Aylesbury-Uxbridge Road, A413

Barton to Whitwell, A64 — & Beyond Malton?

There’s a definite 1930s cycle track on the A64 York to Malton Road. It’s between Barton Hill and Whitwell-on-the-Hill. There’s also a possible period cycle track or footway stretching almost 22 miles (36 kms) from Malton almost to Scarborough. Read more

Wadloes Road & Barnwell Road, Cambridge

Cambridge’s Wadloes Road is residential yet it’s equipped with a period 9-ft cycle track and an adjacent 6-ft footway. Barnwell Road to the immediate south also has a period cycle track and footway. The roads were planned as one and, in the 1930s, were meant to be the southern half of Cam’s Causeway, a proposed eastern bypass of Cambridge. Read more

South Bank Road, Middlesbrough

Uniquely, the cycle tracks on South Bank Road in Cargo Fleet, Middlesbrough, are 12 feet wide, which is 3 feet wider than most period cycle tracks and 2 feet wider than the cycle tracks on nearby Wolviston Road, opened in 1944. Read more

Rainford Bypass, A570, Lancashire

According to a 14-page brochure celebrating the opening of the Rainford bypass it extended from Four Lane Ends, Bickerstaffe, to Windle Smithies. However, as this structure was on the opposite side of the East Lancs Road it would be more accurate to say the bypass ended at Windle Ashes Farm. The plan for the 2.4 mile central section of the bypass was submitted to the MoT in 1938 and the road was finished by the summer of 1941, with the shorter start and end of the bypass completed in 1950. Read more

Lostock Road, Urmston, Manchester

In 1936, Cycling magazine published a photograph of a young woman riding on a wide, concrete-capped cycle track on Lostock Road, Urmston. This dates the creation of the track to before that date. Read more

Glen (Harborough) Road, Oadby, A6

An aerial photograph — probably dating from the 1970s — shows concrete cycle tracks on each side of Harborough Road in Oadby (the road becomes Glen Road further on). The cycle tracks appear to have priority over all of the side roads in the photograph, including New Road to the immediate southeast of Launde Primary School and Uplands Road to the north. Read more

Colchester Bypass, A133

The Colchester bypass opened in 1933 (as the A12) and was not fitted with a cycle track. This was likely retrofitted to the road in the mid-1930s. It is also possible that the track was a footway. Read more

Thanet Way, A299 Plus A28

The A299 Thanet Way is a 22-mile road from Ramsgate almost to Faversham and opened in 1939 (the 5 mile stretch from Monkton to Ramsgate via Manston Airport is modern). The 1940 aerial layer of Google Earth shows that the “spur road” part of the A299 from Monkton to St. Nicholas-at-Wade was equipped with cycle tracks and footways on each side. The concrete cycle tracks and footways shine white and are very prominent. The tracks also clearly continue on the adjoining A28 Canterbury Road to Birchington-on-sea. Read more

Eastern Avenue, Gloucester

“The proposal of the City Council to construct new road between Barnwood-road and Finlay road have been approved by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hore-Belisha), who has made a substantial grant from the Fund towards the cost,” reported the Gloucester Journal in 1936. Read more

Pyms Lane, Crewe

In summer 1938, Crewe Corporation started to widen and straighten Pyms Lane to service the new build Rolls-Royce factory that, because of the coming war, swiftly replaced the potato fields of a nearby farm. By the end of the year the factory was ready to turn out the first of 26,000 Merlin aircraft engines, engines that could be said to have won the war for the allies. Merlin engines were used in fighters such as the Spitfire and the Hurricane and they also powered the RAF’s Lancaster bomber and the de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber. Read more

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