# Norwich's £10k per meter cycle lane



## glenn forger (16 Nov 2015)

http://www.norwichcyclingcampaign.org/tombland-cycle-track-completion/

Feeds you into a cycle lane that goes slap-bang into the pedestrian crossing outside a school:







That's the cycle lane there, bordered by the shallow gutter on the left. 






Where the peds are. That's the cycle lane.

And here's where you re-join the road:






100 metres. £970,000.

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/home...ink_of_new_look_tombland_in_norwich_1_4310540


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B52-jMK5o2g


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## Milkfloat (16 Nov 2015)

Now that is a piece of art, a hidden cycle path with a beach thrown in. How abstract.


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## Saluki (16 Nov 2015)

I walked along there, the other day and was very underwhelmed. Total waste of time and money.


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## Rooster1 (16 Nov 2015)

Stunning...waste of money.
Small wonder people have issue with expensive schemes like this.


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## raleighnut (16 Nov 2015)

I can't think of a worse surface to cycle on, block paviers must be the worst surface for grip in the wet short of cobblestones.


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## MichaelW2 (16 Nov 2015)

I cycled on the road and didn't notice the existence or need for that cycle path.

Putting a cycle path across a place where pedestrians make heavy use of a pavement is obviously stupid design, but a big part of the problem, I think, is that planers and designers lack vocabulary. They literally do not have a word for a bit of pavement in heavy use, vs a bit of pavement that is never walked on. Soldiers have a term "_dead ground_" for areas out of the line-of-site of enemy. Without words, these people don't make the thoughts.

I have seen Sheffield Stands located at pinch points where a pavement narrows and _footfall_ increases. There you have it again, a word to describe a necessary concept, from retail marketing.

Road designers have all kinds of technical words to describe features of roads. What features of pavements and bike facilities need specific names, so they can be given specific attention ?


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## mjr (16 Nov 2015)

glenn forger said:


> Feeds you into a cycle lane that goes slap-bang into the pedestrian crossing outside a school:


I hope to go ride it soon and I'm sceptical, but the above comment is slightly misleading. That crossing is outside the cathedral gate and yes, there's a school in there but it's scattered throughout the grounds and the thousand pupils exit through all the gates.

The track they've built looks somewhat more subtle than the consultation version http://www.norwich.gov.uk/TransportAndStreets/Transport/Cycling/Pages/Tombland.aspx and I feel probably it is too subtle and easily mistaken for footway. At least the speed bumps and pedal-catchers appear to have gone and it looks better in minor ways than some old rubbish Norwich used to build: it's wider and looks like it has fewer places where debris or standing water will gather.

I broadly agree with Norwich Cycling Campaign and I think my consultation response (KLWNBUG sometimes rides to/from Norwich, I used to live there and still visit often, so I was interested) was similar to theirs. It's really annoying that the budget for this section has ballooned from £360k to £974k, but it's still not as good as what NorCyC were suggesting (cycle lanes each side along what I think is the desire line to/from Magdalen Street along Wensum Street, with some protection) and some really useful cheaper parts of the cycling city ambition project - such as simplifying cycling through the pedestrian zones - have been cut to pay for it.

I suspect part of the problem arises from wanting the Pink route to connect to https://goo.gl/maps/o5z6KDvqRe32 its pathetic eastern crossing of the inner ring road, which looks like a third-class attempt to avoid sending a third route up Magdalen Street and then maybe having to improve part of the A1151 for cycling at last, to give people a decent route out!


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## rdfcyclist (16 Nov 2015)

Didn't even notice the cycle path when I went past earlier, I was focused on drafting the bus in front of me. Seems very expensive for what the council have accomplished here.


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## mjr (16 Nov 2015)

MichaelW2 said:


> I cycled on the road and didn't notice the existence or need for that cycle path.


