Tenison Road traffic calming

Tenison Road is open at last!

One element of the scheme is still unfinished: the pedestrian crossing just to the north of Canon’s Green. The Traffic Regulation Order passed was for this to be a zebra crossing (black-and-white stripes on the ground, and Belisha beacons on each pavement). However the descriptions and drawings relating to this feature are inconsistent, which has led some residents to believe that there was to be an ‘informal’ not zebra crossing at this location.

The Cambridge Joint Area Committee, met on 14 March 2017 and voted to complete the crossing as a full zebra, with Belisha beacons and white zizag lines either side (where it is illegal to park). Details of the beacons are being worked out with officers.

Retained for reference

Karen Lunn (lead council officer) provided this update on 9 November:

The programme to finish the work will now be as follows.

Monday 14 Nov: Complete kerb works

Tuesday 15 Nov: Complete all surfacing and begin dismantling fencing and clearing site.

Wednesday 16 Nov: Apply resin sealant to block paving & begin tree pit works. Complete road marking

Thursday 17 Nov: Complete resin sealant, remove heras fencing from site, continue tree pits. Off hire storage container.

Friday 18 Nov: Finish final clearing of site, road sweeper to give final sweep to area. Reopen Tenison Rd. Any remaining tree works can be done with local TM and will not require the closure.

We are still awaiting an installation date for the Zebra crossing from BBLP.

We realise that Tenison Road normally forms part of the diversion route for the Remembrance Sunday road closure on Hills Road so we have arranged an alternative route.

Karen Lunn provided this update on 19 October:

The current plan, weather permitting, for Monday 24th and Tuesday 25th October is to resurface the carriageway between Mill Road and the Canon’s Green feature. There will be no vehicular access to this length of the road for the duration of the work and therefore no provision for parking along it. Eurovia have been liaising with residents and businesses to give them forewarning.

The work will be quite intense and noisy during this time for which we apologise but given the nature of the work is unavoidable. In order to complete the work as quickly as possible Eurovia are working to a very tight timetable that relies on everything running to plan. The intention is that they will work from 8am until 6pm on Monday. Work undertaken after 5pm will be of a quiet nature. Providing there are no hiccups with the weather, machinery breakdowns or availability of road resurfacing material you will have access to this length of road will be restored on Wednesday morning.

This work includes the reconstruction and resurfacing of the two sections of carriageway between the features. With regard to the issue of pavement overhaul that Richard mentioned we are replacing the concrete slabs along the footway on the north-west side of the road so that the footway will be level as it is rather uneven at present. On the opposite side of the road we resurfacing the footway over the extents of the features. The resurfacing of St.Barnabas Road does not form part of this scheme.

The bulk of the scheme should be completed by November 11th. To follow on from this will be the installation of the trees and Zebra crossing. It is recommended by the tree providers that the trees are not lifted from the ground until November which coincides with the end of their growing season. Balfour Beatty Living Places who will be installing the Zebra crossing have only just provided me with a cost estimate for the work so I am waiting to hear from them as to when they anticipate the installation work will take place.

Work on the long-planned traffic calming measures on Tenison Road started on 4 March, but was immediately interrupted by the need to replace a Victorian water main buried just 18″ below the road surface.

Tenison Road is closed between Mill Road and the junction with St Barnabas Road, and will remain so until 18 November 2016. This entire section of carriageway will be rebuilt and parts of the footway resurfaced.

Revised timetable

Dates Location of works
Until project end Compound at northern end of Canon’s Green
4 – 25 July Mill Rd to Felton St
21 July – 5 August Felton St to Wilkin St
4 August – 2 September Wilkin St to Canon’s Green
26 August – 26 September Mill Rd to Bolton’s Warehous
26 September – 5 October Outside King’s Church
26 September – 11 October Junciton at north corner of Canon’s Green
11 October – 18 November Mill Road to Canon’s Green

Updated construction phasing plans & timetable (3MB PDF – out of date)

Road closure

Tenison Road will be closed to through traffic between Mill Road and St Barnabas Road for the duration of the work. A diversion route from Mill Road to Station Road will be signed via Gonville Place and Hills Road. This only affects through traffic coming from the city end of Mill Road (which should not use Covent Garden or Devonshire Road as an alternative to Tenison Road). Traffic from Romsey can continue to use Devonshire Road, and traffic from the station can continue to use St Barnabas Road.

