Week-long public consultation on cycle lane plans from Hazlehead to the city centre as part of on-going work for physical distancing and to encourage active travel

10 July 2020

A week-long consultation starts today into plans to encourage people to continue to cycle in the Hazlehead area both for transport to work and leisure as lockdown eases.

The plans are part of a ringfenced £1.76million grant which was awarded to Aberdeen City Council on 26 May from the Scottish Government’s Spaces for People fund to carry out temporary works in our streets to help provide space to physically distance in line with government guidance.

The grant will pay for a roll out of temporary measures to allow people to walk, cycle, and queue for buses and shopping across the city while adhering to the physically distancing guidance. Measures taking place include pedestrianisation, pavement widening, temporary bike lanes.

Cycling as a mode of commuting is anticipated to increase due to continued physical distancing and with the increased number of people using bikes during lockdown. Projects in Aberdeen aim to rapidly expand and connect cycling infrastructure across the city to create an improved cycle network and this includes the Hazlehead active travel corridor, from the Hazlehead roundabout to Rosemount Viaduct. The City Council is now asking the public for feedback which will help to finalise the designs.

Aberdeen City Council transport spokeswoman Councillor Sandra Macdonald said: “It is good we have a week to engage with the public on our plans for the area from Hazlehead to the city centre.

“The consultation held for the beach area active travel plans proved to be very popular and I’d encourage people to take part in this one too. We’ve already made changes in other projects thanks to suggestions from local people so we’d really like to hear their views on this scheme as this will help us to shape the final plans.”

The highlights of the Hazlehead active travel scheme include:

Mandatory cycle lane (cycles only; vehicles are not allowed to drive into or park in the cycle lane) from Hazlehead to city centre; The mandatory cycle lanes would follow the direction of traffic in both directions at Queens Road, Carden Place and Skene Street; Some parking removed along main route and displaced onto adjacent side streets; Links to existing cycle lane route at Hazlehead for travel to Kingswells and Westhill; Right turn bans from Queen’s Road into Hazeldene Road, and from Springfield Road into Woodburn Avenue.

Feedback from the public is being taken into consideration to help shape these plans so comments on these options and the proposals are invited at https://consultation.aberdeencity.gov.uk/place/spaces-for-people-hazlehead-active-travel-corridor/.

Aberdeen City Council will continue to review, monitor, and evaluate the interventions while discussions are held with stakeholders, and when the measures are in place. The continual reviewing may mean changes to the interventions, and it is also a requirement of the fund, which is being administered by sustainable transport body Sustrans Scotland.

The works along the Hazlehead corridor follow on from other measures already installed on Union Street and nearby streets, Torry and Rosemount which will help protect public health by reducing COVID-19 transmission in the city which will in turn reduce the number of cases NHS Grampian’s contact tracing team have to cope with, making their intervention easier and more effective. The temporary measures will further help the economic recovery of the city and allow people to continue to use active travel such as walking and cycling.

The length of time the temporary measures will be in place will be determined by NHS and Government guidance for physical distancing.