Thoughtful cycling provision?

[redjedi]

I think the point people are making is, that you are being dragged off the road only to re-join it 20 yards later?

No-one who is already on the road is going to use it, so it's a waste of time.

 

[Arch]

Anyway back to the cycle lane in the picture - okay, I hadn't worked out that that's the start of the lane not the end of a section but my point still remains that British cyclists are too ready to whinge when they don't realise how lucky they are.

My interpretation of the picture is that the designers are simply saying: Here's where the bit starts where you have a right to ride. You don't have a right to ride outside the marked area.

How lucky we are? Lucky, that someone thought, I know, let's get them to divert from a perfectly good road, into an area where pedestrians will wander at will, and then off again, for no reason other than it makes our end of year target look good? Oh, and it'll make the motorists happy, because we're getting them pesky bikes off the road for a few yards.

Come on, it's like that crap Micky Mouse bubble bath and soap on a rope set you get from a distant auntie at Christmas, when you're 28. Nice thought, but really, why bother?

 

[Globalti]

Well yes, you're right of course. It's just the incessant moaning that gets me.

I have a climbing pal who is a PI insurer and he maintains that local authorities are the places where all the incompetent engineers get jobs when they can't get into a private firm. My experiences in dealing with Lancs CC and Ribble Valley BC have done nothing to prove him wrong.

 

[summerdays]

My main problem with this is ... someone spent reasonable sum of public money on it for no good reason ... though I do like how it rejoins the carriage way... why is there not a panel which looks at road design that has to include a cyclist on it, to get their point of view on how daft a redesign is?

 

[Globalti]

As Arch and others have pointed out, councils will paint lines in the stupidest places just so that they can claim to have created so many miles of cycle tracks. This is cheaper and quicker than creating real cycleways, remote from road traffic. Also I've long suspected that the company who makes the green, red, yellow, blue and white road marking paint must have an MP or Councillor or two on their board of directors.

 

[Arch]

Well yes, you're right of course. It's just the incessant moaning that gets me.

Alright then, specially for you, I've just had a superb holiday on my trike, and it was all lovely. In part we used a brilliant cycle track, 35 miles of it, smooth, clean, well signposted, ice cream kiosks every so often, or cafes only a few hundred yards off the track in villages. Admittedly it crossed roads everyso often, very minor ones, and the barriers were easily wide enough to get through on trikes.

Otherwise we were on quiet roads, and drivers gave us a hugely wide berth and waited to pass until it was safe, and people smiled and waved as we passed and wished us well. Even the horses in the fields didn't startle, they just stood and watched us go by.

Is that un-moany enough?

It was in France, mind you.

 

[gavintc]

The sign that I hate most; "Cyclists Dismount". Why? and What I am suposed to do once I have dismounted? What a complete waste of money.

 

[LLB]

But they obviously aren't considered road users, as they are shunted OFF the road, and back, for no discernable reason. The dashed line (the sloping one at the start I assume you mean) can't merely mark where the lane ceases to apply, as it's the beginning. Unless you have ridden onto the lane from the other end, in which case you must have either been riding on the pavement or riding against the flow of traffic.

Road engineers frequently direct cyclists to do all sorts of crap. Have you never seen the Warrington Cycle Campaign site? It's because most road engineers have very rarely ridden a bike since they were 10 years old.

We 'whine' because someone somewhere will have taken the cost of that paint and chalked it up as spent on cycling facilities, in order to meet a target, when it could have been more usefully spent on a dozen other things to help cyclists.

OMG, i'm in agreement with Arch again

 

[domtyler]

No. They're my own photos. Taken in Birmingham last night.

Can you prove that you took them last night?

 

[hubgearfreak]

You don't have a right to ride outside the marked area.

oh yes we do

 

[LLB]

The sign that I hate most; "Cyclists Dismount". Why? and What I am suposed to do once I have dismounted? What a complete waste of money.

Walk with it till the pedestrian area has finished. What boils my piss more than anything is 'cycle riders' treating the pavements and roads as one and the same.
If you know the difference between the two, you should be showing others the way. do a bit of people watching next time you are in one of these zones and see how people react when some knob comes blasting through there weaving in and out of the crowds

 

[jonesy]

As Arch and others have pointed out, councils will paint lines in the stupidest places just so that they can claim to have created so many miles of cycle tracks. This is cheaper and quicker than creating real cycleways, remote from road traffic. Also I've long suspected that the company who makes the green, red, yellow, blue and white road marking paint must have an MP or Councillor or two on their board of directors.

Unfortunately, as long as there are output based targets for something called 'cycle route' then lots of pointless lines is what we are going to get. Sadly the National Cycle Network has suffered very badly from this: lots of headline figures for the next X thousand miles of route, irrespective of quality, or usefulness or even proximity to people who might cycle.

I am curious as to why you think 'real cycleways' should be 'remote from traffic'. Given that roads tend to follow routes that people want to travel along, cycle routes that are remote from them tend not to be very useful.

 

[stoatsngroats]

IT looks to me like a dual carriageway, and the crossing - could it be a 'Toucan' crossing...? If it is, I think the entrance to the path from the road would make those who intend to cross the road use the crossing, rather than just cutting across the road....and then those who don't want to cross return to the road to be stopped by the lights if someone wants to cross.

I have to admit - the above is a guess, and even this seems very longwinded!

At the very least SOMEONE needs congratulating for the lovely 'Rejoin' section....!

 

[bonj2]

Why have you fallen for the bag of shite that is vista?
And firefox is better than IE by the way.

 

[LLB]

The picture is too blurred. Many pedestrianised areas are also cycle routes. take Birmingham. New Street to Centenary Square is almost all pedestrianised. It is all also marked on the cycling map as being a cycle route. Part of it also has traffic lights just for cyclists to join it from the main road.

The issue is more about the "blasting through" than the authority to cycle on it.

Have you got a copy of the Cheltenham cycling map? If you look at it, the pedestrianised part of the High Street is a marked cycle route.

It is also shown on their online map, but the signs to dismount are in these areas.

I assume that whilst they are encouraging cyclists to use the routes to save having to make a detour, they are also expecting us to dismount in this area as vehicular traffic apart from emergency vehicles are prohibited from using them. The same signage applies to the Promenade outside Cavendish House also

If I see the sign to dismount, I don't have a problem complying with it unless the place is totally empty.