I think the only route where you notice and feel the need for it is if you're riding in along Palace Street and turning left up Tombland, when you naturally get guided onto it and it allows you to pass any queuing motorists and use a demand-activated crossing into Princes Street. That is the westbound signposted Pink route, and Pink route is the project grant paying for this, but I don't think it's the main desire line - if they've got the route naming correct, then the main desire line should be National Route 1 between Princes Street and King Street, which is only part-served in one direction by this cycle track!

And worse, heading east on Pink, it looks like it may misdirect you onto the wrong side of Palace Street, or suggest you cross at a rather iffy point. I'll know more when I've tried it.


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## mjr (17 Nov 2015)

OK, I went and took a look last night. I didn't have time to cycle it before Norwich Cycling Campaign's AGM and it was raining afterwards so I went straight home instead.

Here it is. It was very quiet on the road by 7pm, much quieter than I remember it - probably because you cannot enter the city centre from St Stephens or St Giles any more, and by the time you've driven around to St Benedicts, you might as well keep on using the inner ring road rather than drive along it, Charing Cross, St Andrews and up to Anglia House and back, with all its traffic lights.

As it was quiet, most cyclists I saw preferred to use the smooth new tarmac instead. I got bored waiting for a cyclist to use the track!





Milkfloat said:


> Now that is a piece of art, a hidden cycle path with a beach thrown in. How abstract.


The sand is only around the cycle parking stands and the bottoms of the stands are visible, so I'm wondering if it's going to be paved at a level between cycle track and footway. Given the vociferous abuse in the local media, I'm not surprised if they've chosen to open it when there's still some work to finish in less-used areas.



raleighnut said:


> I can't think of a worse surface to cycle on, block paviers must be the worst surface for grip in the wet short of cobblestones.


They're not block paviers as I understand them (like we have on some streets in King's Lynn) but more a sort of smoothly-abutting mini paving slabs - except for where it joins the road or the footway crosses it, where they do feel like paviers. I'm not sure about grip either, but they're probably going to be better than the cobbled slope of Princes Street.

I think it is too subtle. Most people were walking on it, apparently unaware it's a cycle track. Norwich has form for this, with this camouflaged cycle track on the north end of St Peters Street:


because, you know, colouring the surface red would look ugly when you're taking a photo of the 1930s City Hall uphill and can't see it.  The main failure of that one is that many people seem to fail to spot the right turn into Upper Goat Lane and continue cycling contraflow out of St Giles, which is prohibited on that stretch.

My suspicions about the Palace Street end are correct. There's this far-too-subtle paving slab sign for eastbound traffic, telling you to ride out into traffic. At a glance, I think you could easily mistake the non-regulation arrow for a "straight ahead" one and find yourself salmoning along the cycle lane:



I spotted two changes from the consultation design: firstly, the south end of the track is a bit of a sweeping bend and should cause less conflict that merging back into the carriageway blind; secondly, there's this little filter/escape lane if you're coming from Wensum Street and want to use the cycle-only traffic light to continue uphill into Princes Street:



As far as I could tell without riding it, the surface seems flat/smooth (as much as paving slabs ever are) and the kerbs feel flush, which Norfolk usually fails to do. It's early days but hopefully at this price, they won't settle unevenly!

There are some videos coming from Norwich Cycling Campaign about the Pink Pedalway - one was previewed at the AGM and I'll post it once it's finished and uploaded somewhere. While Tombland is a lot of money for not much, there's worse elsewhere IMO and it has to be seen to be believed.


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## NorthernDave (17 Nov 2015)

glenn forger said:


> 100 metres. £970,000.



That makes the £1 million per km that the Leeds / Bradford Cycle Super Highway is costing seem positively frugal, doesn't it?


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## mjr (20 Nov 2015)

NorthernDave said:


> That makes the £1 million per km that the Leeds / Bradford Cycle Super Highway is costing seem positively frugal, doesn't it?


Not really. The overall cost for the Pink Pedalway is £5.7m for 8 miles, or £0.45k per km - but this small centre section budget trebling to nearly £1m is why some of the more needed but less bling bits have been cut.

