The alleged lack of infrastructure for cycling and pedestrians in Bristol has led one presumably fed up cyclist to set up a Twitter account highlighting the issue.
Like oil and water, cyclists and pedestrians shouldn't mix, both punished to favour car centric culture. Bristol's cycling infrastructure is the result of bad planning, illogically disjointed schemes designed purely for show rather than practicality. #bristol #shitfrastructure
— Bristol Shit Cycling Infrastructure (@shitfrastructur) April 17, 2018
Bristol Shit Cycling Infrastructure, with the Twitter handle @shitfrastructure, has been posting frequent photos and retweeting others to show examples of badly planned cycle lanes and motorists blocking the paths. The account admin describes the page as "a showcase of terribly shit cycling & pedestrian infrastructure (abused by motorists) in the city of Bristol, once (allegedly) the UK cycling capital."
New public realm in the centre next to the cenotaph. Pedestrians on the cycle path that is not clearly marked. Cyclist pushed onto pedestrian area. A complete failure. #bristol #shitfrastructure pic.twitter.com/uYghEhO09z
— Bristol Shit Cycling Infrastructure (@shitfrastructur) April 19, 2018
Another day another lorry parked in the cycle lanes on Baldwin Street. 8.45 this morning. pic.twitter.com/sB6bx6tkR5
— Chris Percival (@sprintstar) April 24, 2018
Numerous posts show vehicles, often delivery vans, blocking access for cyclists and pedestrians, such as the example on Baldwin Street above. And another post (below) shows that the council's solution was to place a concrete block on the Baldwin Street cycle path in question to deter lorries parking on it, leading to further Twitter derision.
Looks like a temporary solution has been put in place this morning. pic.twitter.com/uX0gDPVcht
— Matthew Pick (@MatthewPick1) April 26, 2018
The page didn't go unnoticed on road.cc's forum, and it's just the latest in a line of numerous social media pages, blogs and even books dedicated to poor cycling infrastructure around the UK; one of the best examples being the long-running website Warrington Cycle Campaign, which has been posting monthly examples of bad bike lanes nationwide since 2001.
After cobbling together a few hundred quid during his student days off the back of a hard winter selling hats (long story), Jack bought his first road bike at the age of 20 and has been hooked ever since. He was Staff Writer at 220 Triathlon magazine for two years before joining road.cc in 2017, and reports on all things tech as well as editing the road.cc live blog. He is also the news editor of our electric-powered sister site eBikeTips. Jack's preferred events are time trials, sportives, triathlons and pogo sticking (the latter being another long story), and on Sunday afternoons he can often be found on an M5 service station indulging in his favourite post-race meal of 20 chicken nuggets, a sausage roll, caramel shortbread and a large strawberry milkshake.