Preston cyclists to get shared used path alongside A6

Sent an email and got a response which was you are getting the standard shared cycle lane. The response was from the Senior Cycling Officer, Sustainable Travel, Lancashire County Council and if this is the best he can up with I really thing he needs to change jobs!!!
Now when he says standard I would class it as minimum/absolute basic, and below what is needed for any cyclist of any standard,
I have responded to this and have not had a reply as of yet but will try again.
Went along the road the other day and they are on with it, as you can see from the pictures (if I can get them uploaded) the have widened the path by about 2 foot. So what was a wide foot path will now be a waste of space with loads of dangerous points for all users.
For me a waste of money and an insult to cyclists.

'we already have a brilliant cycle network - its called the roads. '

this, x1,000,000.

Just read the piece regarding painted cycle lanes on roads. I prefer this option over shared lanes, they also exist on part of the A59 Preston and are well adhered to by motorists in my experience and you have right of way at u junctions! I know it's not ideal but cheeper and in my opinion safer than shared cycle/ped lanes.

There is a shared route along the A59 Longton Preston which is not used by a lot of riders even though there is a national speed limit on road many prefer to mix it with the traffic because there are too many side roads poor path maintainance and no right of way for the cyclist meaning a stop start Journey, unfortunately drivers see the path and think it gives them the right to shout abuse or come very close if u dare use there road.

Shared routs work for people out for a gentle ride who don't mind stopping often but anyone wanting to make reasonable progress... Forget it!

There is a shared route along the A59 Longton Preston which is not used by a lot of riders even though there is a national speed limit on road many prefer to mix it with the traffic because there are too many side roads poor path maintainance and no right of way for the cyclist meaning a stop start Journey, unfortunately drivers see the path and think it gives them the right to shout abuse or come very close if u dare use there road.

Shared routs work for people out for a gentle ride who don't mind stopping often but anyone wanting to make reasonable progress... Forget it!

There is a shared route along the A59 Longton Preston which is not used by a lot of riders even though there is a national speed limit on road many prefer to mix it with the traffic because there are too many side roads poor path maintainance and no right of way for the cyclist meaning a stop start Journey, unfortunately drivers see the path and think it gives them the right to shout abuse or come very close if u dare use there road.

Shared routs work for people out for a gentle ride who don't mind stopping often but anyone wanting to make reasonable progress... Forget it!

This is exactly the sort of scheme we'd be vociferously opposing if it were Cambridge. As others have said- and as is Dutch practice- there's a time and a place for having combined pedestrian and cycling facilities, however that place is well out of town on inter-urban links where there's few pedestrians

Because they are cheap and traffic engineers dont give a toss about cyclists.

If shared use bike lanes are so bad (I prefer not to use them for all the reasons pointed out above) then how come councils think these are such a good idea? (Wakefield are building a new road near me and are installing a shared use path instead of a dedicated road. This is across a brown field site, so space to install dedicated infrastructure or have a road wide enough for a proper on road lane isn't an issue, this all comes down to cost). The only advantage I can see with this shared use lane is that my children will be able to use it, however it will spit them straight out onto junction 32 with the M62, at which point there is no infrastructure and I have near misses at least once a week, so they won't actually be able to get anywhere safely from this point, but at least they'll have a mile of cycle path they can ride up and down I suppose (at least until it gets clogged up with broken glass and dog shite).

As for painted lanes on the road, I really don't have an issue with them. Of the ones I use cars always give me adequate space, the only issues I ever have with them are when locals think that they are parking lanes so they don't have to walk the extra five yards from their actual parking space.

Surely adding a painted cycle lane on the road would be cheaper than widening the entire pavement as all this is going to do is make the road narrower and then frustrate car drivers as they now have few opportunities to safely overtake cyclists who refuse to use the paths.

When you mix bikes and peds

http://road.cc/content/news/140302-cambridge-mp-says-thoughtless-cyclist...

Has anyone else noticed that all very vocal opponents of cycling infrastructure know someone who was off work for months after a collision with a cyclist travelling at speed on a shared path.

I'm fairly sure that a collision this serious would be reported but strangely there never is any evidence.

And it's always a friend, a colleague, relative, bloke/woman down the street, a blind person, etc. ... it's never them! The story never goes "I was hit by a speeding cyclist!", if the story is ever in the first person it's always "I was nearly run over..."; "I was nearly killed...". I wonder why?

I use this road now and again and it is a nasty stretch. I'm general not too fussed about busy roads though and will use this streach.
A shared footpath here is an insult and stupid. there are quite a few pedestrians and the bus services are well used so, also some of the local residents are not the nicest so there will be loads of broken glass before you know, as well as a lot of ladies where there religious clothing (sorry but I don't know the name) so will have good vision seeing cyclist.
I've just looked on street view and most of the way there is loads of room for a proper cycle track where cyclist could have a proper right of way.
LCC just going for the cheapest option again!
now where is that box to tick!

I count thirteen junctions for cyclists to cross along this stretch: motors are supposed to defer to pedestrians but will they? And for cyclists?

My commute has sections of shared paths (2 metre and 3 metre) and segregated.

