Getting used to new things can be difficult. Especially, it seems, when it involves motorists, parking, and newly installed cycling infrastructure. Or at least that was the case last week in Farnworth, where a lorry driver mistook a ‘rain garden’, separating a new bike lane from the road, for tarmac – and promptly got stuck.
The planters were installed last week on Bolton Road and Market Street in Farnworth, Greater Manchester, as part of Bolton Council’s Streets for All scheme, which aims to regenerate the town and make it more accessible for pedestrians and cyclists by improving cycle routes and footways, installing new pedestrian crossings, and adding more trees and green space.
The rain gardens, as well as providing physical protection from traffic for cyclists using the new cycle lanes thanks to their concrete edge, help to absorb rainwater which would normally sit on hard street surfaces without draining, while also creating “green pockets” in the town with biodiverse planting.
As part of the works, which were completed on 21 October, an array of shrubs, evergreens, grass, and ferns were planted alongside the bike lane, with several native trees set to follow.
The Streets for All scheme, despite the new rain gardens, have proved controversial in Farnworth, with one local politician describing the initiative as “near-universally despised by the public” following complaints from residents about ‘narrower’ streets and potential parking issues.
And it didn’t take long for the parking issue to rear its head last week, after a lorry driver got wedged in one of the rain gardens, a day after they were installed.
According to Paul Sanders, a former councillor for the Farnworth and Kearsley First Party, the driver believed that the strip of soils and plants was, in fact, tarmac as he apparently attempted to park on the pavement and cycle lane on Market Street, the main road through town.
“We had a bit of a ‘disaster’ on the first day of rain gardens at this spot on Market Street. The driver got stuck in the rain garden,” Sanders said.
“He said he thought it was tarmacked. He got quite animated and agitated – much to the amusement of pub-goers at The Freemasons.”
The beached driver was eventually able to extricate himself from the new infrastructure by kicking up a hefty amount of soil with his vehicle, leaving the bike lane and parts of the road caked in mud.
The lorry driver’s ill-fated encounter with a row of plants marked a rather inconspicuous start for Farnworth’s cycle lane rain gardens, which have attracted criticism from residents and business owners, who believe they’ll make life more difficult for motorists in the town. Especially if they keep mistaking them for the pavement, anyway.
“They’ve put all these cycle paths in that nobody uses. The ones near me are open and they don’t get used,” Amanda Jilkes told the Bolton News earlier this month. “The roads are definitely narrower – it’s just a waste of money isn’t it?”
“The lorry drivers can’t get down the road and they can’t get to places on time. And have you seen where people end up parking? They end up parking on the cycle lanes,” Floyd Unsworth rather prophetically added.
“It is too narrow. If a bus stops you can forget about getting round them.”
Kamal Gohel, who runs Appliance Outlet on Market Street, where the lorry driver got stuck, also said: “We’ve been here for 20 years, and as soon as the double yellows go in, that’s it.
“They haven’t given enough thought to deliveries. Bargain Booze, down the road, they come in a 20-foot lorry. If I park at the side, I’m getting a ticket, it’s frustrating.
“And look at our business, we’re not moving anything light or small. If someone wants to buy a fridge freezer what do I do with the customer? Do I say, ‘park in the church and we’ll wheel it round’? It’s going to be tough I think.”
“I drove along Market Street around 9am on Saturday morning and there were cars parked over the cycle lane bumper to bumper and over the dropped kerbs where the tactile paving is for anyone with a visual impairment,” another local wrote on Bolton News’ website.
“It must be an absolute nightmare for anyone using a wheelchair or mobility scooter and for anyone with a child in a pram. Hands up anyone who didn’t see this coming!”
However, not everyone in Farnworth is up in arms about the new active travel-friendly scheme.
“If we want people to leave their cars at home we must encourage them to use less polluting ways of travelling, that means, amongst other measures, providing safe cycling and walking routes,” said Tracy Grundy.
“The rain gardens will form a vital function in capturing surface rainwater and, if people don’t park on them, be planted with flowers.
“The driver must have known that it was not a tarmacked surface the moment the first wheel went onto it, if the driver didn’t then they were not driving with due care and attention. I hope that the council ensure that the driver pays for any damage done by their recklessness.”
Nevertheless, this isn’t the first time that Farnworth’s residents have voiced their discontent when it comes to the local authority’s £5m Streets for All project.
Last November, we reported that residents of Lord Street were unhappy that the new cycling infrastructure on Market Street had made their road a “rat run”, turning it into a “motorway”, with many locals taking to their local newspaper with complaints and claims about speeding drivers putting nursery children in danger and causing damage to parked cars in collisions.
“You’ll see car after car after car after car,” one local told the Bolton News at the time. “There’ll be seven or eight cars all speeding down because they’re trying to bypass Market Street. If a bus stops there, it will block the road completely, and then they’ll all start cutting through here. And they’re speeding – nobody is going at a respectful speed.
“If we – as people who live here – are trying to park, you’ll have one behind you and one behind you and they will not give you space to park. It’s always been a lovely, quiet street, but it’s become a main road since they’ve started all of these – these supposed improvements or whatever. Who owns a bike? Nobody has seen anybody use it at all.”
And in June, the Labour-run council pledged to review a “troubling” junction, at Gladstone Road, which motorists claimed had been made dangerous thanks to the new cycle lanes and bike-friendly crossings.
2 thoughts on ““Disaster” as lorry driver gets stuck in cycle lane planters… on first day of new ‘rain garden’”
Bloody cyclists.
The council pander to the lycra clad louts, giving them top class facilities and it all ends by hindering some poor lorry driver and prevents him from contributing to the economy.
Seems to me to have been pretty conspicuous, what with it being all over the local news and everything. Was someone making a rather fat-fingered attempt at ‘inauspicious’?