Southampton City Council has finished works to improve walking and cycling in Bevois Valley.
Earlier this year, Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council were awarded £57m from the Department for Transport’s ‘Transforming Cities’ Fund. The council’s three-year programme sets out a range of bold and ambitious infrastructure projects to improve public transport and make the city a more attractive place for walking and cycling.
The Bevois Valley scheme includes improvements along Onslow Road and Bevois Valley such as widened shared use footways and new crossing facilities to enhance walking and cycling access; continuous crossings to prioritise people walking and cycling; and upgraded signage and resurfacing providing better conditions for road users.
New toucan crossings have been installed at the junction with Mount Pleasant Road, creating new convenient crossing points for pedestrians and cyclists.
Further work has also been undertaken on the bus stop between Bevois Valley Road Car Park and Ancasta Road. This will improve passengers’ access to buses at this stop enabling two buses to pull up at raised kerbs and allow buses to pull out with greater ease, giving priority to public transport.
These changes have created a new section of the Southampton Cycle Network (SCN), which continues to be developed in line with the council’s ten-year Cycling Strategy, launched in 2017. The changes along Onslow Road and Bevois Valley form the initial section of the planned SCN6 cycle corridor connecting Southampton to Eastleigh and Chandlers Ford, creating better cycling connections to the Southampton Airport Parkway and improving road safety. Once complete, the full Southampton Cycle Network will provide a series of connected and consistent routes enabling people to travel by bike in and around the city safely and with ease.
Councillor Steve Leggett, Cabinet Member for Green City and Place, says:
“The completion of the work in Bevois Valley will be of huge benefit to local people and is an important step toward achieving our long-term goals for transforming travel in the Southampton City Region. We hope that by improving footways, cycleways and bus routes we can encourage people to travel by more sustainable means, improving air quality and reducing congestion in the area.”