I looked up why they ignored consultation responses calling for new-Cambridge-style cycle tracks and their reply is buried in a report to their highways committee (they didn't bother to reply to consultees AFAICR): "This has not been proposed because it would be very difficult to stop motorists blocking the cycle lanes by parking in them. Furthermore, painted lanes on the carriageway do not make less confident cyclists feel safe or offer the additional protection from buses and lorries that cyclists will value when passing through Tombland on the pink pedalway. Priority has been given to the provision for a high quality connection to Palace Street rather than Wensum Street because Palace Street has a more important status on the cycle network and the width of Wensum Street, Fye Bridge Street and Magdalen Street mean that an cycle track on Tombland would abruptly end as it entered Wensum Street."

I leave you to spot the many serious errors in that, some of which I've already mentioned. Why is a council that considers it too difficult to enforce parking restrictions allowed to be responsible for parking enforcement?

For added irony in hindsight, the report also dismisses some suggestions because "this is not currently affordable within existing budgets"


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## steveindenmark (20 Nov 2015)

Why dont local authorities consult cycle clubs, if they have no idea?


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## LCpl Boiled Egg (20 Nov 2015)

steveindenmark said:


> Why dont local authorities consult cycle clubs, if they have no idea?



There's usually plenty of consultation. Actually implementing what is suggested is another thing entirely...


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## mjr (20 Nov 2015)

steveindenmark said:


> Why dont local authorities consult cycle clubs, if they have no idea?


They did, but it doesn't really matter who they consult if they're going to dismiss their consultation responses. The cycle group responses aren't identified in the consultation report, which seems a bit sus to me - NorCyC published their response on the link in the first post http://www.norwichcyclingcampaign.org/tombland-cycle-track-completion/ - Norwich City Council seems to have weighted group responses the same as individual responses.


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## mjr (20 Nov 2015)

I've just dug out my individual consultation response. I've cut the preamble - here's the core of it:

I am disappointed that a narrow two-way cycleway with centre line is being proposed. This seems to be based on the discredited idea of dual provision: abandoning "experienced cyclists" to keep suffering the road (now with increased "use the cycleway" abuse from motorists?) and a slower dangerous cycle track for everyone else. I utterly reject the implicit idea that "experienced cyclists" wouldn't use a decent cycleway if it was built and I urge you to show some ambition. I thought this was being funded by a grant with "Ambition" in its name?

As you know, a single 2.5m bidirectional track is too narrow to allow cycles to ride sociably side-by-side or overtake safely while passing oncoming cycles. A centre line is likely to become slippery when wet and riding on the right "salmon-style" makes it difficult for cycles to move safely to/from the all-traffic lanes if relative speeds/flows mean that would be a good move. [note: long after consultation, they widened the Tombland part and turned the Palace Street part into narrow advisory lanes because this width is silly; the centre line has gone, but the track is still one-sided and hard to move on/off the carriageway if needed.]

The best practice, illustrated on page 17 of Making Space For Cycling (available from www.MakingSpaceForCycling.org ) is for protected cycleways on each side of a road. There is definitely space for this on Tombland and if there was the will to reallocate space a little more on Palace Street, there would be room there too. In the current design, the biggest beneficiary seems to be pedestrian space (23% of space is reallocated to them) which seems a little odd for a project funded by a cycling grant when there is an obvious need for a bit more space for cycling than in these initial designs.

I think some attempt should be made to facilitate cycle access to/from Wensum Street and thereby to Anglia Square or to Colegate towards Marriott's Way. The FAQ calls this "the main route for both buses and cycles", so I'm surprised that turns to/from the cycleway are impossible in the proposed design. [note: the final version has the tiny filter/escape that I photographed earlier]

I guess that riders may be meant to use the pedestrian crossings to leave the cycleway to turn down Wensum Street, which seems likely to surprise both walkers and motorists and therefore be an avoidable safety hazard. Riders not familiar with the area will probably not realise the turn into Wensum Street is impossible until beyond the courtesy crossings and bump down the kerb near the new T junction, which is a riskier movement. This would be remedied by the solutions described in Making Space for Cycling.

