40 Comments

I love walking around Sheffield it is one of the nicest places to explore on foot with abundant footpaths and green spaces and the city centre has definitely improved a lot over the past few years. I wouldn't cycle here because of the hills and having seen way too many drivers overtake dangerously and aggressively on the narrow roads. The biggest problem for walking is still pavement parking and drivers behaving as if the pavement is just an extension of the road for them to use at will. And the speeding, particularly delivery drivers who are always in a rush. I don't think I could live anywhere that I couldn't get about on foot and I expect it has added a few years to my life having to trek back up the hill whenever I go out!

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Keith - many of us regard it as a litter and graffiti ridden mess.

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The Council's claim that want to look after walking is hardly the experience of the residents of Nether Edge Road, Ashland Road or Archer Lane, within the so called 'Nether Edge Active Travel Neighbourhood'. The newly re-opened 'Abbeydale Road By-pass' (as one neighbour calls the Archer Lane - Nether Edge Road rat run) brings regular stand-offs between vehicles, while other drivers, with seeming complete ignorance of the danger of their manouvre, mount and drive along Nether Edge Road's narrow pavement. Walking residents and teenagers on their way to Mercia school risk their lives daily.

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Mar 18Liked by Dan Hayes

Maybe transport planners should focus less on 'How can I promote 'x' mode of transport?' and more on 'How can I most efficiently move large numbers of people?' Maybe then it would be more difficult to turn it in to a culture war issue.

Ps. If you want to be a lazy hack and get the inside scoop on Nether Edge, just join the neighbourhood group Only in Nether Edge and get some popcorn.

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I'm loudly pro-cycling, but I've never seen it as being in competition with walking or public transport - they're all parts in the puzzle that makes a safer, cleaner, healthier and more pleasant city. The main thing is to get away from the mindset that private cars are the only "real" transport option and that their speed and convenience needs to be prioritized above anything else.

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A really easy win for the council would be to lower speed limits everywhere. This makes walking and cycling more pleasurable. The other one, hopefully being sorted is better buses. One last thing. Grey to green is exceptional, and we should be telling the world.

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As someone who walks as much as possible to and around the City Centre, this article and initiative makes perfect sense to me. Living in Norfolk Park and with good health I appreciate I am fortunate both physically and geographically in order to do this. Whilst on the general topic I highly highly recommend the Sheffield canal walk to either Tinsley or Meadowhall (ideally there and back, finishing at the Dorothy Pax for "refreshments"!).

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I agree wholeheartedly that walking is a fantastic way of getting about both for short journeys and combined with public transport for longer ones. But given that pedestrians are the most likely road-users to get injured or killed, and that road-layout and design leaves much to be desired and still seems largely to favour the motorist, there is a lot of work for both councils, and the police etc to do to make walking a default and safe mode of travel.

Tom Hunt and Oliver Coppard please take note!

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I walk around Sheffield everyday and for me one change that would make it safer is changing the timings on pelican crossings and fitting cameras for drivers that jump a red light on these crossings. At the moment the crossings favour cars and seem to be on a simple timer or a set number of cars, no matter what. In my experience this leads to long waits for pedestrians causing frustration and some then risking crossing at any opportunity. If I don't see at least one car jumping a red light at a pedestrian crossing between Heeley and town it's unusual.

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Completely agree Tim. And don't get me started on the bigger crossings, where you wait ages, get halfway, press the next button, wait all over again ...🤬

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Yawn

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?

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I agree with the comments made to date. What I would add is; cleaner streets please. Walking up to Handsworth Top and then down as far as the Parkway roundabout takes about 20 minutes. If I was to stop and litter pick it would probably take around 2 hours in which time I could fill several bin bags with litter, take away food and dog poop.

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And maybe the media need to take note also - how often do you see the phrase “a pedestrian collided with” a car, lorry etc.? Very rarely is it “hit by”!

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I firmly believe it is the right decision to prioritise walking over cycling. Yes, there are some great cycling cities. I spend a lot of time in Leicester and happily use my Brompton to get around that city. York is very cyclist-friendly and it is well known that Oxford and Cambridge are similar. Even London. And then there’s all these electric scooters in Nottingham. So what do all these places NOT have we Sheffield does have? Hills. Lots of them. Very steep ones in many places. That’s what knackers non-ultra-fit cyclists and the batteries in electric scooters.

