Mothers! A buggy blockade

brooksby wrote:

Bmblbzzz wrote:

Is Pero’s bridge actually shared use? Perhaps it is, but in that case, it’s crazy. Way too narrow to ride a bike over except at the very quietest times. Or do I mean way too busy? Comes to the same thing; too crowded. 

Yes it is: you can see the blue roundel on the post to the left, on streetview.

Its also on one of the councils signposted routes so people can avoid cycling on the Centre.

Yes, its narrow and can be crowded but it’s on my desired line/route and the council has said its a cycle route so who am I to argue…?

If you think that’s narrow, try this: https://goo.gl/maps/jPzukY9rHMKSiSS59

It’s on a major shared use route route. The bridge is marked “cyclists dismount”, but people rarely do.

Bmblbzzz wrote:

Is Pero’s bridge actually shared use? Perhaps it is, but in that case, it’s crazy. Way too narrow to ride a bike over except at the very quietest times. Or do I mean way too busy? Comes to the same thing; too crowded. 

Yes it is: you can see the blue roundel on the post to the left, on streetview.

Its also on one of the councils signposted routes so people can avoid cycling on the Centre.

Yes, its narrow and can be crowded but it’s on my desired line/route and the council has said its a cycle route so who am I to argue…?

Luca Patrono wrote:

I hate to further a tangent but comments like this irritate me. There are issues within feminism, as within all movements, and attempting to paint people as insecure failures because these issues may bother them is a horrendous strategy. ( I have personal experience with what happens when feminism stops being about female equality and becomes about misandry and pursuing advantage for one’s gender, and comments like this hit a nerve.)

Please don’t be irritated – you said it yourself – if feminism becomes something else (such as misandry) then it isn’t feminism, and therefore previous comments do not apply .   I’d be interested to know what issues, if any,  within feminism itself you have a problem with?

stomec wrote:

stomec wrote:

Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:

stomec wrote:

a4th wrote:

A lot of very depressing comments on this post. Hadn’t realised that so many of you were closet Daily Mail readers just looking for a chance to feel oppressed by the nasty feminists out there. 

It stems from a profound insecurity – no halfway successful, confident man is ever going to be threatened by female equality.

Exactly.  

 

My word!  There is obviously hope for humanity yet…

I hate to further a tangent but comments like this irritate me. There are issues within feminism, as within all movements, and attempting to paint people as insecure failures because these issues may bother them is a horrendous strategy.

( I have personal experience with what happens when feminism stops being about female equality and becomes about misandry and pursuing advantage for one’s gender, and comments like this hit a nerve.)

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Expanding on the theme, I’d say it also divides by class.  there’s a difference between the potty-mouthed and angry but obviously stressed-out-by-circumstances counci-estate-dwelling mum (who constantly disproves the claim of middle-class-American feminists that ‘women don’t use the c-word’), and the hyper-bourgie weilder of what I have come to think of as ‘Dulwich chariots’ (when did push chairs start being built like Panzers?)

 

And both are just one of many groups of less-than-perfectly-behaved throughfare-users.

 

  See also the joggers who seem to think if there were to ever break step or deviate one inch to left or right they’d have to go back to the beginning and start their run all over again.  And the scroffulous youth who cycle at speed along pavements.  Or their more dangerous older brethen who ride mopeds on footpaths.  Both of whom will stop and aggressively ask what you are looking at if you dare to so much as scowl at their anti-social behaviour.   Being terribly brave for people who are scared of the roads.

Oh, and the mobility-scooter riders who seem to be practicing for a career as Formula One race car drivers.

Not to mention the mobile-phone zombie pedestrians (I’ve doubtless been a member of that tribe myself on many occasions), and of course the little kiddies on scooters who follow the rule book issued to young children everywhere that starts with ‘under no circumstances should you ever look where you are going’.

 

Main point is that none of these tribees (except maybe the moped riders) are worthy of a response any stronger than an eye-roll.   As long as they aren’t in a car they are just part of life’s rich pagaent.  

Dulwich Chariots are not in the same KSI league as Chelsea Tractors.

You’ve left out the worst ones – nut shufflers

stomec wrote:

a4th wrote:

A lot of very depressing comments on this post. Hadn’t realised that so many of you were closet Daily Mail readers just looking for a chance to feel oppressed by the nasty feminists out there. 

It stems from a profound insecurity – no halfway successful, confident man is ever going to be threatened by female equality.

Exactly.  

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

But it’s hard to distinguish between entitlement and the pusher just being stressed and knackered – and the real problem is the use of shared-use paths in high-traffic routes.

Agreed.

In too many cases, council officers seem to think that if they put up ‘shared-use’ signs then it’ll all be fine and everyone will muddle along.

They don’t seem to consider that if they make an area shared-use which actually sits on a desire line for cycle commuters then they can end up with a lot more cycle traffic than they’d anticipated, which leads to conflict (and some serious resentment by the pedestrians).

Example, because all know that anecdotal examples are just as good as real data:

https://goo.gl/maps/CpMtUiSrxz65V4sV7

Pero’s Bridge, central Bristol.  Shared-use.  Desire line for both pedestrians and cyclists.  Teensy bit of conflict there…  I’ve actually been shoulder barged to a stop by a pedestrian who thought I should be walking my bike across (as opposed to riding my bike on a shared-use bridge which is part of the city’s cycle network  ).

bivvy wrote:

bivvy wrote:

But my point was the OP missed that he likely came over worse than he thought he did. Had he really been cheerful I believe they would have moved over willingly and been friendly. I explained why, please read my comment again. In many of my passes I have analyzed on shared paths, I noticed the tone of voice is crucial if shouting out. And even if we think we are “trying” to sound friendly it’s hard to disguise what we are really thinking in our voice. Women esp. pick this up. I mentioned nothing about feminism that was another comment, I think you are confusing the two. Feminism does not come into this as far as I am concerned.

I don’t think that’s true, it seems both niave (about how much many pedestrians resent the presence of cyclists on shared-use paths) and also annoyingly unfalsifiable – you can always retrospectively claim there was some secret message present in someone’s tone.

I think there’s possibly a little bit of breeder-entitlement involved.  Some push-chair pushers seem to treat the things as battering rams, very much including with regard to other pedestrians, given the times I’ve been whacked on the ankles by them as a pedestrian.

 I’m surprised they don’t just stick rotating knives on the wheels and have done with it.

  But it’s hard to distinguish between entitlement and the pusher just being stressed and knackered – and the real problem is the use of shared-use paths in high-traffic routes.