Cyclists and pedestrians should be given priority at roadworks – even if it delays motorists and takes up road space, says roadworks commissioner; Autumn leaf-covered cycle lane or gravel route?; Reclaim the Bike Path + more on the live blog

eburtthebike wrote:

"CYCLISTS DISMOUNT AND PROCEED WITH CAUTION"

Has anyone tried that, by walking along the middle of the road wheeling your bike at a cautious 2mph?

No, I just move the illegal sign out of the way.

Cugel wrote:

Good to see that leaf-clearer "being the change you want to happen". There's too much "I want my rights and immediately, never mind the costs to the someone else I want to provide them" these days.

Well, you should count yourself timeless.  You can read folks complaining about "people nowadays are so selfish and just want it all done for them" back about as far as there's been writing (certainly a couple of millenia)!

Often it's pretty simple to separate the sooth sufferer from the scammer.  "I want to be able to drive everywhere and then leave my car right there!" is selfish (although now expected).  "I want to be able to use a path, like normal people with legs do - but not having them I'm happy to use a wheelchair / trike ('cos otherwise I'd have to drag myself along the ground, wouldn't I?)" isn't really.

On the leaves - I'm a bit mixed on this, the notion of community-minded independent folks banding together on public works for their own benefit and others' is attractive.  I think though I fall on the side of "probably should be council, like the roads and indeed footways".

Although if we suddenly said "do you drive?  Over to you to maintain the roads!  We reckon you could set up a Facebook group or something..." that might shake things up a bit.

I think there is a specific leaf issue with cycling.  It's where we put the cycling-places.  Cycle lanes collect leaves, cycle paths and cycle lanes are often right under or by trees.  Councils clearly find cleaning cycle lanes tricky so many tend not to and it really doesn't feel particularly pleasant clearing cycle lanes yourself as traffic passes!

chrisonatrike wrote:

On the leaves - I'm a bit mixed on this, the notion of community-minded independent folks banding together on public works for their own benefit and others' is attractive.  I think though I fall on the side of "probably should be council, like the roads and indeed footways".

I think there is a specific leaf issue with cycling.  It's where we put the cycling-places.  Cycle lanes collect leaves, cycle paths and cycle lanes are often right under or by trees.  Councils clearly find cleaning cycle lanes tricky so many tend not to and it really doesn't feel particularly pleasant clearing cycle lanes yourself as traffic passes!

The thing about leaves falling off trees is that they don't do it on one single day but rather over several days and sometimes several weeks. In practice, a council would have to clear leafed-over paths many times per autumn. Costly, that. Let the cyclists buy suitable tyres instead; or go more carefully.

And where do we draw the line? I walked and cycled thousands of miles on the canal footpath near where I used to live, over about 30 years. The Canal & Riverside Trust didn't make the muddy, snowly, leafy and otherwise not-pristine for walking and cycling parts all neat and tidy - and nor did anyone expect them to.  (Well, there were actually a cpuple who did - moan, moan, moan).  Humans already bugger about far too much with the environment, paving paradise etc..

Nor did the council have dozens of litter pickers cleaning the detritus from the miles and miles of footpaths about the place.  I did that, as did others. When a passerby (after chucking some of their own litter) remarked that, "The council should do that", my standard reply was, "Are you willing for your rates to go up £20 a year to pay for the staff?" No, they weren't. Nor to pick up the litter they complained about (after making some themselves before my very eyes).

The disabled?  I'm all for making life easier for them and everyone else - up to a point. That point doesn't include an infinite budget nor the despoliation of the natural world just to enable all humans to go about utterly unimpeded by the slightest impediment, discomfort or difficulty. Paradise really is paved over, with hardly anything you can see left in a natural state. If its not humans its the bluddy sheep and coos! 

Cugel wrote:

The thing about leaves falling off trees is that they don't do it on one single day but rather over several days and sometimes several weeks. In practice, a council would have to clear leafed-over paths many times per autumn. Costly, that. Let the cyclists buy suitable tyres instead; or go more carefully.

EDIT - actually - what's wrong with a council clearing the leaves, say, twice instead of once?  Or indeed - even once, in many places?  I'm not seeing calls for a leaves hotline ("get us on the blower!") with sweepers summoned out in the middle of the night...

I'm guessing if they clear the snow in winter (like they might not have to again, so they could clear leaves instead?), and it comes back, they don't say "sorry, we did clear the snow once though!  Maybe just wait until spring then drive?"

Now I expected more independent thought.  What's wrong with installing cacti, or evergreen trees?  Couldn't we start an intensive breeding program for leaf-retaining flora?