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I spend a fair amount of time in Leeds and Manchester and the other conspicuous difference I see is the road infrastructure. I do believe the council do their best to help cyclists (the Archer Lane situation aside) but often the narrowness of roads prevents proper, separate cycle lanes, and too much of what is available either doesn't join up properly or is not understood well enough by drivers. Gradient is definitely a factor too, and is why buses really should be the priority, laudable though promoting walking is.

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Definitely agree about buses being the priority not just in road design but also frequency and coverage. I have been travelling in Australia using public transport for the past few weeks and the integration of the public transport system is a joy to behold - particularly in Melbourne and Sydney (population c 5m in each) but also in Adelaide (c 1.3m population so only 2.5x the population of Sheffield). Each city has their own version of 'Oyster Card' - or you can use contactless. Each is slightly different but there are daily and weekly limits on your spend so the more you use it the grater the value.

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I think the way local transport and streets are managed has shifted enormously through and since lockdown and it’s lending itself to knee jerk policies at a time when it’s more difficult to tell what the near future brings than ever before. Sheffield is a big city people in its outer reaches cannot spare the time to walk from home and back. Buses are less reliable and don’t get as close to the remaining shops as before (a big knee jerk lockdown measure). Ed Clancy’s predecessor at SCA Sarah Storey seemed to prioritise active travel against buses which is a bit off message for an organisation that is attempting to take over buses.

There are places in town which are virtually cut off by public transport to the centre and this affects what businesses are happy to trade here.

If you want a job you have to work out of town. If you want to shop Meadowhall and if you want to drink Kelham. At the same time it more difficult to go there.

The policy appears to make people travel further and go elsewhere rather than support the economy and get the world back on track.

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No one goes to Kelham in the week. Largely because it's so hard to get to. You can walk down from West Street or High Street or maybe get a bus that goes through Neepsend. The absolute lack of connectivity is mind-blowing. I don't know how businesses survive.

Kelham normally makes these best area lists and there's simply no infrastructure.

In fact, the one thing the council/mayor could do is connect this city up. It's laughable. Buses only go in and out. You can't get from Nether Edge proper to Broomhill/Crookes or Ecclesall Rd. You have a number of trendy areas which have zero transport connections after 6pm and maybe terrible ones before then if you're lucky.

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Work to get buses back under public control is progressing and trams are about to return to public control. Without that, doing any actual connecting-up planning is really difficult.

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I do wonder if there's an actual plan to do that when buses are eventually under public control.

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Good question, I might try to find out. The lack of an effective bus network is probably the biggest obstacle to better overall transport in the city, including cycling and walking. LTNs face much harder headwinds if there's no way to plan good alternatives to driving in a holistic way.

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Tur odd thing is, it's difficult to drive between these places as well as there's no decent parking anywhere.

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Go to the Nether Edge market next Sunday (24th), should get to see plenty of people. Plus Cafe #9 and Vicky in Wickwire.

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So the new slogan from the Mayor will be "We have ways of making you Walk."

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I used to hop on hop off the buses and string my work visits with walks in between. Now (with very challenged legs) I find myself walking because the bus doesn’t arrive. Or arrives early and won’t stop. A couple of suggestions for walkers, particularly those who can’t walk far. 1/ put better benches at the bus stops, many don’t have them. And those that do aren’t really benches, rather horizontal poles for perching. Who invented these?! 2/ Use the London transport system, which actually tells you in real time where a bus is. 3/ Look at the intersections (such as Shalesmoor) where you have to stand for a looong time in order to get across. 4/ Apart from the non existent bus benches, identify the common walking routes and make sure there are benches. 5/ last (which is common sense) involve the people who have to walk - and who might be challenged with the current circumstances - in truly co- designing the walk routes ( not just a one off consultation).

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I walk pretty much everywhere here, and I like it, but it's partly because the buses are so bad.

Going from the city centre to Hunter's Bar is often quicker just going on foot.

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