The bane of any cyclist’s journey on two wheels is a blocked cycle lane, forcing riders onto pavements or unexpectedly into traffic, creating unexpected danger for all road users.
Last February, Bexley Borough Council dismissed concerns that a segregated cycle lane outside a primary school was blocked by parked cars on the school run by arguing “it’s only twice a day”, i.e. when commuters and pupils are most likely to want to use it.
Then, in November 2024, we reported on the inquest into the death of 16-year-old Rhys Shepherd who was killed by a bus driver when he was forced to ride on the pavement and into the driver’s blind spot when cars blocked a cycle lane in Grimsby. He was cycling to his first day of college.
Thankfully, councillors in Gloucester have acknowledged the issue of blocked cycle lanes and have begun proposing alternatives. Their best solution? Free parking.
Gloucester City Council’s Local Democracy Reporter reports the suggestion is the latest proposal as part of the council’s efforts to overhaul its current parking scheme. The other proposal is the attempt to introduce overnight parking charges to deter vehicles from blocking the cycle lane in the long term.
The free parking would be short-term, with the latest council committee meeting proposing a grace period of 10-20 minutes. The “pitstop” proposal is specifically aimed at tackling cycle lane blocking on Southgate Street, by encouraging drivers to park away from the unsegregated cycle lane. Screenshots captured on Google Streetview show the bike lane being consistently blocked by cars over the past decade.
“As a non-car driver and a cyclist, it is the bane of my life, the people who park on Southgate Street and block that cycle lane,” Cllr Karen James said in a recent committee meeting.
“It is dangerous. Especially when we are trying to encourage people to come through into the main cycle lane where it comes down towards The Cross.
“People parking and delivering to those shops just block the whole of the cycle lane and you are having to go out around them constantly.”
Cllr Andrew Gravells added that the problem was “lethal” and appeared to be caused by drivers parked across the cycle lane overnight, disputing another councillor’s claim that the lane blocking was was “allowed early in the morning.”
The pitstop proposal was suggested by Cllr Liam Harris, who said “there are quite a lot of people who park on the road by the takeaways and vape shops,” and argued “a quick pit stop, a free period that would allow people to park and pop in very quickly into town for free,” could solve the issue.
“Either for deliveries to shops or customers, say if you want to go into town because you want to just pick something up or need to go to the bank for say ten minutes.”
Possible locations for the pitstop parking spaces would be near the Spalite hotel and Southgate Moorings, though no timescale has been specified for when these changes could be introduced. However the willingness to address the issue of cycle infrastructure is an improvement on the historic approach taken by the wider local authority.
In 2021, Gloucestershire County Council received less than a tenth of the funding they bid for from central government for infrastructure spending after its cycleway proposal was deemed “inadequate” for its “poor and indirect provision at junctions” and an overall design that “does not adequately address the issue of motor vehicle dominance.”
11 thoughts on “Free 20-minute parking “pitstop” proposed to solve “lethal” problem of drivers “constantly” blocking cycle lane”
Those cycle lanes look less than 1m wide, so are worse than nothing. I would not cycle in them.
The parked cars have the advantage of forcing people to take primary position.
Agree entirely!
Agree. When I looked at the photo my first thought was ‘where is the cycle lane – is that the wrong photo?’
Have to agree with HarrogateSpa – those cycle lanes look like the definition of murderstrips and cyclists are better off not using them. Being impossible to use (because they are blocked by parked cars) is probably actually helpful – it is a bold (but perfectly correct) cyclist who would choose to wilfully ignore the cycle lane and take primary position.
Other comments:
It’s pretty ironic of the council to complain about people parking in the cycle lane when the cycle lane is also interrupted by actual marked parking bays. It’s not magically safer for cyclists to have to leave the cycle lane just because the cars are parked in a marked bay. (Not suggesting it would be better if those marked bays were removed – as per the above, it might even be worse. Just pointing out the flawed logic).
If the cars are parked illegally (it’s a bit unclear if/when parking, and/or loading, is actually prohibited), then have the council considered simply enforcing the rules? If it’s a specific short stretch of road, enforcement can be easily and effectively done by camera. If the cars aren’t parked illegally, then changing that would be a good place to start.
The dashed gutter strips were probably just painted as visual method of (motor) traffic calming. So half-hearted, there seem to be hardly any bicycle logos or signs. Opencyclemap shows only one short section of it.
They are so narrow that cars need to block the pavement as well, so as not to block the driving lane!
I didn’t actually realise the picture at the top included the ‘cycle lanes’ in any way. Agreed that any cycle lane broken up by parking bays is worse than no cycle lane – risk of swerving out in to the road and/or being boxed in mean that type of cycle lane should not be used and that people cycling should take the lane as if there wasn’t any ‘provision’ at all.
What happens when the pit stop spaces are full, or they’re not 30cm away from where the driver wants to go? Sadly can’t see it making much of a difference.
I mean, what do we expect them to do. Walk? Now that would be crazy. I had to go into the road with my two boys in a pram because some twat had parked completely blocking the pavement outside the school. When I gave them daggers they threw up their arms as if to say “what am I supposed to do, I can’t park in the road and block that”.
You’re supposed to park 20m further down the fucking road you lazy bellend.
When Sydney council installed bike lanes the Lord Mayor ordered the parking inspectors to crack down on on this. I rarely saw vehicles in them.
Let’s face it, as far as drivers are concerned the ‘grace period’ has been in operation for the last half a century or more.
Given the obvious inadequacy of the bike lanes in that photo, wouldn’t the easier and better solution be to just lower the speed limit on the road to 15 mph ?