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York Station Gateway (City of York Council)Residents' anger at plans to scrap car parking for cycle lane, but council transport director says walking and cycling should be "prioritised" as "there's just not room for everything"
A proposal which the council says would see the "front of York Station transformed to create a new and improved gateway to the city", with safe cycling infrastructure, improved pedestrian facilities and better access for bus users, has attracted objections from some residents who do not want to lose the parking spaces in front of their homes.
Described in the local press as a "fury" from locals, York Mix reports that the reaction of those who live on Queen Street — heard at a council transport meeting last week from residents who will lose parking spaces directly outside their houses and instead offered parking in nearby areas of the city — was far from supportive of the proposal that was ultimately approved by the council.
[York Station Gateway proposals, City of York Council]
Making their case, residents suggested scrapping parking to make room for a cycle lane would turn the road from a "small vibrant community of long-term residents into a strip of short-term holiday lettings" as "a house with restricted vehicular access is not an attractive proposition as a permanent home".
Access for disabled residents, delivery drivers and tradespeople was also raised as an issue, while one resident said the cycle lane replacing parking would have "a detrimental financial effect for every householder in that street" and house prices could drop by "an average of 13 per cent".
One resident told the council he objects to the plan because it will "effectively remove vehicular access to my house".
[York Station Gateway proposals, City of York Council]
"The restrictions will severely affect my ability to use my car, to receive deliveries, and to engage tradespeople to work on my house. It will make life effectively untenable for those with mobility problems, for those who require regular visits from carers, and for those who need to get children safely out their house," Peter Chilman said.
"As this project has progressed it has become increasingly clear that residents are very much on the lowest rung of the stakeholder ladder. The railway institute LNER has kept its parking spaces. The York Cycling Campaign has got its dedicated cycle lane. Access is uninterrupted to the Premier Inn. The bus stop and the taxi rank are retained. The residents get nothing."
Ticking off the council's response to each raised concern, it was pointed out to residents that delivery drivers will be given a ten-minute grace period to park on double yellow lines, while blue badge holders will be allowed to park for three hours, tradespeople can request permits and carers will get a free permit to park elsewhere.
Residents will also be able to unload and load on double yellow lines, except between the hours of 8am to 9.15am and 4pm to 6pm.
Explaining the decision to remove the parking, James Gilchrist, the council's director of environment transport and planning was keen to point out the proposal went to a safety audit that "concluded that we should remove the parking because there was a conflict between the segregated cycle route and the residents parking".
"There's just not room for everything and that’s part of the challenge that faces us," he said. "Walking and cycling are prioritised over buses and then that over cars."
Approving the removal of the parking to make way for a segregated cycle lane and wider footway, councillor Claire Douglas said while it was "difficult", she believes "we need to move ahead with the recommendations as outlined and with the mitigations that have been offered".
Parking vs cycling infrastructure is of course not a matter limited to York, last month artists in Dublin claiming "a valuable part of the city will be lost" if cycle lane plans remove car parking spaces.
According to opponents of the proposed cycle lane on the city's Merrion Square, the protected infrastructure's installation will "eliminate the artists" who park nearby, and lead to the "death of a very special tradition".
And just last week, business owners in Hove called a plan to remove two car parking spaces to make way for eight hire bikes "totally crazy" and "ridiculous".
Last November, Brighton & Hove City Council said it would investigate after motorists' outrage at a cycle hangar "deliberately" blocking car parking spaces in a residents' parking zone.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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24 comments
These politicians are living in the 19th century where people lived worked and shopped within a small locality , with cars the whole country would grind to a halt in days . Most people don't have the qualifications to ride a bike as they can tell red from green and do stop at lights . Ask these clever people went to that council meeting on a bike
I
Are you alright?
I'm worried you may have had a seizure mid comment there....
Well known medical condition of AG I fear (apoplexia gammonatus) where the speaker or writer chokes on the output of their own frothing.
Would you like another bash at this? Needs abit of work to really hit home I feel. I do like the "I" flourish at the end though, most novel.
Perhap the "I "was the start of another sentence that he didn't quite get round to completing, such as " I actually can't believe I've just written down such an utter load of old bollocks"!.
Was the I left behind by Withnail this time round?
I'm disappointed that you didn't go for this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG64DgkgS50
I took two of them and ran a mile.
I've read your post three times and still don't wheely have a clue
I've also tried reading your post but I
I think if you worked together with Flintshire Lad your respective talents (missing words and or punctuation vs. sentence bollards and a love of whitespace) could combine to something greater than the sum of its parts.
