[Hirsute]

At the in laws and when shopping by car (yeah, I know). Drove over walton bridge to find myself held up by cyclists !
The thing is the bridge is quite new and the shared pavement is not only very wide but also very smooth.
There seems no reason not to use it apart from ‘I don’t have to’ which is not very compelling in this situation.
I just thought it was an interesting perspective that I rarely get.

Topic

[Anonymous]

Unless its infrastructure in

Unless its infrastructure in my local town/city there’s very little chance that I’m going to make use of off-road facilities that I have no knowledge of where they go to.

The chances of ending up on half decent, not even good quality infrastructure is about 0.01% such is the box ticking exercise that constitutes cycling infrastructure in the UK.

This piecemeal approach to provision achieves absolutely nothing, yet costs a fortune. I actually think in many instances it would be cheaper to provide dutch/danish standard infra than the crap our local councils sign off, on a far too regular basis.

[Prosper0]

Basically chap. It’s

Basically chap. It’s absolutely none of your business, so why are you having this conversation? There was a group of people in front of you enjoying themselves, breaking no laws or rules. End of. Learn some patience. 

If you see an adult walking down the street wearing a Hello Kitty jumper, do you log onto a Hello Kitty appreciation forum to ask why adults wear Hello Kitty jumpers? Grow up. 
 

 

[Gary's bike channel]

 

 

 

https://rate-driver.co.uk/HG09FOJ

[Gary's bike channel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCL5UfCKJuYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuIuvXWZYOYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yPpLJyaH5k

any of these three should surely show the problem. You can’t stick bicycles on pavements and call it a cycle path/ lane. It was designed for 3-5 mph walking, not up to 30 mph cycling. They need to- forget putting pedestrians with bicycles. Forget putting bicycles with motor traffic. Build an entirely new route for bicycles only. Wwide enough for bikes to ride side by side and to pass eachother.  Give you priority over junctions and pedestrians. Put lights in for cyclists to stop to allow peds to cross, just how you would on the road. No speed bumps allowed, no bus stops, no lamp posts, no dropped kerbs. No gravel no twigs, no debri for punctures, no head on collisions with angry old people. That is what we want and need. If they havent got the money to do that then simply get rid of all the shared paths and make people ride on the road only. Drivers will have to accept that it just isnt their domain any more. The rise of helmet cams will help and already is doing. What is not helping is idiot councils trying to say theyve made more cycle routes when all theyve done is converted pedestrian walkways into ”cycle lanes”.

The parralel of this i have shouted at a motorist, she beeped at me for passing another rider when i was doing 30 mph. She had nowhere to go but to the back of the traffic queue. She told me GET IN THE CYCLE LANE. Me, being smart, told her’; get on the bus, stop causing congestion.”’    She was of course, causing congestion, as the sole occupant of the car, she was only then driving at 2 miles per hour in a 40 zone, whereas i was holding 30 mph. That is a faster speed than her. So she is actually in MY way, not the other way around, thus if she wants to play it that way, i will tell her to use the bus. She doesnt even pay tax to drive on the road!

https://rate-driver.co.uk/HG09FOJ

 

[Gary's bike channel]

          

          

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9TC76MC6OA

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/16610340.watch-silly-cycle-lanes-captured-camera-cyclists-calls-better-system/

[Gary's bike channel]

we have one in upton, poole.

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. 

[Simon E]

hirsute wrote:

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.

[mdavidford]

Even when a piece of

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.

[Nick T]

The problem with bullshit

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 

[ktache]

When they finally start to

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.

[Awavey]

the roundabout end looks like

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

[Nick T]

I’m not exactly sure what

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?

[hawkinspeter]

Personally, I don’t use many

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.

[Hirsute]

Perhaps cyclists should adapt
Perhaps cyclists should adapt a better mindset where the infrastructure looks better than normal.

It seems posters, a priori know the cycle lane will be crap.

[mdavidford]

But how can you tell that

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.

[Author]

Replies