I find pedestrians are more likely to walk anywhere, but mostly prefer to walk at the side furthest away from the traffic even if that's the "cycling" bit. A white line and a slightly different sign makes no difference to them. If there is a group of them or they are emptying a dog, then again they'll use the widest section or away from the traffic.

Also if you do need to swap sides to avoid pedestrians, then the thick white line can be slippy in wet weather, so that's another minor reason for shared over segregated.

Shared works fine for me. I've never had any Mr Angry types moan at me.

The path surfaces I cycle on tend to be better than the roads which are horribly potholed and cracked from the wagons, and I can maintain a decent speed.

Sunderland council are just completing widening a section which will fill in a gap which was previously on-road though a supposedly 40 mph zone between a couple of roundabouts which was where I was almost ran off the road from behind 3 times in the last 3 months of 2014 by LGVs close passing with horns blasting.

So I'll take a reasonably wide quiet shared path over a busy single or dual carriageway at peak times any day thanks as it keeps me a lot safer

I live in Lancashire, not far from Preston. My experience of shared-use (and even dedicated cycle lanes) round here is that they are not swept or maintained so they have treacherous, broken surfaces covered in glass and rubbish; pedestrians walk line-abreast along them, absolutely refusing to make way for cyclists despite the painted pictures of bikes on the floor; dog walkers let their dogs wander about on extendable leads that act like trip wires across the cycle lane and then expect cyclists to take evasive action (vertical take-off?); they are not adequately lit; and there are a lot of right-angle turns that no bike could take at anything more than walking pace.

I never use them because they are a death trap to anyone not pootling along at 5mph on a mountain bike. I just have to put up with the odd shout that I should be on the cycle path.

Shared use paths are of no use to you if you want to go faster than about 15 mph... in fact general guidance is that you should be in the road if you want to go that fast.

If I were to ask a question about Flixton I'd email TfGM. They are responsible for the "quality" of all the schemes in Mcr, and also are responsible for the Carrington Lane junction, so you might get an answer from someone who knows the story.

Sorry to hijack this thread.....the Manchester Rd in Cheadle scheme is a great example of a good idea totally messed up by the local authority, in this case Stockport MBC.

Shared paths are OK as long as there are not too many pedestrians or too many cyclists, but sharing doesn't even come close to the problems with this scheme

The main problem is where they meet side roads, following the link and checking out the 1st three detailed plans, The solution appears to be a Cyclist Dismount sign, and then expect the cyclist to cross the road.
We all know that in theory turning traffic should stop for pedestrians (and dismounted cyclists) when they are turning. In practice it is probably one of the most dangerous points for the pedestrian.

The solution should have had as a minimum, a raised crossing point, clearly indication that cars should give way to crossing pedestrians and cyclists.

about to asked exactly the same question.....flixton out to carrington is a cluster feck of galactic proportions. that junction at the end is now a joke, it saddens me to say that this is pretty much the only lights i ignore and do my own thing as its safer.

I emailed the council to ask wtf they were thinking but never received a reply

The only shared use paths I know of that "work" (and I use the term loosely) are those on long stretches that roughly follow a major road (i.e. dual carriageway), and so are of such distance between useful junctions for pedestrians that very, very few people walk on them anyway.

So in other words they "work" for cyclists (don't have to keep conceding priority in the manner of a pedestrian), but don't work for pedestrians.

Which I think tells you all you need to know.

P.S. If we start thinking about the width of these paths and the state they are in (i.e. usually at least 50% overgrown, full of holes) then the "work" term degrades quite rapidly.

my commute has a shared use path, it works? in so much that very few people use it, however, from observation, it isn't lit and pedestrians are very hard to spot in the dark and no one likes being next to the main road.

Other shared use paths I know tend not to work because the traffic volumes are higher and the above observations still apply.

Fuck sake. My council recently installed exactly the same thing near me. Credit to them, they have the best of intentions, and it's certainly an improvement for the average "bloke on a bike off to work". But for someone who rides down the road alongside it at 25mph, it's a disaster, compounded by the idiots in cars who now seem to think I'm compelled to use what amounts to a wide pavement. That I should cede priority at every junction. And worse still, it has a large hidden dip near a manhole cover, at night it's completely black so if I hit it at 25mph I would be over the handlebars in an instant.

The best part? The new path leads to a road junction on which ONE POINT THREE MILLION POUNDS has just been spent - all to reduce a 5 minute delay to motorists.

Shared use paths are really the lowest form of cycle facility. They are only of any use if there's not a lot of side roads, if the surface is good and maintained (a recently installed one in Manchester is already full of broken glass and the council road sweepers cannot get on to sweep it) and if there's a decent level of segregation between peds and cyclists. 3m should be wide enough for a solid white line to segregate - as a ped its irritating having to move out the way for bikers, and when you're on your bike its equally irritating to have to slow and ding your bell/ask to squeeze by.

As a traffic engineer myself I despair though at the use of these things. Bicycles and pedestrians can often come into conflict (as the friendly Operations Manager at Preston Bus has seen, a bike and a pedestrian colliding can result in injury) - but still LA's think shared use is a good idea. Cars and pedestrians can also come into conflict so the default design is to segregate them, not have a shared ped/motor vehicle route. Why this blind spot when it comes to cycle facilities? It's because we have just become used to accepting that cycle facilities are inherently going to be a bit crap.