Cycles making the right turn into Palace Road should be protected primarily by a west-side cycleway continuing on the same level over a smooth-radius perpendicular crossing of the mouth of Wensum Street with priority, possibly combined with a pedestrian courtesy crossing, while riders continuing down Wensum Street are merged onto the all-traffic lane. Of course, in the interests of keeping traffic flowing, people should be allowed to ride salmon-style on the right around the corner if they wish and an opportunity to cross Tombland further south presents itself.

I agree with the cycleway being at an intermediate height but some drawings show frequent "rumble strips" of cobbles across the cycleway, while the rest of the surface seems to be some sort of small-block paving. Unless the aim is to deter most people from using the cycleway as some sort of "look, we built it and they still won't use it" demonstration, the cycleway should be a suitably-coloured Hot Rolled Asphalt 55/10, Asphalt Concrete 10 or something similarly smooth.

...and it then continued into objections to various technical details of their plans, most of which aren't present in what they built. So basically "I told you so", but it's not quite as lethal as the bike-grinder that was originally planned with pedal-catchers, cobbled rumble strips every few feet and emerging blind onto corners at both ends. Still pretty disappointing, though.


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## mjr (3 Dec 2015)

Norwich Cycling Campaign have released this video about the problems on the busiest section of the route, caused in part by the huge cost overrun in the city centre IMO:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFkyEZ8iyCY
That section is basically how it looked in 2005 except for the addition of a bit of red paint and cycle-unfriendly speed humps.


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## glenn forger (3 Dec 2015)

4:17, the white 4x4 driver just barges the girl on the bike out of the way.


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## raleighnut (3 Dec 2015)

Gawd, that is an awful 'cyclepath' worse than Leicester's efforts.


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## glenn forger (3 Dec 2015)

That's the busiest cycle route in Norfolk. It's embarrassing.


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## rdfcyclist (3 Dec 2015)

I've cycled that road every day I've gone to work/college for 6 years and it has not improved in my opinion. I understand that things change so I'm hoping the current road works are reshaping the verges into something helpful. Shame really as this project could have turned into a nice route to cycle on. Hey ho, I'm quick so the road is fine.


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## mjr (3 Dec 2015)

rdfcyclist said:


> I've cycled that road every day I've gone to work/college for 6 years and it has not improved in my opinion.


It's little better than when I started riding it in 1994. The last major improvement in that area was tarmacking Cow Drive west of Bluebell Road to the Sportspark which meant we no longer had to choose between riding on winter porridge, dodging buses and car park users on University Drive and dodging permitted vehicles on the service road from Orwell and Wolfson Closes. The Avenues seems basically unchanged apart from some pink paint and pre-greens, which isn't good value for about £750,000.


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## glenn forger (5 Dec 2015)

They're digging up Tombland:

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/moto...wich_just_weeks_after_work_finished_1_4337758


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## mjr (5 Dec 2015)

Maybe it's just as well the cycle track is paved rather than tarmac!


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## glenn forger (7 Dec 2015)

OMG:

https://www.facebook.com/NorwichCyclingCampaign/posts/1214410651908479

Norwich Cycling Campaign has learned that the City Council is funding the building of car parking spaces along The Avenues verges with Cycle City Ambition Grant funds.

This is despite the fact that earlier this year we were told that there was not enough money to build separate cycle lanes. It was said that to protect the tree roots there would have to be digging by hand and that was too expensive. However, it seems that there is enough money to provide car parking spaces as well as use mechanical diggers to do the groundworks.

How is it that the cycle provision is abandoned but money is found for the verges?

We object to the funding of this work from the CCAG since we consider it is an inappropriate use of cycling money. This is not quality cycling provision to increase the safety of cycle users along The Avenues, or encourage more people to cycle.

Tell us what you think her and/or contact your Councillor.


