The Details

Accessing Dumfries by bike from Georgetown, Calside or Larchfield can be summed up by the phrase “so near, but yet so far …”. The entire area sits within 1-2 miles of the High Street. Georgetown and Calside are relatively easy to cycle around – there are plenty of quiet streets, an existing 20mph zone around the schools and even a few handy little cut-throughs for pedestrians and bikes.

Leaving the area is more difficult. There are three main routes to town depending on your starting point and confidence level: Annan Road, Brooms Road and Aldermanhill Road. Let’s look at them in turn.

Annan Road route

To make this route better:

• Remove the guard rails from the roundabout that joins the Annan Road and Georgetown Road, widen the pavement and create a direct connection from Georgetown Road to Millburn Avenue.
• Create a safe way for someone on a bike to rejoin Georgetown Road from Millburn Avenue.
• Give bikes an advance start at the traffic lights over the railway bridge on Georgetown Road.
• Make Greenbrae Loaning a no-through-road for cars, but accessible for bikes, to provide a route from Georgetown Road towards Lockerbie Road.
• Create a safe way for someone on a bike to negotiate the roundabout between Greenbrae Loaning and Georgetown Road.
• Sign the route.

Brooms Road route

There’s a decent route into town which skirts the St. Joseph’s playing fields, but it becomes more difficult when it reaches Brooms Road. See the Brooms Road for details.

Aldermanhill Road route

With the improvements suggested below, this route really has potential to form a route suitable for a novice rider:

• Make Aldermanhill Road a no-through-road for cars, even if only during the school run, to prevent it becoming a rat run for drivers.
• Convert the crossing from Glebe Street to Cumberland Street into a toucan crossing, giving people on bikes easy access to the traffic calmed Queen Street area.
• Create a cycle route from where Barnslaps joins St Michael’s Street to Brooms Road, and continue it along the Dock Park side of Brooms Road down to the Whitesands.
• Sign the route.

Even with our suggestions, the Annan and Brooms Road routes would only be suitable for reasonably confident cyclists, as a person still has to get into town once at the end of Brooms Road. Aldermanhill Road has potential to be the safest route.

Towards the Crichton

The Maidenbower path offers a traffic-free, albeit steep, route from Craigs Road to the Crichton, D&G College, USWS and Mountainhall Treatment Centre – if you know how to find it. Signing this route and lowering speed limits would open it up to more people.