Transport Initiatives were commissioned by Warrington Council to review a potential signed cycle network and devise a cycle and pedestrian direction signing scheme to support it. As part of its LSTF programme the council wanted to improve non-car access to its main employment areas, many of which were located close to motorways rather than being close to where most people lived. Local bus routes were focussed on the town centre and opportunities to improve them were limited.

The work involved:

• An audit of the cycle/pedestrian routes
• An accessibility audit of the surrounding areas to assess how well the routes served the town
• Devising schemes to fill gaps in the network – access to the town centre across the inner ring road was poor
• Detailed consideration of the destinations to be included on the signs
• Complete set of sign face drawings
• Detailed location plans
• Comments and suggestions for further schemes to extend the network.

Warrington had a fragmented cycle network. Parts of the New Town sections of Warrington were constructed with segregated cycle/pedestrian paths but the original parts of the town had very little. While the New Town had an extensive pedestrian path network it was easy to get lost. The council proposed 10 routes to which we added three existing long but poorly signed ones making a 92km network to investigate. Our key auditing technique is the Cycle Skills Network Audit. This assesses the level of ability required to cycle along all links in the network, and the cycle and pedestrian level of skill required to use all crossings. The audit enabled us to determine what parts of the town were served by the existing network and the larger area of the town served by the proposals.

We found that that once you have a basic network it is very easy to add lengths of connecting quiet road or paths in parks to extend the network and its effectiveness at very little cost. Some extra lengths may only need a direction sign arm at each end for instance. The network review showed how small quick wins such as making gaps in road closures for cyclists or improving crossings for pedestrians can improve the network by offering shorter routes or by connecting new areas to it. Once we had an agreed network we could work out the most important destinations that would enable people to navigate the area and be consistent across the town and between all the routes. We then designed all the sign faces and produced a schedule and plans for each sign’s location.

And there’s more…

After they had worked through all the proposals in this report Warrington Council invited us back to specifically review South Warrington.

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