Do you mean "these 19th century politicians (presumably Jacob Rees Mogg and other Etonians?) are mentally living in a past where the smoke from vehicles and factories together with the proles scurrying to and from work for hours every day was seen as a sign of progress"?
oh look, another Onesie who signed up purely to post ignorant drivel.
They have trolled on here before.
Really need that post count back though.
I don't live in York but something about this story piqued my interest so I had a look on Google Maps street view.
Station Rd ends opposite the station but continues as Queen St. The city wall is on the left. There are no properties on the left. The only houses on Queen St are a terraced row on the right near the end of the street. There is no parking in front of these (actually it's only one house on Queen St!) because of double yellow lines.
What's going on? Perhaps someone who lives in York could give a local oppinion.
Yes, it's a bit odd. In fact, one of the complainants in the you tube video says they live at a property that will be affected with the removal of on street parking, yet that property appears to have off-street parking...
https://maps.app.goo.gl/mjNmRbq7vLGDHP4s8
Not a local either, but I think that whole row of houses is considered to be part of "Queen Street".
Also not a local but spent some time there in the past and knew the location; I was perplexed by this one too!
The link to what seems to be the relevant proposal is here. However I'm not really any the wiser about what people are complaining about and why, apart from "change!"
Surely they've got lots of bigger issues to worry about though e.g. the giant bedbug problem?
Just like the shopkeepers who think that they control the parking spaces outside their business, these residents seem to think that they own the parking outside of their house. What happens if someone else parks outside their house?
They get a parking ticket because its permit holders only zone.
And being so close to the station, all the permit zones there are strongly enforced.
What I cant see is how only the residents parking bays would interact with the cycle lane unless they completely rebuild that area, and still somehow leave all the commercial parking area & access intact.
There's more to this than nimbyism
Whilst it does sound like they are doing a substantial redesign "The plans to modernise the access to the station include removing Queen Street bridge", the Council Decision Session is a bit enlightening (although it doesn't show plans). The residents say that the plans they approved and supported had residents parking bays but they were removed at a later date. The council's transport officer says they were removed because an RSA determined that car users of the bays would have to u'turn across several lanes of traffic and reccomended their removal. Apparently the website still shows the original scheme. Looking at Streetview I can't see how they'd interact any worse than the NCP car park (that uses their street by their front doors) or the neighbouring Premier Inn
https://www.itravelyork.info/news/article/23/york-station-transformation...
As an aside it was also enlightening that one council member had a conflict of interest as he has a parking permit for Queens Street and whilst I could easily be wrong I doubt they actually live there
Ah, yep. They're removing that 'bridge' that appears to be a bridge over nothing!
I've found the offending plan, it's option 3 at the end of the document, where the parking spaces outside that small row of terraced houses are removed...
https://democracy.york.gov.uk/documents/s170565/Annex%20C%20-%20Safety%2...
It was a bridge over the old railway lines to the old York station which closed in the late 1800s when the current station opened, but the tracks were lifted only in mid 1960s, and that left just the bridge.
But it amazes me for a near £8million ( so double it to 16m when it's complete) scheme, with such fundamental road changes & impacts to residents or businesses, it still ends up looking like a complete dogs dinner of a scheme that serves no one well.
If you follow those plans or the renders, the cycle lane provision looks rubbish, and I don't think accounts for the volume of pedestrians you get entering or exiting the station.
Surely the Dutch must have better ideas for rail hubs than this?
You say "impacts to residents and businesses" - this is not to be sniffed at and it's a major "route" BUT ... isn't it the case that there are actually extremely few residents / businesses directly affected (by being there)? And one might argue this is actually a really rather small impact in the scheme of things. It's not like they're knocking down people's homes and businesses e.g. to build a railway (until they're not...) or putting a really busy road right outside people's front doors. It's just a loss of existing parking (although they still can for "loading" for some times)?
I know in the UK we consider the public realm near our homes and businesses to essentially be for our private use though...
Also - 8 million (or whatever it finally costs) is lots... but put that in terms of just e.g. installing a roundabout in the UK (can easily get into the millions).
I haven't had a good look at the proposed changes - no doubt the proposal is imperfect in one or more ways. I do know the current situation is - for a "flagship tourist" place - awkward, noisy, congested, often unpleasant to move about etc. (last there about a year ago IIRC)
Anyway - but but we have cramped, historic cities...
Delft
Amsterdam
(Belgium - Bruges)
The published renders don't take into account the feedback from York based cycling groups, which have resulted in the option 3 plan. This has improved the cycle lane on Queen Street. By removing the residents parking, the cycle lane is wider and avoids the tight turn in and interruption at the side road.
Although I agree it could be further improved and it's a shame they've not managed full segregation from the road. There certainly looks to be room to do this beyond the station.