Cugel wrote:

... The Canal & Riverside Trust ...

Aargh!  The Scottish Play!  Beetlejuice!  In the context of cycling they're almost like mentioning a "top lawyer and safety expert"!

Cugel wrote:

(where do you draw the line) ... Paradise really is paved over, with hardly anything you can see left in a natural state. If its not humans its the bluddy sheep and coos! 

Well ... I hear the argument.  I don't think you have to be a buddhist or a philosopher to see that there isn't a principled "just do this one thing, and we'll be happy evermore" point.  (And getting older we're probably more prone to say "that's enough!  I've never needed it...")

I also incline towards seeking the rough and unfinished, away from all those other sticky humans ... except I realise that I can't do that completely - in fact that's probably 0.001% of my existence.  I couldn't hunt my own bike or grow my own tyres.

I'm pretty sure I was just suggesting:
 - not making crap inaccessible gates which don't actually prevent what they're supposed to very well
 - and maybe improving / maintaining the stuff we already built a bit better
 - and as elsewhere, that because people are "lazy", or can't do stuff others can (or think they ought to be able to), and do whatever everyone else does, and do things they think make them look cool ... that we should build cycle infra that panders to those wants (while stealthily reducing driving convenience just a bit and repurposing some road space for active travel).

... but anything could be the thin end of the comfort-wedge (collecting cash for capitalists).

I think the line for me is to ask for things which would not actually cost most much, and might actually benefit them also.

chrisonatrike wrote:

I think the line for me is to ask for things which would not actually cost most much, and might actually benefit them also.

A sensible conclusion .... yet it still begs the question: What are those things?  You'll get a thousand different answers.

As to the gate that started the thread - well, make it better without stimulating some worse consequences (the hoolies and despoliaters getting access). Are there better methods of arranging/preventing various kinds of access? Probably - but even those will cost. Even just uprooting the gate and taking it away will cost the coonsill a significant amount per gate.

£20 per year on everyones' rates it is then!  Perhaps there'll be an exemption for poor ole pensioners like moi, especially as I only ride on the nice roads?

Perhaps we can take the money off old-age pensions?

I'd say your comments have just blown in from the 1970s, @Cugel.

Councils manage to sweep and clear one kind of public highway, so they can add 1-2% to their budget to road sweeping budget to sweep and clear the other kinds of public highway that require it; it's simply a matter of policy, will and reviewing distorted priorities.

Funding - Council funding has been slashed by English and Scottish Governments, not by local authorities (not sure re:Wales). In Scotland it was frozen in cash terms for 9 years. In England local councils have had funding cut in nearly half since 2010.

So of course a substantial boost is needed, as I argued for in a recent survey by Notts CC where their highest proposal was still well below inflation due to Central Government imposed controls. A third world quality public realm is not good enough.

The Canal and River Trust are an organisation in hock to Chocolate Box Fairy Stories, rather than public facilities the public can actually use. Tow paths were more accessible 100 years ago, when they allowed for two boat horses to pass each other.

I find your attitude to disabled people shocking. Why do you think it is OK deliberately, and illegally since at least 1995 (Disability Discrimination Act), to discriminate in provision of services to people who pay their taxes, and contribute to society? Why is it OK to prevent people using wheelchairs having access to local parks? Do we want them to be locked up in their homes like a distributed 1950s hospital-prison?Why is it OK to prevent people with prams or mobility scooters using public footpaths in towns, forcing the people who *need* the support into roads to get round pavement parked vehicles?

Your objections ('concrete over the countrside', 'too much money' etc) are red herrings. No one is suggesting a wheelchair path up Striding Edge, however the current issue is overwhelmingly barriers on already-metalled accessible pathways, or established surfaces such as former railways or towpaths (at least where the CRT hasn't dug them up).

mattw wrote:

Councils manage to sweep and clear one kind of public highway, so they can add 1-2% to their budget to road sweeping budget to sweep and clear the other kinds of public highway that require it; it's simply a matter of policy, will and reviewing distorted priorities.

If only it was so simple. Those 1-2%s add up. Moreover, 1-2% spending on this means 1-2% less spending on that. So, as I keep mentioning, it all comes down to deciding priorities rather than planting a few more magic money trees. This is an unpleasant utilitarian but unavoidable process of all schemes involving budgets and the associated acountancy.

mattw wrote:

A third world quality public realm is not good enough.

But its increasingly what we have. Ignore reality for wishful thunks if you like but we all have to go further than just wishing to make something actually happen. Will you pay more tax?  (I will, gladly; and I'll keep "picking up the litter").

mattw wrote:

The Canal and River Trust are an organisation in hock to Chocolate Box Fairy Stories, rather than public facilities the public can actually use. Tow paths were more accessible 100 years ago, when they allowed for two boat horses to pass each other.

