When are people going to learn how to use the roundabouts on this road? My son has just failed his driving test because some moron doesn't know lane discipline. Read the Highway Code or get some lessons.

A bit of a change from my usual rants about anti-motorist local authorities. I eat my words. The new bypass is fantastic; I usually travel home from the west of the city to the north at rush hour. It can take anything from 30 minutes at best to an hour and 10 minutes at worst. Last week I tried the bypass for the first time. 12 minutes! Absolutely brilliant!!

E.C. O' Friendly: Access to countryside is wonderful by bike, walking, or car. For Walking (or bike) purpose's access from the Green Lane footpath onto Sandsfield Lane cycleway/footpath is superb as the lane joins the similar bypass paths. You can walk to Stainton roundabout and along road towards Stainton or Etterby for access to footpaths on the northside of the river and walk a little further afield to Kingmoor Nature Reserve just over the new Kingmoor Railway bridge. It is true that access from the new Eden bridge to riverside footpaths is restricted and blocked by new fencing presently, that at town hall meeting I was informed all access to footpaths would be maintained. Including access to riverbanks.It's all down to expense, perhaps four, or more sets of kissing gates is too much for access to paths along the roadside. The west side of carlisle or north have wonderful outdoor opportunities for easier access to walks up river eden to the coast at Rockcliffe, or those living on northside the river Caldew with walks along Cummersdale is not as far as a tedious journey through the now quieter city roads. The most terrible thing is maybe that business is taken away from city centre as motorists find it easier to get to Gretna for shopping but I find this myself many a wasted journey, in due comparison of choice in the city centre. It is however more noisy in the countryside alongside the new road but looking at lads doing wheelies down trafficless Wigton road on Sunday morning it has reduced city thru' traffic so risk of death ( E.O.C ) as you point out is much reduced in a city where deaths on town roads have occurred in past years but traffic speeds still needs to be checked for continuous road safety.

However driving on the CNDR road the skid swirl sign should include head dizzy signs with so many roundabouts that take a little getting used to. Hopefully the council leisure departments will re-address their leaflets showing new (CNDR road) access to the many city parks for recreation etc.

E. C. O'Friendly: Exactly which bits of the countryside do you no longer have access to?

Now just like the east of carlisle, the residents of west carlisle are fenced in away from access to the countryside by a speeding ribbon of death. A terrible, terrible day.

Opened at last thank god! Has any infrastructure project anywhere had anything like the gestation period of this road? - And at the end of the day what have we ended up with? A glorified country lane running through flat farm land. Hardly a landmark piece of civil engineering.

Just drove the whole length of the development route. Nice and peaceful, loads of pedestrians on the cycletrack, it seems heavy work to drive, just because of all the roundabouts, but i did it in less than ten minutes at peak time. On castle way at peak time, ten minutes gets you from Bitts Park to Tullie House.

Drove from Wigton this morning however no sign of the new road being open....???? still barriers and road closed sign up...

elaine/mb - isn't the problem there the misleading signs? If they are misleading it'll cause all kinds of problems tomorrow.

it reminds me of the signs on eden bridges that says two lanes go north to the M6/A7. Then you reach near the Crown and you're informed the left-hand lane is actually taking you off down some unclassified road to kingmoor. Much beepage can ensue as people want to keep going straight on

It is good news that the CNDR is opening and hopefully with it some development along it. But Bry is right: the only noticable difference will be a reduction in the volume of HGV traffic on Scotland Road, Kingstown Road, Wigton Road and Castleway heading to or from the north. The only way to alleviate more vehicular traffic through the centre is to devise a way of linking up and widening the roads skirting the west and the south of the city joining the M6 at J42. Before considering reducing Castleway to a single lane, may I suggest that Eddie and his team get creative and consider the possibilities of a 'CSDR' but without the burden of PFI. If it takes half a dozen garden centres to do it quickly and efficiently, so be it.