An Open Letter to Alex Riley

Yesterday Alex Riley, District Councillor to and resident of Longstanton sent out an email asking the people of Longstanton to vote (with one single word, "open" or "closed") to indicate whether the Airfield Road should be physically closed to all traffic (including Cyclists I assume) or have the No Vehicles restriction entirely removed.

I am writing this open letter to Councillor Riley to explain why I think the answer isn't quite as simple as one word.

An open Airfield Road that isn't completely re-surfaced and doesn't have a cycle path will be astonishingly worse than a closed one.

As I understand it, the reason Cyclists would like the road the stay closed is because there are just so many pot-holes that it's impossible to ride a bike along it without moving about the road some.
The cars that drive illegally along the road usually do so at great speed and when they find a bike cycling around a pot hole they try and deliberately run them down, beeping their horns as they go, all at 60mph.
To get attacked for being a few feet "too far to the right" by a car being driven illegally on a No Vehicles road at hugely inappropriate speed is galling to say the least.

Plus, the road is part of Sustrans National Cycle Route 51, why should Cyclists give way to illegally driven cars on what is seen in some quarters as a wide Cycle path?

Personally I would only accept the road becoming unrestricted and open to all traffic if the speed limit were reduced to 40mph, the road were completely re-surfaced to remove all the pot-holes and for a cycle path to be painted in so that cars are explicitly reminded that they have a duty of care to cyclists.

This, and only this, kind of Airfield Road would then service the needs of all it's users, not just the short-cut taking, A14 avoiding, criminals that currently treat it as their own private race track.

Finally, although I applaud you for opening a discussion on this issue, you have done so without giving any background or explanation (balanced, of course) whatsoever about the pros and cons. You have, in effect, simply asked for a gut reaction. This isn't debate, it's an opinion poll. I would have preferred the former.

Yours,

-C.C.

I hope that this new discussion, very welcome though it is, takes into account more opinion that those who currently aggressively break the law.