# Dual carriageways and the like



## Cab (29 Oct 2007)

Was thinking about this over the weekend. I really resent it when roads are 'dualled', what tends to happen is that a busy A road becomes something more like a motorway. Look at, say, the A14. You can cycle on it in principle, in practice you wouldn't. It just isn't safe. Those sections where a cycle lane is painted on the narrow tarmac at the edge of the road are a complete joke, they just add insult to injury.

So, what we need when roads are dualled is parallel cyclable routes. It should be the absolute minimum requirement that every time an A or M road is widened or upgraded to a dual carriageway that there must be parallel segregated cycle paths, otherwise in effect we're being needlessly excluded from routes we could otherwise cycle.

Said requirement would create a real national network of cycle routes, right along the routes that we need them on. It would make un-cyclable routes once again useful to us.

Now... Am I speaking rubbish here or would such a campaign stance be appropriate or valuable?


----------



## bonj2 (29 Oct 2007)

No, it's a very sensible idea. And as an aside, there's a disadvantage in building roads anyway. The rise in the number of cars on the road is only proportional to the rise in the amount of roads.

One of my more radical wishes is that roads would be _un_built, and either turned from roads into just cycle paths, to cut congestion.

But mainly, cycle paths should be _proper_ smooth cycle paths, like roads, but just without cars allowed on them. Not going up and down dropped kerbs and over islands every 10 yards.


----------



## TheDoctor (29 Oct 2007)

Couldn't agree more, Bonj. I've got no gripes with cycle paths as such - the Dutch ones are excellent, and even most of the Stevenage ones aren't too bad. It's the sort that are a green stripe down the side of the road, or a footpath with a few signs on, that really get my goat.
A nationwide network of properly constructed and maintained paths would be great.


----------



## Cab (29 Oct 2007)

TheDoctor said:


> A nationwide network of properly constructed and maintained paths would be great.



So would a good way of achieving that be to require that any new dual carriageway/motorway, or 'improvement/upgrade' thereof, require a parallel cycle lane?


----------



## bonj2 (29 Oct 2007)

Cab said:


> So would a good way of achieving that be to require that any new dual carriageway/motorway, or 'improvement/upgrade' thereof, require a parallel cycle lane?



Yes. So write to your MP.


----------



## magnatom (29 Oct 2007)

A good idea in theory Cab, but I can't see it happening (I must be in Victor Meldrew Mode!)

One problem I can think of is environmentalist concerns . Seriously think of the amount of times that environmental groups have complained and protested about trees being cut down, bog land lost, sites of special scientific interest ruined etc. Tarmacing more land would probably just result in more protests etc, especially if the cycle routes were as wide as we would like them 

Better to just use the existing roads as cycle lanes and ban the cars


----------



## Cab (29 Oct 2007)

bonj said:


> Yes. So write to your MP.



Little point, he's a liberal 

Just bouncing this idea around in here first before writing to our MP, thought it might be worth mulling this over, see if anyone has any good objections to this that I haven't thought of.


----------



## Cab (29 Oct 2007)

magnatom said:


> Better to just use the existing roads as cycle lanes and ban the cars



Nice 

I get what you're saying about widening roads and tarmaccing the countryside being a valid environmental issue, but I wonder whether having this kind of restriction on what happens when roads are widened would actually lead to less road construction, less road widening. The cost would of course be higher, because more space is needed... We'd get some facilities out of it, but I wonder whether we'd also get less road works.


----------



## spen666 (29 Oct 2007)

Cab said:


> Was thinking about this over the weekend. I really resent it when roads are 'dualled', what tends to happen is that a busy A road becomes something more like a motorway. Look at, say, the A14. You can cycle on it in principle, in practice you wouldn't. It just isn't safe. Those sections where a cycle lane is painted on the narrow tarmac at the edge of the road are a complete joke, they just add insult to injury.
> 
> *So, what we need when roads are dualled is parallel cyclable routes. It should be the absolute minimum requirement that every time an A or M road is widened or upgraded to a dual carriageway that there must be parallel segregated cycle paths*, otherwise in effect we're being needlessly excluded from routes we could otherwise cycle.
> 
> ...




Great - just what we want=- to be taken off the roads and to reinforce the belief of many motorists that we have no right to be on the road.


----------



## Jacomus-rides-Gen (30 Oct 2007)

The trouble is, cycle facilities next to dual carriageways tend to look something like this


----------



## snorri (30 Oct 2007)

spen666 said:


> Great - just what we want=- to be taken off the roads and to reinforce the belief of many motorists that we have no right to be on the road.



Why not just concentrate on your campaign to permit cycling on motorways and leave the rest of us to get from A to B in a relaxed frame of mind


----------



## Cab (30 Oct 2007)

spen666 said:


> Great - just what we want=- to be taken off the roads and to reinforce the belief of many motorists that we have no right to be on the road.



On motorways we don't have a right to be on the road. And on major trunk-road dual carriageways we're basically excluded anyway.


----------



## Cab (30 Oct 2007)

Jacomus-rides-Gen said:


> The trouble is, cycle facilities next to dual carriageways tend to look something like this




Ahh, yes, that. I know, that one is shocking. To be worthwhile the cycle paths would have to be wider and at least passably well maintained.


