That worthless and dangerous cycling infrastructure

[Richard Mann]

So - are you going to answer the question? Why are you advocating that cyclists (and other vulnerable road users) are treated as second class citizens? Why are you advocating that cars are given priority and cyclists corraled out of their way?

Do you actually ride a bike at all?

I'm not: I'm advocating that bikes get priority and cars get slowed down.

Yes I ride a bike.

I'd suggest you'd be better off supporting intelligent use of cycle lanes coupled with speed control: they may not be what you'd prefer but they're ok and they're better than UK-style pavement cycle tracks.

 

[blockend]

So surely the conclusion is that the only place dedicated cycle lanes are needed and where they would provide added safety is on the "A roads and busier B roads where there is no likelihood of lowering speed limits due to the necessity to keep traffic moving". The justification is to allow motor vehicles to continue to move faster whilst maintaining the safety of those more vulnerable road users who simply want to get from A to B by the most direct route. This could be paid for with a specific motor vehicle tax to provide the safe separation of fast-moving motor vehicles from the rest of the legitimate traffic. Perhaps we could call the separation barriers "motorway edges" ?

That's a neat summary of my position unless your last comment is intend to restrict cyclists to motorway edges (ironically or otherwise). Although I've spent the majority of my life travelling through cities by bicycle, these days I avoid them wherever possible as the homogenised, noisy, aggressive places most have become.

Ride outside cities on a regular basis and you'll encounter country lanes - which we've already discussed - pleasant for the most part but not particularly direct, and everything else. That everything else consists of drivers travelling up to 50mph faster than I'm riding, a bike's width from my elbow, sometimes less. That some drivers are good guessers of space at high velocity does not seem an especially strong basis for risk assessment and I agree with my city brethren that lower speeds are the answer.
Unfortunately I see few organised attempts to lower main road speeds, either because an 'everyone lives in cities' argument prevails among campaigners, or cycle tracks anywhere represent the threat of cycle tracks everywhere, or slowing the commercial lifelines of the country are too difficult to contemplate, never mind address. So basically cyclists like myself who travel out of town are disenfranchised from the popular safety debates.

Of those options (everyone should live in a city or not ride a bike, build cycle tracks along main roads, slow every road in the country to the 30mph campaigners view as safe) the middle option begins to seem the most practical.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

I'd suggest you'd be better off supporting intelligent use of cycle lanes coupled with speed control: they may not be what you'd prefer but they're ok and they're better than UK-style pavement cycle tracks.

I really don't think they are. If I follow the link in your signature bar, for example, I see two entries from 20th and 22nd July that show classic examples of cycle lanes that I wouldn't want to use, and that are likely to cause me to get problems from motorists when I don't use them:

That one would require me to cycle in the door-opening zone of the parked cars. There is no way I would cycle in it unless the parking bays were all empty. If I went to the left of the little island, I would have to swerve suddenly out into the carriageway to get out of the door zone, when I should really be moving out well in advance, so I would probably go on the outside of that island.

In that one, with the traffic as shown, I would want to be in the centre of the lane with the oncoming truck there and the side road to the left. The cycle lane goes across the mouth of the side road, and I would be outside of it when passing that side road in any circumstances. The door opening zone of the parked cars extends to the solid white line of the cycle lane, so I would be outside of the cycle lane there, and I would be taking the centre of the lane in the approach to the pedestrian refuge, given the pavement extension that immediately precedes it.

I would expect to get drivers regularly blasting their horns behind me and pointing to the bad cycle lane in both these cases, which really does make the journey rather unpleasant.

Something is not better than nothing when it causes these problems.

 

[blockend]

Not to my satisfaction we haven't.

Once again, I have no idea what you're referring to.