I disagree. I've spend hundreds of hours walking on canal footpaths over decades and observed all sorts of events thereupon. Where the paths have been tarmacked over, there also tends to be severe cutting back or eradication of surrounding flora "to make it easier to maintain". I'd prefer canal footpaths to be part of nature rather than yet another strip of urban wasteland. And the nuisance I found most irksome on these tarmacked wastelands was .... bluddy inconsiderate cyclists doing 20+ mph!

mattw wrote:

I find your attitude to disabled people shocking. Why do you think it is OK deliberately, and illegally since at least 1995 (Disability Discrimination Act), to discriminate in provision of services to people who pay their taxes, and contribute to society? Why is it OK to prevent people using wheelchairs having access to local parks? Do we want them to be locked up in their homes like a distributed 1950s hospital-prison?Why is it OK to prevent people with prams or mobility scooters using public footpaths in towns, forcing the people who *need* the support into roads to get round pavement parked vehicles?

Steady on, old ranter!  I don't recall making a case for pavement parking or other restrictions to anyone using town pavements for the intended purposes - nor advocating restrictions deliberately wrought for the sole purpose of keeping disabled people from accessing paths. 

Here is your problem, I feel - a parochial and blinkered view of this issue that assumes these barriers are a deliberate attempt to restrict the disabled rather than a perhaps less than ideal attempt to restrict other damaging and dangerous accesses. You should, I feel, consider a much wider perspective.

If you feel the gates discriminate against the disabled unnecessarily then propose another better solution - but one without causing even more harm, even to the disabled now going down those paths who will, like everyone else, be subject to yobs and their various antics with motorbikes, 4-wheeled drives and the like if you merely remove access controls completely. And one that's affordable, even if that means paying more rates yourself.

mattw wrote:

Your objections ('concrete over the countrside', 'too much money' etc) are red herrings. No one is suggesting a wheelchair path up Striding Edge, however the current issue is overwhelmingly barriers on already-metalled accessible pathways, or established surfaces such as former railways or towpaths (at least where the CRT hasn't dug them up).

You might feel that everywhere should be concreted or tarmacked over to enable every access desire of every single human to absolutely everywhere but personally I feel this is a real and present danger to the natural world as a whole, including the humans.

Are we to concrete-path all the footpaths throughout the countryside, up the fells, in the forests, through the fields so that we don't prevent a wheelchair user from going wherever anyone walking can go? In your scheme of rights this would be "fair". in mine in would be highly damaging to the opportunities of everyone to continue having some of the natural world unsullied by human artifice and the elimination of vast swathes of fauna & flora, many down to extinction levels. 

Its always tempting to employ former human-degraded sites such as old railway lines into another form of human degraded "service". Personally I think that letting such places go back to nature is a far better option, even it it does mean some unfortunate folk can't easily get in there.

All of us are denied all sorts of services because of circumstances.  Where is my local theatre or cinema out here in West Wales?  Must I travel all the way to Cardiff!!? Why does the NHS not pay to provide me with rejuvenation services so I don't have to suffer the rots of age? How come they don't stop it raining when I go out so I don't have to buy an expensive waterproof? Is no one going to give me all the lessons, no matter the cost, so I can play the classical guitar competantly before I die?

But I suppose you're even more shocked now that some cruel blighter has denied the possibility of your utopia. Personally, I find a degree of stoicism is a necessary adoption if one is not to get all depressed about how far, far away utopia is. Meanwhile, small improvements here and there can be made .... but don't expect the rest of the world to drop everything else to help with and pay you for them. Although sometimes they might.

Autumn happens every year, it should not be a surprise that certain cycle paths will
need sweeping during the month of October. The councils should not be caught sleeping on this. Do you you think people in the Netherlands would find that acceptable?

As far as I can tell, North Somerset council sends out the leaf picker-uppers once a year, in September ish.  This is so they pick up as many leaves as they can in one go before the next season drops...

(edit) ...so you have a nice mulch building up on their cycle paths through the rest of the year.  Makes a hill I regularly use, "interesting".

Cugel wrote:

Good if a council has the wherewithal to clear a leafy cycle path periodically but many councils are now broke ....... and there are others who perhaps need council dosh rather more than some cyclists feeling a bit wary about "leaves on the line path"..

