Council Intensifies its War On Cycling.

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Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
 
Local authority want to remove some "30 minute free" on-street parking to install a cycle route on an access road near the high street.
This piace of cycle route will build on recently complete scheme and move us someway to having a contiguous cycle route from one side of town to the other, the alternatives being walking your bike through the town centre (because cycling is banned), taking a very circuituous route around the other end of the town or trying your luck on a stretch of dual carriageway.

The local uproar is getting out of hand. With the disingenuous misleading people and effectively conning them into making objections.

Gah.
 
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Mike_P

Guru
Location
Harrogate
local uproar is getting out of hand. With disingenuous misleading people and effectively conning them into making objections.

Gah.
Pretty normal unfortunately here, the latest attempt by the Council to do something is to propose a cycle lane across the bus station exit which is sparking off the nutters. The cycle lane being exactly where anyone cycling on the road currently is likely to be.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Pretty normal unfortunately here, the latest attempt by the Council to do something is to propose a cycle lane across the bus station exit which is sparking off the nutters. The cycle lane being exactly where anyone cycling on the road currently is likely to be.
King's Lynn has cycle zebras across both bus station exits, and the entrance. If only that meant we'd won. Stupid council has recently taken a load of substandard barriers out, resurfaced, then wasted money putting the barriers back in! Oh and installed a load of bollards that reduce a minimum-width cycleway to below standard. Two steps forward, one back. :banghead:
 

lazybloke

Ginger biscuits and cheddar
Location
Leafy Surrey
If I were a local, I'd find it seriously irritating to hear this every 15 minutes while I was shopping.
I pity the people living near railway stations. Service announcements. Delay notifications. Advance warning of engineering works. And the ever-annoying "See it, Say it, Sorted" messages.
Adding similar noise in town centres is completely unnecessary.
 

Alex321

Guru
Location
South Wales
That link goes to a blank page at bing.com, not nelincs.gov.uk

When I click it, I get this pdf
https://www.nelincs.gov.uk/assets/uploads/2024/04/PSPO-2024-Grimsby-Town-Centre-Varied-Sealed-1.pdf
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Apologies MJR, not sure why it's not working for you but it should start a download of the PSPO pdf.
I'm using a secure browser (although not in a secure desktop because it's social media which doesn't get mixed with work data!), so it probably breaks the bing.com tracking link you posted, or maybe bing sulks. Thanks to @Alex321 for posting the real link.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Well, that seems thoroughly improper. There doesn't seem to be any current regulation order on https://www.nelincs.gov.uk/streets-...ic-and-road-safety/traffic-regulation-orders/ prohibiting cycling on Victoria Street West, with the previous Temporary TRO having lapsed on 1 November 2022. They're also not listed under "Highways" under https://www.nelincs.gov.uk/keeping-our-area-clean-and-safe/public-space-protection-orders-pspo/ - it's only once you realise that NE Lincs hate cycling so much that they list it under "Anti-social behaviour" that you find it.

Also, expiry of the TRO means that this is yet another street you can drive along but not pedal a cycle along. Utterly awful.

This shoot should be made illegal. If it's not safe to ride a bike there, it's not safe to drive there. If you're trying to ban cycling from any street wide enough to have decent footways marked along the sides and at least 3m left in the middle to cycle along, that's poor, but if you're trying to ban cycling from a street (not a motorway) that people can drive along, you're a daffodil and should be stopped by law.
 
Weird thing is that it prohibits "any activity that causes or is likely to cause ....."
and prohibits
"riding a skateboard"

and also prohibits "No cycling......"

logically it actually prohibits NOT cycling in the area

and playing the rules through speakers does seem to contravene the noise section of the order

at the very least it is very badly worded
 
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Drago

Legendary Member
If the wording of the order prohibits "no cycling" I'd appeal it on the grounds that the council does not have the power to compel everyone to cycle.

I would, of course, ensure the Daily Mail were on hand to feign indignance at the wasteful inefficiency of the councils. As much as I dislike the DM it's the sort of thing they delight in and no carncil officer will enjoy having such a spotlight shining on their stupidity.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Weird thing is that it prohibits "any activity that causes or is likely to cause ....."
and prohibits
"riding a skateboard"

and also prohibits "No cycling......"

logically it actually prohibits NOT cycling in the area
Good spot. I hope the orderlies, beadles, street rangers or whatever Grimsby calls "Authorised Officer"s are dishing out £1000 fines to anyone found persistently not cycling along the designated streets!

and playing the rules through speakers does seem to contravene the noise section of the order

at the very least it is very badly worded
Yes, it is badly worded. Usually Traffic Regulation Orders have exclusions of emergency services, postal services, council workers and various others, but this PSPO does not, so the council is subject to the prohibition on "creating noise (as to cause a nuisance)".

It all smacks of an order having been made without proper scrutiny, probably advertised in the online equivalent of the h2g2 filing cabinet and not even read by the officers and cabinet councillors responsible.
 
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