Crossing the Old Dee Bridge to/from Handbridge

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Added by Simon B

The river crossing across the River Dee from Chester City Centre to Handbridge is a key access route for cyclists from south of the city into the city centre, especially since the pedestrian crossing across the suspension bridge from Handbridge/Queens Park has a prohibition on cycling.

The crossing on the histroric Handbridge is controlled by traffic lights operated by inductive sensors at both ends of the bridge. The timing of these lights means that those who are slower cyclists or part of a group of cyclists sometimes do not reach the other side of the bridge before the lights have changed for the traffic in the opposite direction.

This causes an intimidatory situation, and occasionally a dangerous situation when traffic has started to cross on to the narrow bridge confronting cyclists coming in the other direction.

It would be helpful to log any incidents that people may have encountered to accumulate suitable evidence for both English Heritage (who control aspects of what can be installed on to the listed structure) and for the Highway Authroity (Cheshire West & Chester Council) to afford this a greater priority than currently.

The Council is unwilling to lengthen the delay on the lights before they change in the opposite direction (citing unjustifiable delay to traffic), and English Heritage have said that additional sensors cannot be installed into the road surface /bridge structure to delay the changing of lights due to cyclists still traversing the bridge.

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