Use the Cycle Lane

Good details that I, as another frequent user, can agree with. A few additional points:

1. Traffic. I used to commute that way. Can confirm how it gets backed up all around there at peak. Spending periods stationary is of course just accepted as part and parcel of being a motorist - whereas get someone riding a bike in front of you, a few kph less than you want to go, but too fast for shared use, and oh how the whinging takes off!

2. Navigation. The track starts just north of Marshall’s roundabout. If you use it to get to New Zealand Avenue in Walton from there i.e. along the A244, you have 9 give ways to contend with, plus the lights, while going away from Walton, the same, including the busy, hazardous junction with Walton Lane as described by others. On the carriageway by contrast, you just have to sweep round the roundabouts having good sight lines (unlike the cycling give ways), giving way twice at the roundabout entrances and nowhere else.

The track disappears at Gaston Bridge Road and New Zealand Avenue, so is, at best 1 km long, i.e. 5 minutes of cycling at a 20kph potter. This is a small distance/time for a recreational ride, and with no other infra for miles, the sum of the potential breaks of pace/hazard points and it’s short distance make it simply not worthwhile for many to use.  Locals do use it with their handlebars laden with shopping bags from Walton Centre though.

3. Cyclists unwelcome everywhere! I have used it to get onto Walton Lane from the Shepperton side and been told by a pedestrian to use the road, when I was going slowly. So you can’t win.

hirsute wrote:

Next time I visit, I will put the bike on the roof and do some tests.

What do you expect to find? If you go with different expectations to those law-abiding people you saw what will it demonstrate?

Perhaps you would like to visit Shrewsbury. We have some really bitty, token stop-start infrastructure I can show you (i.e. mostly stretches of pavements that have been converted to shared paths) . During the lockdown the nicest stretch, which still forces the rider to stop/slow for several side roads, was busy with peds and a few cyclists and I resorted to riding on the road. Despite being a really nice surface, the bike 'lane' part is only wide enough for one cyclist and the ped 'lane' is just wide enough for 2 people walking (provided they remain alert and aware that bikes may approach from in front or behind, although many are not). All the new/born-again cyclists seem to have gone back into hibernation now.

In Autumn one section accumulates deep piles of beech leaves, which can be a death trap when wet and also hazardous if it freezes overnight. In windy weather there are often fallen branches that can flick up into the spokes and are difficut to spot in the dark.

This shared path also stops abruptly beside a 4-way junction. It's on NCR 81, which is the other side of the junction (at your own risk, no lights or priority for the rider, and IME only 1 of the 5 sets of lights will react to cycles approaching on the road).

On the fork I use frequently the cyclist is pushed onto the busy A-road for a mile to reach our estate (unless you want to ride illegally on the pavement).

And that is probably the least rubbish bit of paved cycle path in the whole area.

Perhaps we can ride along the narrow pavement on Smithfield Road with uneven slabs, lamp posts & signs and some huge trees that take up all but 4' of the whole thing. It's a nightmare to ride a bike there unless you have it to yourself. But there are 3 lanes of road beside it.

Shit infrastructure is a waste of money but what might seem to drivers as 'good' infrastructure is not much better.

yes, ones that are actually of benefit to cyclists and dont put extra obstacles in our way, its not a big ask really the dutch seem to cope building them, but in the UK there seems barely any thought that goes into them or how they link up or how you are supposed to ride them.

this bridge seems a classic example theres nothing repeating or reinforcing the message on that bridge that says hey cyclists you can actually ride on this pavement bit away from the awful traffic on the road, it just looks like a pavement

and the entry and exits look to be blink and you miss them from google maps,and if you missed them, thats it theres no other chance to get on them why isnt there at least a  10ft section of dropped kerb as you get on the bridge with a clear cycle lane indication directing you both on and off the the path safely ?

because of course even if you did use the path on the bridge what happens at the other end, well the path just stops, and then you have to get back on the road hoping for a gap big enough to cover you from a standing start, and not having to try a stage finish sprint effort to get back up to speed possibly crossing multiple lanes trying to get to where you want.

Perhaps, but it's not obvious from one side of the bridge what infrastructure awaits you at the other

Personally, I don't use many cycle lanes as I find the roads to be faster and more convenient. If I see a new bit of cycle infrastructure, I'd probably go past it a couple of times eyeing it up before making a deliberate effort to try it out and then subsequent use would depend on speed and convenience.

I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make here, that all cyclist should assume all shared paths and cycle infrastructure are adequate because you got marginally held up on a 400 yard long bridge once?

Even when a piece of infrastructure looks reasonable when you first encounter it, it usually turns out to have been poorly thought out, poorly maintained, or poorly cleaned. You're asking people to ignore all the evidence of their experience and set themselves up for disappointment and inconvenience the vast majority of the time. That's just not going to happen.

The best way to achieve that mindset shift would be to build more high quality infrastructure.