See detailed plans (3MB PDF, as amended in December 2015)

Devonshire Road

The scheme for the corner of Devonshire Road is postponed until the station works are finished.

25 thoughts on “Tenison Road traffic calming”

  1. I would like to know will I be able to drive down Devonshire rd from romsey area where i live then onto Tenison ave to get to St pauls rd to get my daughter to Sancton Wood sch? Also my buisness delivers to 146 Tenison rd Fenners hotel what will be the impications to my buisness delivering there over the next 3 months? I also deliver to Station rd so i must make a complete trip around Gonville place to get to Tenison rd? Is Tenison rd being closed due to the new buildings and flats being built on Tenison rd near Station rd resulting in more traffic from those home owners and thus new road restrictions coming into effect as these new building which make a complete eye saw of a city i have lived in for 40 years. Cambridge is being built up and residence who have lived here for years are having to suffer months of traffic problems so new rabbit hutch flats can be built , gonville place and Hills rd are already congested so now you are re routing all Tenison rd traffic there to!! 3 months is an unbelievable amount of time to have a road closed.

    1. Tina, I would suggest you attend the drop-in session on 4 January (see above) to learn more about how the road closure will impact your business. St Barnabas Rd, Devonshire Rd and Tenison Ave will not be affected by the works on Tenison Rd. The CB1 development is funding the Tenison Road scheme as part of its Section 106 agreement to mitigate the impact it will have on traffic through south Petersfield. Although the scheme will not reduce the volume of traffic, it is hoped it will slow traffic down. More radical measures, which might reduce the volume of traffic, will be debated after an audit of the city’s traffic has been published.

  2. Just wanted to say thanks for posting this – Tenison Road’s on my route to work but as a resident of a different part of Cambridge it’s been really difficult to find what’s going to be closed when!

  3. Cambridge Delivery Driver

    why have the city council only recently discovered the water main is only 18 inches from surface, Water Main probably been there 100 years or so, Who was responsible for surveying route and depth of utilities under the city’s roads ?? Do they still have their job, why did they not find this out years ago ??
    Why is felton street now closed daily Although it doesn’t appear on list of Cambridge roads Closed ??, Whilst I understand the desire to discourage Taxis and other traffic using the Covent garden to Felton St to Tenison Rd route to Station rd (to avoid the Overly long duration total closure of Mill Road entrance to Tenison Rd) How have the recent (possibly unlawful actions) of the roadwork crew been sanctioned? Afterall this action prevents access to numbers 40 tension rd to 120 As even when you try to access from the St Barnabus rd junction, Free Access for deliveries etc are is not available due to the works being undertaken in the street, as well as Artic Delivery lorries delivering the long blue pipes being allowed to unload and then put their lorries on break whilst still blocking the entire remaining carriageway, It seems that the city council wants to cause as much chaos for as long as possible (to discourage people from driving in and out of city area) However why then allow and build all these residential premises within the Station area etc , which will not only increase Residential traffic but delivery vehicles also (Afterall What have you done to discourage Tenison rd Residents from ordering online deliveries during the unacceptable Long Duration Roadworks ???) Also thanks for giving up half the length of station road in total to a long extended taxi rank queueing area Yet no provision of any delivery bays for Station rd,. mill rd Gt Northern Rd Tenison rd ETC.

    1. Edward Leigh

      Residents share many of your frustrations with how this scheme is being managed, with the likely completion date now being September or later. You may want to make some of your points directly to the Tenison Rd project manager, Andrew Preston, at the County Council: Andrew.Preston@cambridgeshire.gov.uk. The Station Square (and taxi rank) is also not due to open until September, so we can all look forward to another three or four months of chaos unfortunately.

  4. Michael Potts

    Re: City Deal proposals for ‘peak-time congestion control points

    This cannot be allowed. The council, both city and town have steadfastly refused to listen to the residents feelings and demands and is like a dictatorship. The taxi situation will get far worse and so a rethink is required to route then down station road and out onto hills road……i will hold you responsible for any injury or death caused by the increased traffic flow, also damage to parked cars.

  5. Absolutely pathetic. Is there a single road project Cambridge doesn’t totally screw up?

    I remember the weeks they left roadworks outside the Microsoft building while no-one did anything.