 

[Dan B]

I assume he is referring to the discussion of country lanes

 

[Red Light]

I really don't think they are. If I follow the link in your signature bar, for example, I see two entries from 20th and 22nd July that show classic examples of cycle lanes that I wouldn't want to use, and that are likely to cause me to get problems from motorists when I don't use them:

That one would require me to cycle in the door-opening zone of the parked cars. There is no way I would cycle in it unless the parking bays were all empty. If I went to the left of the little island, I would have to swerve suddenly out into the carriageway to get out of the door zone, when I should really be moving out well in advance, so I would probably go on the outside of that island.

In that one, with the traffic as shown, I would want to be in the centre of the lane with the oncoming truck there and the side road to the left. The cycle lane goes across the mouth of the side road, and I would be outside of it when passing that side road in any circumstances. The door opening zone of the parked cars extends to the solid white line of the cycle lane, so I would be outside of the cycle lane there, and I would be taking the centre of the lane in the approach to the pedestrian refuge, given the pavement extension that immediately precedes it.

I would expect to get drivers regularly blasting their horns behind me and pointing to the bad cycle lane in both these cases, which really does make the journey rather unpleasant.

Something is not better than nothing when it causes these problems.

+1

 

[blockend]

I assume he is referring to the discussion of country lanes

I appreciate that but fail to see anything in his post that addresses my point about safety issues on main roads with respect to the OPs question. 'Not to my satisfaction' is a non sequitur unless the poster wants to expand his views on cycling on country lanes.

 

[benb]

I have no need to shave space off cars, even less to squeeze cyclists into the gutter because there's not enough width to do anything else with a cycle lane. I am traffic, I cycle on the road with traffic. The only cycle facilities I want are ones that give routes not available on the roads.

I agree, but is it not the case that some people (either new cyclists or ones that haven't done it for years) are simply not confident enough to cycle in traffic. What do we do about them? I don't know the answer.

 

[Richard Mann]

I really don't think they are. If I follow the link in your signature bar, for example, I see two entries from 20th and 22nd July that show classic examples of cycle lanes that I wouldn't want to use, and that are likely to cause me to get problems from motorists when I don't use them:

That one would require me to cycle in the door-opening zone of the parked cars. There is no way I would cycle in it unless the parking bays were all empty. If I went to the left of the little island, I would have to swerve suddenly out into the carriageway to get out of the door zone, when I should really be moving out well in advance, so I would probably go on the outside of that island.

In that one, with the traffic as shown, I would want to be in the centre of the lane with the oncoming truck there and the side road to the left. The cycle lane goes across the mouth of the side road, and I would be outside of it when passing that side road in any circumstances. The door opening zone of the parked cars extends to the solid white line of the cycle lane, so I would be outside of the cycle lane there, and I would be taking the centre of the lane in the approach to the pedestrian refuge, given the pavement extension that immediately precedes it.

I would expect to get drivers regularly blasting their horns behind me and pointing to the bad cycle lane in both these cases, which really does make the journey rather unpleasant.

Something is not better than nothing when it causes these problems.

The first one (Barns Road) is indeed a bit crap, but has resulted in surprisingly few accidents. There should be a critical reaction strip, slightly less room for traffic, no centre line, and more parking restraint. But based on the accident record, I can't honestly say there's any urgency. Traffic isn't that heavy (about 10,000mvpd), and speeds are reasonable. If you rode on the line, or consistently just outside it, cars would most likely just go round you at a sensible speed: there are a lot of cyclists, and if drivers shouted at every one that got in their way, they'd have no voice left.

The second one (Botley Road) is fine. Typical traffic speeds are around 20mph, unless the road is clear. If you're going at a reasonable pace, and indicate to take the lane in this area, no-one will shout at you. What's really interesting is watching cars overtake cyclists. They move to the right of their lane, and pass at about 20-25mph. They don't generally go faster unless the opposite lane is clear. Large vehicles often end up matching faster cyclists for speed, and wait for a gap in the opposite lane to overtake. They overtake slow cyclists in lane (if there's oncoming traffic), but very slowly.

