This road improvement scheme forms part of our district-wide strategy to move away from the idea that streets are just for cars, and to promote active travel in Bath and North East Somerset. This means making it safer and more convenient for you to take short journeys by walking, wheeling, or cycling. This strategy aims to help residents, businesses, and visitors to our area to live healthier lives, reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality.
The scheme will be paid for from the government's Active Travel Fund, which offers time-limited grants for specific projects promoting active ways of travelling. If we don't use our share of the money by March 2022, we will lose it.
Project aims
The City centre to University of Bath improvement project will provide a safe and convenient cycle facility, and an improved pedestrian route for people travelling between Bath city centre and the University of Bath. This aims to do the following:
- Encourage and enable more journeys by bike and on foot
- Improve the confidence of people to cycle and walk
- Give greater priority to cyclists and pedestrians on the road
- Improve the health and wellbeing of residents
- Support our wider work to address the climate emergency
How the scheme fits into our wider plans
A strategic cycle network
The provision of a high quality network of safe, direct, and continuous cycle routes is central to encouraging more people to take up cycling, both for leisure and as a primary mode of transport. The city centre to University of Bath scheme will be a first phase of future pedestrian and cycle improvements in this part of the city. This scheme forms part of a longer ‘Scholar’s Way’ route, which will see future phases of improvements to create a cycling and pedestrian network connecting all schools, universities and centres of employment in the south of the city. Other improvements being planned, which we will consult on at a later date, include the following:
- A new signalised crossing for pedestrians and cyclists on Beckford Road near the railway bridge. This will improve access between Sydney Gardens and the canal towpath.
- A new cycle route and associated crossings to provide a cycle route between Great Pulteney Street, Sydney Road and the canal towpath.
We are constantly working to create this cycling network and will continue to programme new improvements every year.
For more information on our long-term plans, please see our pages on Active Travel Schemes.