Access to Headington – Headley Way & Cherwell Drive

The next phase of Access to Headington work covers Headley Way and Cherwell Drive. It includes remodelling the junction at the JR access, where the mini-roundabout will be replaced by traffic lights. At the bottom of the hill the whole junction will be altered with lights replacing the double roundabout. The one-way flow on the service road outside the shops will be reversed.

More-or-less continuous cycle paths will be created on both sides of Headley Way and Cherwell Drive. Although there are significant shortcomings in the design, which is regrettable, cyclists should find their journeys feeling safer and more comfortable.

Site equipment will start appearing on 19 June with construction beginning a week later. This will be at the JR entrance junction and will include the junction of the lower (Jack Straw’s Lane) part of Staunton Road with Headley Way. The work here and elsewhere will continue until about the third week of October, when it will be suspended until restarting at the beginning of January 2018. A detailed schedule of planned dates for the whole project is not yet available.

Paint marks
These marks can only mean one thing – roadworks!
Engineering drawing, JR entrance
Work starts here 19 June.

The Jack Straw’s Lane section of Staunton Road will be closed for about three weeks while the work is happening.

At present, motor vehicles leaving this part of Staunton Road wanting to turn right on Headley Way have to turn left and make a U-turn round the mini roundabout. Once the roundabout has been replaced by traffic lights this won’t be possible; there’s no obvious alternative.

I made a few notes on the plans when I went to the open exhibition in Northway on Monday, concentrating on the cycling aspects. I’ve passed them to the County’s Access to Headington team and you can read them here. I understand Cyclox will be sending some more comprehensive comments.

You can find the engineers’ drawings here. In the sidebar to the right of this post are links to the County’s website for the project and for signing up to their regular newsletter about the scheme.