 

[benb]

The first one (Barns Road) is indeed a bit crap, but has resulted in surprisingly few accidents. There should be a critical reaction strip, slightly less room for traffic, no centre line, and more parking restraint. But based on the accident record, I can't honestly say there's any urgency. Traffic isn't that heavy (about 10,000mvpd), and speeds are reasonable. If you rode on the line, or consistently just outside it, cars would most likely just go round you at a sensible speed: there are a lot of cyclists, and if drivers shouted at every one that got in their way, they'd have no voice left.

The second one (Botley Road) is fine. Typical traffic speeds are around 20mph, unless the road is clear. If you're going at a reasonable pace, and indicate to take the lane in this area, no-one will shout at you. What's really interesting is watching cars overtake cyclists. They move to the right of their lane, and pass at about 20-25mph. They don't generally go faster unless the opposite lane is clear. Large vehicles often end up matching faster cyclists for speed, and wait for a gap in the opposite lane to overtake. They overtake slow cyclists in lane (if there's oncoming traffic), but very slowly.

So in both cases, having no cycle lane at all would be better, as most of the time cyclists will not use the lane anyway.

Can you please explain "critical reaction strip" to me?

 

[Dan B]

The first one (Barns Road) is indeed a bit crap, but has resulted in surprisingly few accidents.

If it were not there, it would have resulted in no accidents at all

 

[the snail]

So in both cases, having no cycle lane at all would be better, as most of the time cyclists will not use the lane anyway.

Can you please explain "critical reaction strip" to me?

+1 I fail to see any advantage to the cyclist in either case. As is so often the case they both seem to put you in the 'door zone', forcing you to pull out of the lane, which to my mind is a dangerous manoeuvre. An inexperienced cyclist might feel they have to remain within the lane. If the best thing you can say is 'it hasn't caused many accidents' then something is very wrong. If it was up to me I would get rid of all these 'facilities'. It seems to me that if you took all the money that is spent dreaming up these schemes and implementing them, you could probably fund a police officer to go round enforcing good driving/cycling, to much better effect. Where you have on-street parking, would it not make more sense to put a white line at the edge of the door-zone, making it clear to drivers/cyclists that you shouldn't be cycling there?

 

[Richard Mann]

So in both cases, having no cycle lane at all would be better, as most of the time cyclists will not use the lane anyway.

Can you please explain "critical reaction strip" to me?

That's not correct. On Botley Road, most cyclists use the lane most of the time. On Barns Road it's a bit more mixed; when I went to look some were cycling in the lane, some roughly on the line. But it wasn't a comprehensive sample.

Critical Reaction Strip: comes from Dutch Guidance (CROW record 25, Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic, p159). Function: buffer space for the safety of cyclists near parked motor vehicles. Implementation: width of critical reaction strip 0.50 to 0.75m.

Of course the Dutch are generally combining it with wider cycle lanes (which they aren't supposed to pull out of), so faster cyclists are probably further away from the parked cars: in the usual implementation in the UK, the slow cyclists stay in the lane, and the fast cyclists pull out at their discretion. Which is practical if speed is controlled.

 

[Red Light]

As is so often the case they both seem to put you in the 'door zone', forcing you to pull out of the lane, which to my mind is a dangerous manoeuvre. An inexperienced cyclist might feel they have to remain within the lane.

Worse than that, if you are new to cycling you get to think cycling that close to cars in normal and expected and do it everywhere else. If you want a cycle lane there there should be a big no-cycling area marked out for the door zone on the road and a cycle lane that clearly goes outside of it to educate new cyclists (and motorists following them) of the need to beware of parked car doors.

But Richard makes a very good case as to why you don't need them at all in either of those places. Why bother with them if your expectation is that cyclists will pull out of them into the road?

 

[Richard Mann]

If it were not there, it would have resulted in no accidents at all

Well maybe. The cyclist would probably have been too close to the car regardless of the presence of the cycle lane.

However, if the cycle lane was moved further away from the cars, the accident probably wouldn't have happened.

There are far more severe problems with dooring at locations where there's no bay. Addressing those is a higher priority.