----------



## snorri (30 Oct 2007)

bonj said:


> Yes. So write to your MP.



Not in the first instance.
When you become aware of proposals involving major road works, write to the authority responsible, ask to see the plans, inspect the Cycle Audit. It is after you find the proposals fail to comply with current legislation and are getting no satisfactory answers from the authority that you engage with elected bodies. It is unlikely that elected officers will bother to research the rights and wrongs unless there are complaints from a lot of individuals.


----------



## bonj2 (30 Oct 2007)

snorri said:


> Not in the first instance.
> When you become aware of proposals involving major road works, write to the authority responsible, ask to see the plans, inspect the Cycle Audit. It is after you find the proposals fail to comply with current legislation and are getting no satisfactory answers from the authority that you engage with elected bodies. It is unlikely that elected officers will bother to research the rights and wrongs unless there are complaints from a lot of individuals.



No but I mean to implement a policy of not building new roads in the first place.
If _everyone_ on this forum writes to their mp about not building new roads, or just building new cycle lanes, then quite a lot of MPs might start to get the impression that we people don't want new roads springing up over the place all the time only to be filled with bloody renault meganes each containing one selfish idiot on his way to his job 200 yards away, or humungous great range rovers ferrying spoilt brats to school when they should be walking.


----------



## Morrisette (30 Oct 2007)

spen666 said:


> Great - just what we want=- to be taken off the roads and to reinforce the belief of many motorists that we have no right to be on the road.




Hmmm not sure about this...have you SEEN the A14?? It's a motorway without the 'M'.

They've put cycle lanes on bits of it (including really quite hilarious 'suicide lanes' that lead you across slip roads) but it would be suicide to use them. But this is a 'cycle route' so the council don't have to provide anything else. This leaves some settlements along the road that you can't get in or out of without a car, or at least more testosterone than I've got (Bar Hill, Lolworth and Boxworth to name 3).

So yes, Cab I agree! As I'm sure would the residents of any of the settlements along the A14 that have effectively been cut off from anything on the other side of it....


----------



## TheDoctor (30 Oct 2007)

Cab said:


> So would a good way of achieving that be to require that any new dual carriageway/motorway, or 'improvement/upgrade' thereof, require a parallel cycle lane?



It would be a start, wouldn't it?


----------



## Pete (30 Oct 2007)

The whole proposal has its pros and cons.

Consider the dual carriageway in principle: subject of this thread. Surprisingly, perhaps (well not to some people), there are a few instances where I feel safer on the D/C than on a fast single carriageway.

Consider this locality which lies across one of my favourite leisure rides. What I often want to do, is cross the map area west-to-east, from Shipley to the west, to West Grinstead and Partridge Green to the east. On roads, only. Now I have two alternatives without a long detour: north and along the A272 S/C (at top), or southeast to Dial Post, about a mile along the A24 D/C, then east along the B road to W.Grinstead. There are no suitable routes on 'yellow' roads entirely, as you can see.

The A272 has a lot of traffic, a bad accident record, and is just at that width that you cannot be comfortably overtaken by a car in the face of an oncoming car. Which of course I am fully aware of, albeit some motorists aren't.

Can you wonder that, more often than not, I opt for the A24 D/C rather than the A272? The A24 has _no cycle path_ on that stretch. It is hairy, true, 70mph traffic throughout (well, more like 80-90mph in reality), but _provided drivers see you_ they have room to pull out and give you plenty of room. Provided they see you. But surely that's paramount to safety on any road. You can be hit on a narrow country lane just as easily as on a D/C.

I don't consider taking primary position on lane 1. Not trying to be a maniac! Just a nice steady position not too far from the left hand lane edge. As I see serious roadies, guys on training runs, doing it.

Maybe some folks are right, this sort of riding is not for the fainthearted. Question: how long do you have to have been a cyclist, to graduate from 'fainthearted' status. I've been a cyclist for nearly 50 years. Maybe that's too long! But I'm sure I was negotiating D/Cs in my twenties. Plenty of them.

Having said all this, it's not a pleasant part of the ride, of course. I can put up with it for one or two miles. I wouldn't care to do twenty.

At the end of the D/C stretch, I have, of course, a right turn, for which there is a right-hand slip road. Another trial! Usually I can time it so that I get across safely. But if I'm forced to stop on the LH side, wait for a gap, I don't consider it a humiliation - just a realistic way of getting across fast dense traffic at a pinch.

As I said, no cycle path on this road, either way. So I have no option. Other D/Cs in the area do have cycle paths, notably the A23 London-Brighton trunk, a few miles to the east. The quality of the cycle track is very variable. Some parts are as bad as Jacomus' video. Others places we have a reasonably straight and clean segregated track, wide enough for light cycle traffic, few pedestrians, quite adequate in my view. I use it. Yet further stretches are in fact parts of the abandoned old A23 (single carriageway) which have been left in place, downgraded to 'B' road, when the new D/C was cut through a green field route. The stretch through the villages of Sayers Common and Albourne, for example. These sections may not have been, environmentally, the best option. But they are perfect as cycle routes. Full-width roads carrying only light, local motor traffic. And cyclists. But of course, you have to be very lucky if your local trunk road has one of these.


----------