It's always a dodgy argument to say that "there are others who perhaps need the money more"; there will always be others who may have (depending on opinion and perspective) a better right to funds, but the logical conclusion of that would be all money going to a particular cause and none being spent on anything else, it would be like the NHS suddenly deciding that cancer is the worst disease so all funds are going that way and everybody else will just have to put up with whatever ails them. It really isn't too much to ask that councils should keep the highways clear, including cycle paths. We shouldn't get sucked into this Tory lie that "there isn't any money for that sort of thing". Bill Bryson was very good on it, something like (excuse errors, from memory), "When I first came to England in the 70s we were in the midst of a financial crisis, we had the three day week, power cuts, strikes, rampant inflation, goodness knows what, but we still had roundabouts with daffodils on them. Now we are told that we can't have roundabouts with daffodils on them because there isn't any money to plant them. If we had the money back then we have the money now." The only reason councils don't have the money is because successive governments have refused to levy taxes at anything like an appropriate level, don't fall for the "stop moaning about it because other people need that money more than you" line, that's just legitimising the failure to raise sufficient funds for all the requirements of a decent society in favour of giving as many breaks as possible to those who have far more than everybody else anyway.

Rendel Harris wrote:

Cugel wrote:

Good if a council has the wherewithal to clear a leafy cycle path periodically but many councils are now broke ....... and there are others who perhaps need council dosh rather more than some cyclists feeling a bit wary about "leaves on the line path"..

It's always a dodgy argument to say that "there are others who perhaps need the money more"; there will always be others who may have (depending on opinion and perspective) a better right to funds, but the logical conclusion of that would be all money going to a particular cause and none being spent on anything else, it would be like the NHS suddenly deciding that cancer is the worst disease so all funds are going that way and everybody else will just have to put up with whatever ails them. It really isn't too much to ask that councils should keep the highways clear, including cycle paths. We shouldn't get sucked into this Tory lie that "there isn't any money for that sort of thing". Bill Bryson was very good on it, something like (excuse errors, from memory), "When I first came to England in the 70s we were in the midst of a financial crisis, we had the three day week, power cuts, strikes, rampant inflation, goodness knows what, but we still had roundabouts with daffodils on them. Now we are told that we can't have roundabouts with daffodils on them because there isn't any money to plant them. If we had the money back then we have the money now." The only reason councils don't have the money is because successive governments have refused to levy taxes at anything like an appropriate level, don't fall for the "stop moaning about it because other people need that money more than you" line, that's just legitimising the failure to raise sufficient funds for all the requirements of a decent society in favour of giving as many breaks as possible to those who have far more than everybody else anyway.

All good points but still trumped by the incontrovertible fact that government money + rates collected is a finite sum.

And as for the NHS - a vast amount of money is currently spent on all sorts of costs incurred that need not be if various people stopped living lives of self-indulgence, self-abuse and self-neglect. This is true of many public services, where money is spent in large amounts to cater to those who demand vast rights but perform no duties themselves to help reduce their demands and their costs.

This isn't to say that we should stereotype various groups as all worthless and not deserving of various aids and comforts from the public purse. But there has to be a practical line drawn somewhere if there's no infinite purse. To draw the line requires hard choices about who will fall on which side of it.

Like you, perhaps, I'd prefer to have far more in the way of public services (and far less of the private not-services-at-all). I'd happily pay another 10p in the pound income tax if the dosh was spent on much better publice services. But there'd still be a limit to the size of the coffers and therefore a limit to what public services (and their levels) could be afforded. The problem of the cut-off line for spending on this or that therefore still remains and always will.

We'll all tend to have different priorities we'd like to see applied in public purse spending. Personally I'm leery of catering to those who want every possible facility, no matter how small, without any regard to other needs of other folk. (Prime example: motorists). Despite being a regular cyclist, I can think of a hundred things local authorities would be better spending money on than lots of badly designed half-arsed shared paths that often go nowhere much that anyone wants to go.

By all means improve active travel facilities in heavily populated places where its possible to do so without it costing £10million per mile, cutting down trees or even knocking down houses. I'd prefer to see such encouragemnt by the simple means of discouraging cars as per LTN; and a much more draconian ULEZ arrangement. It would cost nearly nowt and involve no need for vast new infrastructure for vast costs, financial and otherwise.

In short, so-called cycling infrastructure is a needless distraction because the problem is far too many cars - a much larger problem than just putting cyclists off going on the roads. Cycling infrastructure does nothing to solve the too-many-cars problems, which seriously damage a thousand times more folk than just we cyclists.

Cugel wrote:

And as for the NHS - a vast amount of money is currently spent on all sorts of costs incurred that need not be if various people stopped living lives of self-indulgence, self-abuse and self-neglect. This is true of many public services, where money is spent in large amounts to cater to those who demand vast rights but perform no duties themselves to help reduce their demands and their costs.

