The Girton Interchange is one of the most important strategic locations in the region, and there is an opportunity to leverage this location to maximum advantage – economically, socially and environmentally.
Recent developments of the A14 have served to increase this strategic importance. We propose that the authorities responsible for delivery of transport in the Cambridge region should give the Girton Interchange higher priority than they have to date, and bring forward improvements to this key junction for the benefit of the region.
We have prepared a map of the Girton Interchange showing how these improvements could work. This concept was developed jointly with Edward Leigh of Smarter Cambridge Transport. We have identified at least three location options for a coach / bus station, also allowing for vehicle access and all linked to the “metro” proposed by the Combined Authority. Our own proposal includes links radiating in 4 directions from the interchange – (1) Cambourne, (2) Eddington / West Campus / City, (3) Science Park, (4) Bar Hill. [Edward Leigh and Smarter Cambridge Transport take a slightly different view here, and their full proposals can be found on their website].
Key elements in our proposal are:
- The public transport route connecting Cambourne to Cambridge – the route proposed by the GCP through Coton is strongly opposed by the public – should co-align with the A428 to the Girton Interchange, keeping within the corridor and cutting that has already been built for the highway.
- This route should proceed from the Girton Interchange to Eddington and then the West Campus of the University of Cambridge, where it would enter a tunnel portal to go underground to the city centre.
- This route would serve Eddington, enabling a link from there to the City centre, via the West Campus, and to the Biomedical Campus and the Science Park (linking all the University campuses – see map). It lowers costs by sticking to the existing transport alignment, and minimises environmental impacts.
- This approach enables easy access to the metro network proposed by the Combined Authority by bus / coach services, and by car / cycle.
- The interchange would feature a fully enabled road network with access in all four directions.
- The sites proposed, especially Site A, are in a geographical ‘depression’, part-shielded by the new A14 link road causeway, thus offering greater environmental benefits.
The option for the “Northern Route” for the Cambourne to Cambridge public transport route could be adapted with this approach in mind. The “northern route” that was recently proposed by consultants would have a huge impact on the local landscape, especially overlooked by the American Cemetery – this can, and must, be avoided. The consultants have overlooked the option of co-alignment with the A428.
There is broad consensus politically and among the public that the Girton Interchange issues should be addressed. And yet, our transport planners and authorities have yet to make practical progress even though this idea has been in discussion for more than five years – probably more than a decade or even two!
Perhaps, with an integrated approach that links up both the Girton Interchange improvements with those of Cambourne to Cambridge, and with the proposed metro, the time has arrived and is right for tangible progress to be made?
All this could be achieved practically using light rail as the mode of choice for delivery of the metro. We hope that in due course there will be a realisation that this is the only practical means of delivering an operational metro today that can achieve the transformative change that is needed – not in a decade, but now.
