Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Why Don't Cyclists Use Cycle Lanes?

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

Add new comment

18 comments

Avatar
jh27 | 4 years ago
0 likes

At the end there is someone on a bicycle and they are in the cycle lane.  That cycle lane works fairly we as a guide to the door zone - and quite nicely marks off the area you'd want to avoid cycling in.

Avatar
Judge dreadful | 4 years ago
0 likes

There’s an advisory speed limit of “fast walking pace” whatever the hell that means, in a cycle lane. Unless the road is choc a bloc jammed up with traffic, the road is really the only sensible option for most cyclists, trying to make any sort of decent progress. Add the dog shit, broken glass, idiots walking in them with headphones in, and possibly walking a dog, and the case against riding in a cycle lane becomes stronger.

Avatar
jh27 replied to Judge dreadful | 4 years ago
0 likes

Judge dreadful wrote:

There’s an advisory speed limit of “fast walking pace” whatever the hell that means, in a cycle lane.

Where are you geting that from? There was an advisory limit of 18 mph on shared use paths. There's no such thing on cycle lanes.

Avatar
Mungecrundle | 4 years ago
3 likes

You could just leave the elderly people in the road. Over time, more elderly people would trip over them and gradually accrete into a protective barrier between road and cycle path.

Avatar
Paul5f | 4 years ago
1 like

There should be a law that says a bike path can only be labelled as such if it it separate from the road and not to be used by pedestrians (and dogs). All cycle paths around here are either 1, a white line painted  50cm away from the curb so you are riding through the debris at the side of the road and over the grids, 2, a pavement with a bike symbol painted on the floor so you have to share it with pedestrians which is downright dangerous if you ride at more than 5mph, 3, a gravel path at the side of a park or green space and is shared with numerous dogs and their owners. 

 

To to be fair there is one decent bike path but it starts on the edge of a town and goes alongside an A road into the middle of nowhere so no one uses it, but it is a fine example of what a bike path should be. 

 

I never use bike paths because they are more dangerous than the roads

Avatar
ktache | 4 years ago
0 likes

srchar, some of that one looks quite alright, there are some armadillos ? not just paint, rights continuing at junctions, not that that is going to make any difference.  You are right about the parked cars.

When you go on the streetview, if you turn to the right and keep going, you go back in time to before the route.  Spooky.

Avatar
srchar replied to ktache | 4 years ago
3 likes

ktache wrote:

srchar, some of that one looks quite alright, there are some armadillos ? not just paint, rights continuing at junctions, not that that is going to make any difference.  You are right about the parked cars.

Apparently they are called "orcas" - there is a local campaign to have them removed as elderly people keep tripping up over them.  I'd just paint them in hi viz, or replace them with poles.  The orcas that is, not the elderly people.

 

Avatar
Mybike | 4 years ago
1 like

It Toronto Canada we don't have to ride in the designated bike lanes if we don't want to We can share the road with the cars.

Avatar
armb replied to Mybike | 4 years ago
3 likes

Mybike wrote:

It Toronto Canada we don't have to ride in the designated bike lanes if we don't want to We can share the road with the cars.

Legally, so can UK cyclists. Cycle lanes with a solid line are "mandatory" in law, but that means motor vehicle must stay out of them, not that cyclists have to stay inside them.

The problem is that many drivers don't know, or don't care.

Avatar
srchar | 4 years ago
2 likes

For a great example of how to a) waste a relatively large investment in cycling infrastructure and b) give impatient drivers another stick with which to beat people who ride bikes, check out the stretch of bike path on Green Lanes between the A406 and Enfield.

Not grade separated from the pavement, therefore being used as an extension of it? Check

Passes between the bus shelter and the road at most bus stops? Check

Situated between pavement and parked cars? Check.  This one is perhaps the most ludicrous feature, as not only are you open to being doored from the right, but you are almost entirely invisible to cars turning across the lane into the side streets, and cars emerging from side streets have to block the cycle lane in order to see around parked cars: https://goo.gl/maps/7ppKVkHB8hD2

It was safer when there was no dediated infrastructure and the road was much wider.

Avatar
Hirsute | 5 years ago
1 like

Came across this absurdity today in Dover https://goo.gl/maps/bE7Zmd8RBoz
The lane continues with a marked car lane that is not wide enough for a car.
And it's national cycle route 1.

Avatar
BIGWATTS replied to Hirsute | 4 years ago
2 likes
hirsute wrote:

Came across this absurdity today in Dover https://goo.gl/maps/bE7Zmd8RBoz
The lane continues with a marked car lane that is not wide enough for a car.
And it's national cycle route 1.

I'd argue that this is actually quite a good piece of cycle lane. In the HWC, cars are allowed to drive in a cycle lane with broken white line only when there are no cycles in the lane, so this effectively gives the cyclist some 'protection' (ha) at the pinch point. I say this with a pinch of salt, of course, as cycle lanes in this country are mostly useless, or at least frustratingly convoluted or badly thought out.
If you look at the road markings on smaller roads in the Netherlands where cars and bikes share the road, there is no central white line, but rather two (wide) cycle lanes. When two cars travelling in opposite directions pass, they must enter the cycle lanes. Sounds odd, but is beneficial in many ways, including reducing driving speeds as the road looks narrower.

You can see here what I'm talking about - the red surface is bike lane.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/1pJfB

Avatar
Cupov | 5 years ago
0 likes

Police could make a fortune there

Avatar
Tommytrucker | 5 years ago
4 likes

Road.cc, I think you've fixed most of the bugs on your site now, just one more to go. You may have inadvertently turned on the sarcasm filter.

Avatar
Hirsute | 5 years ago
1 like

How do you know there is a cycle symbol under all those cars? ;

Avatar
cycle.london replied to Hirsute | 5 years ago
2 likes

hirsute wrote:

How do you know there is a cycle symbol under all those cars? ;

1. I live here and know that road very well.

2.  I wasn't aware there had to be a cycle symbol along the entire length of the cycle lane

Avatar
Legs_Eleven_Wor... replied to cycle.london | 5 years ago
1 like

cycle.london wrote:

hirsute wrote:

How do you know there is a cycle symbol under all those cars? ;

1. I live here and know that road very well.

2.  I wasn't aware there had to be a cycle symbol along the entire length of the cycle lane

There doesn't.  He's talking shit.  

Avatar
Hirsute replied to cycle.london | 5 years ago
2 likes
cycle.london wrote:

hirsute wrote:

How do you know there is a cycle symbol under all those cars? ;

1. I live here and know that road very well.

2.  I wasn't aware there had to be a cycle symbol along the entire length of the cycle lane

Sorry the emoticon was too subtle.

Latest Comments