I sincerely apologise.  In my defense, although I only went to the doctor twice in the last decade and the hospital once, I could maybe have gone less.  Or rather, gone to the doctor more, and gone to hospital less...

As you say - it's about setting priorities.

I think we could spend a little less on the roads, and (like Scotland has done) direct say 10% towards active travel?  (Yes, Scotland needs to be showing a bit more for it...)

I do agree that the problem is the popularity of this driving lark.  I'm just not seeing likely strategies of persuading us all different which don't involve some lures in the form of e.g. cycle space.  (Cycling or walking can also tick some of those NHS and social service spending reduction boxes...).

I'd agree that we can utilise the side benefits of LTN and ULEZ to try to make cases for change.  Unless you made LTNs like what their naysayers are trying to suggest and everywhere I don't think that would seriously drive down motoring.  Also without also "priming the pump" with initial extra spending on alternatives - public transport and active travel - the task would be harder AND you'd miss opportunities to push AND pull people out of the car.

I think the recent ULEZ expansion in London (not informed on others) works because it's largely codifying an existing situation.  Original London ULEZ region was AFAIK in a region with some of the most comprehensive public transport in the country.

I was imagining you might have some entertaining novel ideas for the motoring excess, like declaring an open season on the species.

I think you need to check up on the actual cost of mobility on mobility infrastructure.

It's really very cheap by comparison.

Example: Notts County Council are currently spending £45 million on fixing ONE traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road.

That is about the same as the money spent in one year on the entire Nottingham Tram System, which carries around 15 millions passengers per annum. And that is only so high because the just built 2nd line to extend the system was a PFI project.

For a comparison, all of the money spent on cycling initiatives in London per annum in recent years has been around £150 million a year, which is a fleabite for the results delivered. Just 5.5% of the TFL tarnsport budget.

mattw wrote:

I think you need to check up on the actual cost of mobility on mobility infrastructure.

It's really very cheap by comparison.

Example: Notts County Council are currently spending £45 million on fixing ONE traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road.

That is about the same as the money spent in one year on the entire Nottingham Tram System, which carries around 15 millions passengers per annum. And that is only so high because the just built 2nd line to extend the system was a PFI project.

For a comparison, all of the money spent on cycling initiatives in London per annum in recent years has been around £150 million a year, which is a fleabite for the results delivered. Just 5.5% of the TFL tarnsport budget.

Lobby the coonsill for a change of priorities, then. Ranting at me won't achieve owt.  Of course, you'll have to overcome an enormous inertia of extant practics, including mad assumptions about the importance of cars and all sorts of corrupt practices with the money. I suppose we could arrange a revolution .... but you know what they say: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

I'm trying to imagine your own utopian preference but all I can see is endless ribbons of tarmac and concrete everywhere with various humans in machines going up and down them for reasons I can't grasp. To the sides are dead run-over beasts, with those still alive fruitlessly searching through the mud-patched brown grass for summick to eat and a hole to live in.

I once spent over 4 hours clearing an 18" (0.5 m) wide path through the snow on 0.6 miles (1 km) of a multi-use path that is part of my commutes. The city and the park district do nothing. It wasn't a net time savings for me, just good exercise. My other choices were to trudge the bike through it each day, probably plus ten minutes each direction, or take my bypass route that involves busy roads and more distance.

Every time I used it after clearing the path, there was at least one person walking in my handiwork.

andystow wrote:

I once spent over 4 hours clearing an 18" (0.5 m) wide path through the snow on 0.6 miles (1 km) of a multi-use path that is part of my commutes. The city and the park district do nothing. It wasn't a net time savings for me, just good exercise. My other choices were to trudge the bike through it each day, probably plus ten minutes each direction, or take my bypass route that involves busy roads and more distance.

Every time I used it after clearing the path, there was at least one person walking in my handiwork.

I offers my admiration at your getup&go. Also the recognition, from doing similar stuff, that there's a great deal of pleasure from having one's smug-meter hit the max-stop. 

The feeling from doing stuff like this that I enjoy the most is a feeling of ownership. If I pick the litter, clean a path or perform any other such regular improve-it task, somehow this provides a visceral connection to the place. I did come to regard about 15 miles of the Lancaster Canal as mine, with the associated pride of ownership as well as the feeling of being embedded in that place.

Nowadays I own even longer stretches of the forest tracks in Fforest Brechfa. Me smug meter is broke.

Excellent work.

Dave McCraw used to have a video of him clearing his route with an improvised bike snowplough. (He took his site down a while back though). I think it would only scratch the surface it your example however!