    I’m not surprised to see that in the months they’ve closed Tenison Road they’ve barely done anything to it.

    The reputation of the local authorities on infrastructure projects is dirt – and driving it further into the dirt as some kind or practical joke at the expense of residents seems to be their game.

  6. D McCorkadale

    This has to be one of the most amateurish and poorly-managed projects in recent years. There have been many days during the past few months when no one has been working on this road. If you’re going to shut a road for such a long time, the public is entitled to know how the length of time relates to the amount of work intended, and this case seems to feature no such correlation. The time that’s been wasted is absolutely astonishing. There was a sudden frenzied bout of activity as the second deadline loomed at the start of November, but as soon as the deadline was put back a third time we were back to days of barely any activity at all. It’s a shameless farce.

    1. Frank Gawthrop

      I agree …the only good thing about this is that we as Council tax payers are not footing the bill which is being met out of contributions from Brookgate the developers of the Station area.

  7. The current work includes double yellow lines from the Salisbury Arms down towards a road constriction (probably to house a tree at some stage). The plans submitted on the council page, http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/info/20051/transport_projects/469/cambridge_city_projects/6 , show that parking bays will continue after the works as they had before. The latest plans that you refer to, http://www.sopra.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Revised-construction-phasing-plans.pdf , do not show the choke point outside 90? Tenison Road. How are residents meant to cope with a loss of parking bays when there are precious few already.

    1. The construction phasing plans (which are now out of date) are not intended to show details of the road layout. However we’ve discovered that the Council has not updated the drawings to match what is now being built. One of the aims of the scheme was to maintain the same number of on-street parking bays: any lost to ‘features’ would be replaced elsewhere on the road.

    2. Frank Gawthrop

      There Tenison Road traffic scheme results in a net increase of between 11 and 13 in residents parking spaces although some are in Tenison Ave. The detail is as follows:

      loss 5 108 Tenison Road -1 slip road re alignment
      gain 5 88 Tenison Road 1 probably now lost due to tree relocation
      loss 30 54 - 64 Tenison Road -6 opposite Kings Church build out
      gain 45 22-38 Tenison Road 9 pay an display conversion
      gain 25 4- 14 Tenison Road 5 new spaces currenty double yellow lines - might be 4 due to tree planting
      loss 5 144 Tenison Road -1 clear zebra sight lines
      gain 32 west side Tenison Ave 6 pay an display conversion
      total gain 13

      1. Frank Gawthrop

        sorry the last message was not clear as the spreadsheet did not properly put the information in columns
        the figure after the words ‘gain’ or ‘loss’ is the length of road in metres.

  8. Dear Frank / anyone else,
    The list of resident parking bays lost and previous documents make no mention of replacing parking bays outside 80-88 Tenison rd.
    Have they made a mistake in road marking or have the plans been updated without consultation on loss of valuable spaces for houses along this residential stretch?
    Best wishes,
    Guy

  9. Frank Gawthrop

    I have been to have a look. The road surface is not yet finished but it appears that the contractors have extended the double yellow lines as a single line for a few metres which I think is an error. I did go through the traffic order quite carefully and my reading is that the parking from 80-88 stays exactly as was except for the new tree, which knocks out about one space. I will confirm with the project engineer from the County Council.

    1. Frank Gawthrop

      I have spoken with the project engineer regarding the parking spaces and the incorrectly installed single yellow line has been removed and the parking bays, with the omission of space to accommodate a tree, have been reinstated.
      I have looked again at the new resident parking spaces close to the Mill Road junction and it appears that the capacity is four not five.
      This in effect means that the net increase in resident only bays in Tenison Road and Tenison Ave is 12

  10. Dear Frank
    I live very close to the new crossing on Tenison Road that’s due to be completed in the next few days. I understand that the council will be putting a Zebra crossing here with Belisha beacons. This has upset residents who live in the area. They are concerned with the disturbance caused by the flashing lights and the additional street clutter.
    I fully understand these concerns as I too will be directly effected by this. However, the option of doing away with a zebra crossing and simply keeping it as an uncontrolled crossing is, in my view, potentially unsafe to pedestrians. There will be increased uncertainty as to who has the right of way which may lead to pedestrians stepping out in front of vehicles that they think will be stopping.
    My preference would be to retain the Zebra crossing but to request that the Council install LED ringed or shielded Belisha beacons so as to reduce the light emission. Furthermore, one of the beacons could be mounted on the existing street lighting pole so as to minimise street clutter. Has anyone been in contact with the council about this?
    Thanks
    Neil