But how can you tell that from the point where you need to join it?

The problem is that when decent infrastructure is as rare as it is, unless you already know for sure that any given stretch isn't poorly maintained, full of gubbins, awkward to negotiate, going somewhere you didn't expect, etc., it makes sense to assume that it is and ignore it, because 98% of the time you'll be right.

the roundabout end looks like theres a dropped kerb,thats actually there to help pedestrians cross the road, maybe only a few bike lengths from the give way line, or you carry on around a bit further and use the next dropped kerb for pedestrians to cross the Walton Lane exit.

but is that Walton Lane crossing & pavement a shared path ? there are no signs it is till you end up opposite the petrol station.

so youll try and merge back in just ahead of the roundabout at that first pedestrain crossing point, but youd have to have come to a near stop to look back to find gap to fit into as you are effectively forcing your way back in to traffic, and need to make sure you arent going to get left hooked or swamped by vehicles if you take the A244 exit, and as its a mini roundabout and looks to have signs of a desire line across it, chances are youll drop back into traffic some BMW/Audi will just breeze past you using the extra space theres no penalty for them to use to squeeze by you on the exit

whereas how it could have been setup you take away the hatchings, move the vehicles over to the right on the exit & use the extra space to blend a protected cycle lane off the bridge much further back up the bridge and carry it through the roundabout, and put traffic light crossings in for the pedestrians.

that to me is the difference between just providing a space you can use and providing cycling infra that works and people will adopt to use in preference to staying on the road

we have one in upton, poole. I tried to join it at 10 mph but in the wet and i went up the semi dropped kerb, not the completely dropped one that it should have. Got it at too shallow an angle to bump up and came off the bike, scraping my skin off. Thats a ''shared path cycle lane''. Meant to be safer for cyclists, yet you try to join it and you crash. 

hirsute wrote:

Hmmmm Is there any cycle path that will satisfy the posters of roadcc ?

When they finally start to put the same level of thought and adherance to quality that they put into new by-passes, large junctions and motorways.

I'm with HP, if they are noticable and quality I might start thinking about using them if they provide me with some benifit, but it will take me a few rides past them to want to give them a go.  And if they mean constant halts, having to give way at juctions, being delayed at what are actually pedestrian crossings, changing sides of roads or even just seemingly pointless short stretches that seem like an sfterthought, then probably not.  Maybe if that stretch of road or particular junction terrified me.  But then that's the advantage.

We have been given such crap nfrastructure for so many years, we may have come to expect them.  The road generally has a better quality surface if nothing else.

The ones in Bracknell were alright as I remember, but lacked signposts and being below normal levels less abilities to locate yourself.

Same with the canals in Birmingham, wonderful way of getting about, but if you lack local knowledge you are riding blind.  With the road network it helps if you have local knowledge but there are easy ways of navigating, especially on the bigger roads.

We have seen from the objections to low traffic neighbouhoods that motorists want unhindered access to every tiny bit of the road network, they cannot stand being directed onto the larger through roads.

I love the NCN and have given to Sustrans for too long to even remember, but I'm glad I ride mountain bikes, and even some of my summer tyre chices for them are sometimes not quite enough.

On my route to and from the train station there is a section of cycle path over a bridge, no detour on the way to the station, but there might be pedestrians on it, and it throws me out at an entrance to a roundabout, for which I will have to give way, if I had stayed on the road, much less so.  But it can get me past a queue of traffic.  On the way home, to avoid the big roundabout and it's dangers, and from the angles it is, I will get off, press the beg button, cross the urban 4 lane racetrack, push the bike along a short stretch of pavement, observing motorist phone use, nice!, cross another small road and finally get on the bike on the bridge cycle route.Yes, hastle, but for me and my quick mental risk assesment, a benifit,  It is also bumpy paving slabs rather than the smooth road, could have pedestrians on it, white line seperates a pavement, and suffers from build up of ice on colder nights in the winter, it is a bridge therefore gets colder having air underneath and as if it would ever be gritted like the road is.

The problem with bullshit cycle provisions is the "advice" drivers feel entitled to give a cyclist who dares not use it. I'd much rather not cycle between parked cars and pavement, through the middle of bus stops and stopping for every junction because I've no way of knowing if the drivers expect to see me appear in front of them like this bit of path 

hirsute wrote:

Hmmmm Is there any cycle path that will satisfy the posters of roadcc ?

Yes, it's called THE ROAD.

These are the roads that we all pay for out of our taxes, including many people who don't even drive. Roads don't belong to car drivers.

Perhaps it would be more helpful to ask yourself why on earth you were so bothered about being 'delayed' by other road users.

Do you get this way every time you're moving slowly in a queue of traffic or when the lights on a pedestrian crossing go red because an annoying pedestrian wants to cross the road? Perhaps it would be more convenient for you if they played 'chicken' or waited half an hour for the road to be clear before crossing.