals are controversial (apparently) but reallocation of road space for the provision of cycle lanes is in a league of its own when it comes to controversy.

Where Derwent Parade crosses the river between the Wyvern and Pride Park there are three lanes dedicated to motor traffic. Perhaps reduce to two and widen the shared use paths either side to an adequate width?

TLDR

If you’ve got this far, well done! But to summarise, Pride Park’s cycling experience does not really live up to what is portrayed on the cycle map of Derby.

For a relatively modern and award-winning development, Pride Park is depressingly designed around motor vehicles. The active traveller or public transport user is not well catered for.

There is some potential to remedy the engrained car-centric design to better suit the active traveller, but many will take brave decisions to become a reality.