Sustrans

[dellzeqq]

Mangaman - I've taken the FNRttC down that path, and it's an absolute honey compare to NCN 1, bits of NCN 4, NCN 21 and the Wandle Way!

NCN 1 through Gravesend is four foot wide with a chainlink fence on one side, an industrial building on the other, and covered in broken glass. The alternative is Harmer Street which is one of the finest streets in the country.

 

[mangaman]

Looks positively direct, simple and quick compared to round here! The routes going into the city centre are windy, short, complicated to sign post, twist and turn, closed for months on end, some sections very high quality, others very low quality, a myriad of complicated death runs on toucan crossings to cars zooming past. What's more on bits of the two run ins to the city centre there's a very high chance of getting mugged if you weren't on the bike.

It may look that way, but the road is much more simple and direct

 

[marinyork]

It may look that way, but the road is much more simple and direct

Oh I'm sure it is. 2.45 miles at 13mph or 3.7 miles at 9.5mph. But sustrans have a phobia of main roads, except when they have no option and then by a remarkable magic trick with some paint and a few tiny blue signs they become safe .

 

[mangaman]

Mangaman - I've taken the FNRttC down that path, and it's an absolute honey compare to NCN 1, bits of NCN 4, NCN 21 and the Wandle Way!

NCN 1 through Gravesend is four foot wide with a chainlink fence on one side, an industrial building on the other, and covered in broken glass. The alternative is Harmer Street which is one of the finest streets in the country.

Like I said to marin though Dell, it may not be the worst path in Britain - and I guess you used it at night on the FNRttC. I just question the council banging on about how cycle friendly they are because of it.

It's different on a Sunday afternoon, when I might want to use it. It becomes a walking path with the odd cyclist (which is fine - I understand it's shared use status). It would be perverse in the extreme for me and my mates to cycle a significant extra distance to get to it and have to meander up it for the safety of everyone else.

Especially when there's a huge great road going the same way more directly much nearer my house.

 

[mangaman]

Oh I'm sure it is. 2.45 miles at 13mph or 3.7 miles at 9.5mph. But sustrans have a phobia of main roads, except when they have no option and then by a remarkable magic trick with some paint and a few tiny blue signs they become safe .

Exactly

 

[Ian H]

One thing that Sustrans are extremely good at is fund-raising. Would that the CTC were half as good.

 

[dellzeqq]

One thing that Sustrans are extremely good at is fund-raising. Would that the CTC were half as good.

ooooocchhhhh. That smarts.

I should say, by the way, that I agree with Mangaman on the parallel road in to Chichester. It's perfectly acceptable. The path was an interesting diversion, really to add a spurious air of mystery to what had been hitherto a 30 mile stretch of A286 - one of the finest cycling roads in the country.

 

[Danny]

It's not minor at all. Getting sustrans to do anything is a major headache.

The point I was making was that perhaps a mile or less in a 200 mile route might be poorly signed - according to my maths that's no more than 0.5% of the overall route.

I am not sure what you have tried to get Sustrans to do, but in my experience they respond very positively with reports of missing or inadequate signs.

 

[marinyork]

The point I was making was that perhaps a mile or less in a 200 mile route might be poorly signed - according to my maths that's no more than 0.5% of the overall route.

I am not sure what you have tried to get Sustrans to do, but in my experience they respond very positively with reports of missing or inadequate signs.

Danny, I wasn't born yesterday. I've cycled your beloved one probably more times than you have. When the diversion signs were up near selby would be one example, similarly a section up this end. Add in the starting section the council/others have been trying to get sorted for a long time that's 3 in considerably less than 200 miles. Then there's that joke section going into stamford bridge oh and that closed section I was talking about earlier . You could argue in context that 2 of those are pretty major failings, the others more marginal and much less important.

 

[Danny]

Unfortunately my experience of the council and Sustrans ties in with marin's.

They seem to have a disproportionately loud voice on cycling infrastructure as far as council planners are concerned, and a general ideology of segregating bikes and cars.

This may lead, as Danny says to some pleasant off-road leisure routes where you can mingle cozily with peds / dogs on extendible leads etc. and I can see such routes being nice if you have a young family and want a pootle off road on a tarmac track at 7 mph and introduce your kids to cycling.

My beef is that sustrans manage to persuade councils they are providers of viable routes for commuters / kids cycling to school etc and the council says OK and ticks the box for cycling provision. If you go to a transport planning meeting at your council, I would be very surprised if sustrans and segregating cyclists would not be the prevailing view.

My personal experience in Chichester is the Centurion Way. It leaves Chichester at the very edge of town and wends it's way to the middle of nowhere. It is full of pedestrians and dog walkers...

I cannot speak for Chichester, but in York Sustrans and the Council have developed some extremely successful commuting routes which are used by many hundreds of cyclists every day. Many of these are actually quicker to use than the on-road equivalent because they take a more direct route than the roads and you are not held up by traffic congestion.

I personally have no problem with sharing a cycle route with dog walkers, joggers, or people just going out for a stroll with their kids. I find this a lot more pleasant than trying to battle my way through York's congested streets.

In any case it is a myth to say that Sustrans is trying to segregate cyclists from cars. As others have said the vast majority of the national cycle network goes along existing roads. Where they have built off-road routes these generally provide an alternative to busy main roads - cyclists can still choose which they prefer to go on.

 

[snorri]

The point I was making was that perhaps a mile or less in a 200 mile route might be poorly signed - according to my maths that's no more than 0.5% of the overall route.

I am not sure what you have tried to get Sustrans to do, but in my experience they respond very positively with reports of missing or inadequate signs.

If a sign is missing the route is severed, according to my maths that is a 100% fail.
You are indeed fortunate to have defects resolved promptly, in my locality the time scale for resolving signing defects is measured in years rather than months.

 

[marinyork]

I would agree snorri, which is why for example people have tried to get better signing at the start of one of the routes here. It's 100% fail if no one knows it is there. What are you more likely to notice a large no cycling sign or a sustrans sticker put there a while ago pointing down a very strange looking private development?

 

[Danny]

Danny, I wasn't born yesterday. I've cycled your beloved one probably more times than you have. When the diversion signs were up near selby would be one example, similarly a section up this end. Add in the starting section the council/others have been trying to get sorted for a long time that's 3 in considerably less than 200 miles. Then there's that joke section going into stamford bridge oh and that closed section I was talking about earlier . You could argue in context that 2 of those are pretty major failings, the others more marginal and much less important.

We are talking about two different things, as I wasn't referring to the York-Selby route at all

I was responding to and agreeing with Crankarms point about some of the signing through town centres on other long distance routes. However generally we are generally talking about one or two junctions where the signing seems to disappear.

 

[marinyork]

Well you can talk about city centre stuff if you want, it's included in my examples.

Thefts/vandalisms is harder to sort out. Fortunately cabling thefts etc that has hit the city centre routes here seems to have been resolved for the present.

 

[Danny]

If a sign is missing the route is severed, according to my maths that is a 100% fail.
You are indeed fortunate to have defects resolved promptly, in my locality the time scale for resolving signing defects is measured in years rather than months.

Well actually if you have the accompanying map you can usually get back on the route in a matter of minutes - though I agree it can be very frustrating if you miss a turn because there is no sign.

Sustrans is still largely reliant on volunteers to maintain things like signing, so I guess the service can be variable in different areas of Britain.