Vlog: A look at Sheffield’s cycle lanes, and Sheffield’s 2nd Kidical Mass.

I go for a look around the Grey to Green cycle lanes near the old Castle Market and the courts/police station, as well as the low traffic road near the University of Sheffield, before heading back into town for Sheffield’s second Kidical Mass ride.

so welcome to Sheffield’s greater green area this is called greater green because it was once a very boring looking road but now it’s been block paved with nice uh orangey red uh block Paving and lots of plants and lots of trees which makes it look a lot more interesting than the boring old Tark road now I normally criticize cycle Lanes but when we come around here we’ll see we’ve actually got a nice big cycle Lane alongside the plants and alongside the pavement now this was a big road but the road didn’t actually serve that much purpose because if you go over there where that yellow bus is going that actually takes you to the same place uh down to the Wicker well the road leading to the Wicker and these two roads were basically completely redundant so they managed to take one of them and do it up really nicely albe it looks a bit depressing having the old Castle Market ruins and building site next to it and convert it into this quite nice cycle Lane it’s actually really nice to uh ride a bike along and it’s nice to walk along and it’s nice to have a sit down and they have markets here once a month you could probably have more markets here if you wanted so it’s actually a really nice area so I’m just going to have a wander around we have a little look at the uh you can see the remnants of the Castle Market through the the window there so I’m just going to take you down the uh little tour of the greater green area and uh we’ll have a little look and uh see what’s good about it and see what could be improved so I’m actually just going to go back in the opposite direction up to the Park Square roundabout we’ll just have a look at that area first and I will I will point out they have actually done a very good job of of the block Paving little bit bumpy but not as bad as some but the problem the first problem I’ve come across is this Junction here obious I got set and wait for the cars to come but the problem is not so much when you come in this way it’s when you turn around and want to go the other way so when I’m going back home I’ve got to stop [Applause] here turn my neck all the way around there to see what’s coming before I can go again so this is the bit of the greater green uh on um snck Hill and Bridge Street that’s where I’ve just come from and this is snck Hill leading up to the police station and this is going down towards West Bar Green near all the courts area and I must submit I do think they’ve done this up really nicely I’ve been coming down here for a number of years now uh both walking and on the bike and I I do really like it it’s a really nice Pleasant area so I moved away from the greater green area now I’ve come up towards the Sheffield University this Ro is called PTO Bellow uh this has been like this for a number of years it’s a very minimal motor vehicle traffic and it’s mostly just a cycle route and a walking route and as we get towards the top of the hill I don’t know if you quite see it on on camera all the way down there part of that’s a cycle route and then part of it’s the uh motor traffic lane with rather large cycle lanes and not too much traffic so this whole bit is quite a nice area and whilst it’s pretty quiet today that’s because it’s a Saturday afternoon many people aren’t here for the University I was actually here yesterday morning at rush hour and there were quite a lot of people walking along and uh riding bikes so it’s very well used now the reason I thought i’ come out and do a video blog uh about cycle routes in Sheffield is because today just in a little while about half an hour if my bike doesn’t fall over that is uh we’ve got a kitty called Mass a critical mass bike ride for children uh alth it’s not just children it’s attracts families and uh people my age and older people in fact the leet did say not to 99 so I think that’s pretty much everyone now we actually have quite a lot of mass cycle R here in Sheffield we have one named to adults but we get children come along as well that’s once a month and we now have an evening one come about once a month and uh a lot of this started when a BL called Don Whiting came for his drum and bass on bikes he started doing that during the lockdowns and that’s because no one could go to nightclubs or parties during the lockdown so why not come out on bikes and have a bike [Music] party M on Facebook Matt from Poland Sam [Music] Glenn now we’re just heading over to the university roundabout which is a really big roundabout in Sheffield and it’s called the university roundabout because it’s situated in between multiple University buildings there but it’s several Lanes it can get quite quick but here we’ve got a good way of completely bypassing it if you come up the cycle Lan which I’ve just shown you we’ve got a nice crossing here you’ve got your own traffic lights you can get across there and you go alongside the information Commons building up the other side and then you can come out on um with them road now I never actually paid attention to the fact that this was here this actually works quite well in my experience but uh for number of years I was actually just going straight along the university roundabout even when it was really busy like it is today so it’s amazing how it helps if you actually know the local infrastructure in the area and know where it is and know how to use it so there we go we’re at the other side of the University roundabout and it might have taken 10 20 seconds longer than actually using the actual roundabout itself anyone got any idea why it’s shut I’ve just come along there and it’s worked absolutely fine for me me I don’t know why it’s sh so we’re in Judah Square now for this year’s Kyle Mass this I think is the second one possibly the third one I think it’s the second one I certainly came to the first one last year which started in um milous Park and had a really good turnout probably two or 300 people maybe where we went around the whole city and the a of the critical mass it’s basically a critical mass ride same as any other critical mass Ride Like the menu that we have here in Sheffield uh every month except it’s aimed at children but it does show that a lot of Children and Families do want to ride bikes they do want to use the infrastructure they do want new infrastructure building uh in order to get them to school to get them to work to get them out and about having fun and talking to other people and meeting other people and not being cooped up in cars and not being cooped up at home in front of the computer or in front of the telly [Music] [Music] [Music] this [Music] dad [Music]