Cars are coming back to a long-closed Exeter city centre road which has been cycles-only since 2020.
After months of wrangling and well over five hours of debate at County Hall, Dryden Road will be opened up once more for cars, albeit with a 20mph speed limit.
The next stage will be for Devon County Council to advertise the changes and go through legal processes before the car ban can be fully lifted. Officers will also look into plans for traffic calming and the provision of safe walking and cycling.
Members of the Exeter highways and traffic orders committee decided the future of Dryden Road, which has been closed for six years since it was blocked to create a traffic-free route in and out of the city during the COVID pandemic.
Supporters say it has created a safe and pollution-free route, while opponents insist it has merely moved the traffic and pollution to other nearby streets.
At the start of the meeting an angry Ian Frankum, who campaigned for the public’s favoured ‘Option Three’ to reintroduce traffic, said the committee had ignored its own consultation by coming up with a new ‘Option Five’ which had not been part of it.
“People lose faith when they are asked for their views only to see them ignored,” he said.
Local resident Nick Bruce-White said the closure had made a positive difference, and the area had become safer and cleaner.
But he said Option Five, which would have combined two-way traffic with painted cycle lanes into which drivers could steer to avoid oncoming traffic, was not suitable.
He said: “Painted lines provide neither protection nor confidence. Painted lines do not stop a vehicle entering a cycle lane. A cycle lane occupied by cars is no cycle lane at all.
“Do what is right and not what feels popular.”
Option Five, which was favoured by council officers, would have created a ‘cycle street’ in which riders had priority while the layout still allowed two-way motorised traffic.
There would have been cycle lanes on both sides of the road with a narrow central carriageway for cars, meaning drivers had to enter the cycle lane area to pass an oncoming vehicle but must yield to cyclists.
But Cllr Edward Hill (Ind, Pinhoe and Mincinglake) said it would mean cars and vans swerving into the path of cyclists, possibly without seeing them. “That’s more dangerous than just having no road markings whatsoever,” he said.
And Cllr Tony Stevens (Reform, Exwick and St Thomas) said time, money and resources had been wasted already. He went on: “We should simply use the simplest, quickest and most cost-effective way to reopen Dryden Road.
“The people have spoken. Remove the traffic order and remove the bollards.”
Exeter City Council leader Phil Bialyk (Lab, Exwick) said the committee had to listen to cyclists and pedestrians.
“People will have to learn to co-habit,” he said. “In a place like Exeter, a medieval town where the roads are very small, we have to learn that there are cycle users, road users and pedestrians. The sooner we get that into our heads and work together, the better.”
And, he said, it was important that the committee came to a decision.
“Otherwise all we will have is continued grievance,” he said.
After what committee chair Michael Mitchell (Lib Dem, Duryard and Pennsylvania) described as ‘hour after hour of procedural wrangling’, members voted by a clear majority to go ahead and advertise their intention to revoke the car ban and extend the 20mph zone.
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