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## glenn forger (7 Dec 2015)

So, that white paint on the Avenues cost £800k, and the money that was allocated to cyclists will be used to build parking spaces where they said they couldn't build a cycle lane. So cars will drive over the white paint cycle lane to get to the parking space. So cycling money may actually be spent on facilities for drivers that make cycling more dangerous.


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## gavintc (7 Dec 2015)

They spent on cycling. Box ticked. Move on to more important things now.


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## Saluki (7 Dec 2015)

glenn forger said:


> So, that white paint on the Avenues cost £800k, and the money that was allocated to cyclists will be used to build parking spaces where they said they couldn't build a cycle lane. So cars will drive over the white paint cycle lane to get to the parking space. So cycling money may actually be spent on facilities for drivers that make cycling more dangerous.


That sounds about right.


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## rdfcyclist (7 Dec 2015)

Well that seems silly. I'll grab my pitchfork, you get the torches


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## rdfcyclist (26 Jan 2016)

Continuing the story of the Avenues, is anyone else concerned that they've dug up the speed bumps and left us with 3 inch deep trenches?


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## steveindenmark (27 Jan 2016)

It seems everywhere Im driving in my local area at the moment, we are getting new cycle paths. Nice smooth tarmac paths. Not 10k a metre paths, but perfectly usable.

One of our local businessman donated some very nice wood to the Council to make a terrace next to a lake. They had some wood left over and so they used it to make a wooden bridge on a new cycle path. Its a real belter.

A really good example of how the Council and local business can work together to provide cyclists just what they need.


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## glenn forger (3 Feb 2016)

rdfcyclist said:


> Continuing the story of the Avenues, is anyone else concerned that they've dug up the speed bumps and left us with 3 inch deep trenches?



http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news...h_street_replaced_after_mere_months_1_4403222


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## mjr (7 Oct 2017)

mjr said:


> [...] and some really useful cheaper parts of the cycling city ambition project - such as simplifying cycling through the pedestrian zones - have been cut to pay for it.


Two years later, they've now agreed to simplify cycling through the pedestrian zones: http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politic...rwich-pedestrian-zones-at-all-hours-1-5203927


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## mjr (26 Sep 2019)

So in the second phase of the pedalways project, Norwich City Council seemed to have learned and built something on the Blue Pedalway in 2017 which wasn't awful and they actually left some money to remove some of the errors visible when this was filmed:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVV66p5JeY


But instead of extending that to Brunswick Road or building the same on the other side of that road, they turned their focus back to the city centre just downhill of the £10k per metre mess that started this thread and instead of doing what worked on the Blue Pedalway, now Transport for Norwich is building another booboo:





Here it is on the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-49809139
and the original story at Norwich Cycling Campaign:
https://www.norwichcyclingcampaign.org/what-a-waste-of-money-trees-in-the-cycle-track/


One wheel moving forwards, the other moving back?


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## Drago (26 Sep 2019)

Is that a tree in the cycle lane? What a great idea- they should put them in the middle of roads as well.

Oh, wait a minute...


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## mjr (26 Sep 2019)

Drago said:


> Is that a tree in the cycle lane? What a great idea- they should put them in the middle of roads as well.
> 
> Oh, wait a minute...


Oh sorry yes. That's a small tree with its planter taking up half the cycle lane, with the edging cobbles narrowing the tarmac to about 80cm. There are a number of them. The safety auditors say this is fine because it's uphill so cyclists won't be going fast (it's Norfolk - it's more of a drag than a hill - cycle.travel estimates 2.5% at steepest).

I guess either it will come as a surprise to the safety auditors when the trees get wider over time or they're expecting to be fired before that long!


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## Drago (26 Sep 2019)

Even at a moderate lick I'd be doing 12 or 14 up there, enough energy to make a mess if I came off. They clearly don't have a scooby doo.


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## mjr (26 Sep 2019)

Drago said:


> Even at a moderate lick I'd be doing 12 or 14 up there, enough energy to make a mess if I came off. They clearly don't have a scooby doo.


