New Cambridge busway offering alternative to ‘deadly’ road takes step forward

The project to build the Waterbeach to Cambridge busway to offer people an alternative to travelling along a “deadly” road has taken a step forward. The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP), which has put the project together, has agreed to ask Cambridgeshire County Council to apply for a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) to build the busway.

The project proposes to create a busway between Waterbeach and Cambridge, with a segregated pathway and cycleway alongside it. A travel hub is also proposed to be built off the A10 near to the new town development. Concerns about the project have been raised and questions asked as to why a bus lane along the A10 could not be built instead, with the argument made that this would be “less damaging in the landscape”.

The GCP has said a bus lane would not offer the same benefits as a separate busway. At an executive board meeting this week (November 7) Councillor Elisa Meschini, chair of the board, said: “We are trying to engender a modal shift, which essentially means we are trying to get bulks of people into alternative modes of transport. This means they do not all come down to the Milton Interchange, which already cannot take anymore, it certainly cannot take 11,000 new dwellings such as planned for Waterbeach New Town as a whole.”

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Cllr Meschini also explained how the project was not just about getting people onto buses. She highlighted that the maintenance track required alongside the busway had been designed as a segregated pathway and cycleway in order to encourage people to walk or cycle as well.

She said: “We are building that maintenance track not as a maintenance track, but to active travel standards, so that means we are giving people a lovely pavement along which to walk, segregated from a lovely cycleway along which people will cycle down from Waterbeach.

“Those who live round there, and I do, know that the distance between Waterbeach and the science park in Milton is not actually very long, people will cycle there. At the moment that is not possible because that route along the A10 is deadly and I would never ever do it myself, I would be too terrified, but I know some people do it out of necessity.

“Alongside the maintenance track they will actually be able to do that very easily and very comfortably, that is entirely the point. The scheme’s objective requires modal shift, so those that get on the bus will get on the bus, but those that can will get on their bike or walk.”