    1. frank gawthrop

      Dear Neil,
      this matter had been the subject of quite extensive discussions in the last few days. This feature of the scheme by green, including a zebra, received over 70% approval from the 140 or so comments submitted during the public consultation. It was approved by the traffic committee of the council in March 2015 and was subsequently advertised in the Cambridge News and on public notices on lamp posts in Tenison Road to which there were no objections.
      The plan presented during the consultation clearly stated this included a Zebra crossing but the illustration only showed the stripped crossing not the beacons. Some residents are, as you now say, understandably concerned about the light pollution from the beacons and contend that they were not properly consulted about the plan as it was not clear. This was compounded by the County Council loading incorrect plans on its web site. Some residents are also now questioning if a crossing is needed at all.
      Legally it is not possible to have a zebra crossing without beacons and presumably Mr Ifold, who drew the sketch, did not realise that by not including them it would cause confusion. This is all very late in the day as the work is now nearly complete but three members of the Residents Association committee have met with three nearby residents, the project engineer Karen Lunn and County Councillor Walsh.
      The crossing as proposed was an attempt to provide safer crossing and to slow traffic but in view of these latest comments it has been agreed to postpone the installation.
      The project engineer will provide details of the beacons for those residents closest to the zebra and as you suggest this will include measures to hopefully reduce light pollution. We will also conduct a pedestrian count.
      Subject to the views of nearby residents on the beacon design if they are still not happy we it would seem the Council will need to undertake a new consultation on the proposal.
      In the meantime the surface will be plain black and since the textured pavement has been installed so a not to confuse partially sighted or blind persons the crossing will have barriers erected to prevent it being used.
      I hope this is a reasonable summary of the current position which is a halt to provide time for discussions.

      1. Joan-Pau RUBIES

        We are residents at 75 Tenison Road, and our view is that we need some kind of pedestrian crossing, but preferably without the beacons, as we can see this is very annoying to those living acrosss. If installed, we would support minimizing the impact of the beacons. We would NOT be happy with nothing at all, ie just black asphalt, as we suffered a lot when our kids were young trying to cross safely. Although our children are older now, we think this is an important issue for any families living in the street. If the choice is between a zebra crossing with beacons or nothing, we would prefer a zebra crossing. We also hope that the interim solution with black asphalt and barriers is truly temporary.

        Best regards,

        Joan Pau Rubiés

        75 Tenison Road

  11. Frank Gawthrop

    thanks for your comments which are helpful in considering all the options.
    The position is that legally we cannot have a zebra crossing without beacons and the tactile paving (which is also the subject of complaint). It will be up to residents to decide what to do.

    1. You can have black and white stripes across a road without Belisha beacons. It will not be regarded, legally, as a Zebra crossing but they can be implemented. Suffolk County Council have created one a few years ago on Newmarket High Street. The ambiguity is meant to make car drivers more hesitant. Now, I don’t wholeheartedly support using ambiguity as part of a road safety feature but it can be done. I think they avoided the use of the dotted pavement slabs so that visually impaired people did not feel they were using a ‘proper’ zebra crossing.
      http://www.urbanmovement.co.uk/blog/-if-it-looks-nice-its-good-urban-design-right to see what a mock zebra looks like.

  12. Frank Gawthrop

    This is very interesting and different to what I have been told by the project officer . I will forward this to her for comment.
    I hope also you have seen my reply on the matter of residents parking spaces and are satisfied there is a net increase?

  13. Perhaps, the planners should have been bolder. I think so after watching this video which advocates shared space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vzDDMzq7d0 It will take about 15 minutes to watch, though. One thing which was great during the period of roadworks was how pedestrians enjoyed a much more peaceful experience and the nature of the road changed. Taxi drivers continued to be the bulk of the traffic (I thought that they had been asked not to use it as a cut through).

  14. Frank, how are things? Have there been any updates on the zebra crossing? There’s no indication in the area of what the intentions are.

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