I've long suspected we have some council officer lotteries going on, where it's just dumb luck whether any particular cycle lane is designed by someone who can has learned from past cock-ups or at least can read the current design standards and not get it completely bum about face... and then there's a bonus ball lottery of whether you get a safety auditor who thinks cyclists can turn on the spot, see through 270° simultaneously or should ride in the gutter or on the footway. (I objected to a council safety audit that described a cyclist turning right onto a bog-standard 2-lane town road as "needing to cross two lanes of traffic" - which would put them in the gutter or on the footway and I was never sure which the auditor thought cyclists should do.)

Eventually, we get enough councillors convinced or sane officers involved that most things get fixed eventually (most, not all) but it really shouldn't be this difficult and the AA and RAC don't have to waste time doing this shoot to get stuff to follow the design manuals!


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## Drago (26 Sep 2019)

I've an old fashioned idea. Perhaps they could consult with some cyclists?


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## mjr (26 Sep 2019)

Drago said:


> I've an old fashioned idea. Perhaps they could consult with some cyclists?


Oh they do that. They just don't farking listen after Norwich Cycling Campaign (East Norfolk) or KLWNBUG (West) point out the mistakes - and usually the safety auditors get the designs changed after the consultations, so unless we keep wasting everyone's time making repeated FoI requests, we usually only get to see their sabotage when building starts.


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## Pale Rider (26 Sep 2019)

mjr said:


> So in the second phase of the pedalways project, Norwich City Council seemed to have learned and built something on the Blue Pedalway in 2017 which wasn't awful and they actually left some money to remove some of the errors visible when this was filmed:
> 
> View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVV66p5JeY
> 
> ...




The path shown on the BBC website pics looks fine to me.

A competent cyclist keeping a careful lookout ought to be able to navigate it safely.

There's a section of Newcastle Quayside where the path is split by a row of ornamental lampposts and trees.

Same applies, it would be possible to hit one of the obstructions, but only if you fail to pay attention.


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## mjr (26 Sep 2019)

Pale Rider said:


> The path shown on the BBC website pics looks fine to me.
> 
> A competent cyclist keeping a careful lookout ought to be able to navigate it safely.
> 
> ...


Right, got it, you're fine with 0.8m width (too narrow for some tricycles or trailers) and trees in cycleways. 

I guess part of what makes this annoying is that bit of Prince of Wales Road is wide and used to be four regular lanes across at points in the 1990s. Even with the recent wider pavements, it had two regular lanes and two parking lanes until this latest project. So a 0.8m cycle lane is an insult.


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## Pale Rider (26 Sep 2019)

mjr said:


> Right, got it, you're fine with 0.8m width (too narrow for some tricycles or trailers) and trees in cycleways.
> 
> I guess part of what makes this annoying is that bit of Prince of Wales Road is wide and used to be four regular lanes across at points in the 1990s. Even with the recent wider pavements, it had two regular lanes and two parking lanes until this latest project. So a 0.8m cycle lane is an insult.



There's room to trespass on the footpath when passing the trees for the no doubt thousands of Norfolk riders who use wide trikes on that stretch each day.

I'm afraid in this instance ridiculing the local authority will just set them up against you, and make you look like a bunch of unrealistic single issue campaign loonies.


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## Jenkins (6 Oct 2019)

They've now filled in the tree pits, what can go wrong?: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-49917781


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## mjr (6 Oct 2019)

We need an emoji of a rider hitting a needless approved-by-idiot-council obstruction. So for now imagine that this is a council officer:


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## NorthernDave (6 Oct 2019)

Jenkins said:


> They've now filled in the tree pits, what can go wrong?: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-49917781
> 
> View attachment 487981



If I hadn't seen that, i wouldn't have believed it! 

What do the council think will happen as the tree grows? And that rough edge / lip they've left - not only does it look terrible, but that will let water in and we all know what will happen when that freezes don't we?


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## Drago (7 Oct 2019)

Jenkins said:


> They've now filled in the tree pits, what can go wrong?: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-49917781
> 
> View attachment 487981


That doesn't look good for the health of the trees?


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