Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)
  • Chris Boardman asks "Who are cycle lanes for?"
  • bikey
    Free Member

    It looks like Chris Boardman is taking the message to the politicians and decision makers:

    http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/campaigning/article/cam20130212-Chris-Boardman-asks–Who-are-cycle-lanes-for—0

    IanMunro
    Free Member

    Nicely sums up the problem with them.

    BlobOnAStick
    Full Member

    A perfect summary that. A story repeated again and again and again in every town in every county across the country.

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    Junkyard
    Free Member

    aye he is right

    It is almost never easier, simpler and safer to use the cycle lane

    as for roundabouts they just turn you into a pedestrian to cross them when at least on the road they still have to give way to you if you are on their right

    clearly designed by folk who do not cycle

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    Round my way they’re mainly for pedestrians to walk in, vans to park in and road signs to be placed in.

    project
    Free Member

    The road in question is Arrowe park road, which passes the major hospital on the wirral, arrowe park, a private hospital and the only crematorium and a large cemetry, so if your injured on this road, hospital or crematorium for you.

    Its a stupidly designed set of not connected cycle lanes, that stop for a new entrance to a drs surgery, and mini roundabout, that alos links into route 56 of the national cycle network.

    Another new bit of cycle lane near bidston station, one i sugested a few years ago has just been built, strangely they left a sign post pilar in the middle of it.

    Camera will be out and about this weekend.

    fourbanger
    Free Member

    Chris Boardman is bang-on when it comes to his views on cycle safety. Good job he’ll be putting them in front of the government.

    bigyinn
    Free Member

    Clearly those lanes are designed to remove the cyclist from the mix of road traffic, not to make their journey safer or quicker. I can pretty much guarantee no normal cyclist is going to ride the bits on the pavement.

    fourbanger
    Free Member

    Those lanes are designed to fulfil a requirement for x amount of cycle lane infrastructure development by local authority.

    IanW
    Free Member

    Couldn’t agree more and it’s nice to think we have someone in the know delivering the message. I still can’t see what the solution is though?
    Driver awareness maybe, not sure that would get more people felling safe and seeing cycling as an option.

    samuri
    Free Member

    Judging from that, I reckon I could take him.

    That means his gold medal is mine.

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    Good video. Let’s hope some politicians do something useful for cyclists.

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    I’d like to get the guy who designs and maintains Nottingham’s cycle lanes to ride into work with me one morning, just to see how poor some of it is. Can’t wait to see what the new tram will do for it, and god help us when HS2 bulldozes through the edge of the city.

    I would add that some parts aren’t too bad, which kind of highlights the shockingly poor state of the rest.

    I was especially pleased the other week when – on the only half decent stretch of the shared use path on Woodside Road – a lamp post appeared in the middle of the cylists “half” of the pavement sometime between my ride in and my ride home. A road bike can get past it, trendy wide MTB bars will not.

    CaptJon
    Free Member

    MoreCashThanDash – Member
    I’d like to get the guy who designs

    Design suggests deliberate thought with a specific aim.

    DezB
    Free Member

    This looks promising. Being a glass half empty kinda chap, I suspect it will go nowhere.
    share your poor cycle lane pictures and videos.

    Tomorrow, I will take the route I don’t normally go to get video evidence of one of the most ridiculous cycle lanes I know of. I’ll share it with them. It will probably make me late for work and I might have an accident because of it – I will have to share my route with schoolkids ambling their way to school. It is really very dangerous, but to make a point, I’ll do it!

    edhornby
    Full Member

    councils are targeted on number of miles so the long stretches where you can run the paint van unhindered are the bits where the

    what really boils my p1ss is that drivers push right over to the right hand side of the carriageway when there isn’t a bike lane and then drive on the friggin line and in the lane when there is one… aarrrrgghhhh

    so you know that it’s not safe to go on the right hand side without them because you’re head on to the oncoming traffic and in the door zone on the other side – or with them you are getting kerbed in the bike lane or tboned when the drivers don’t see you because you aren’t in the bike lane [/rant]

    enfht
    Free Member

    There’s one issue that’s really muddying the water when it comes to public opinion towards cyclists, and it’s those annoyingly idiotic roadie group rides who cycle two or three abreast at a leisurely pace chatting amongst themselves whilst pointedly ignoring the inevitable queue of cars built up behind them. Made worse by garish man-leotards, big padded bollocks and what appear to be tap shoes when they dismount for the inevitable fisty cuffs.

    And red light jumpers.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Yeah, that’s all nice and relevant, enfht 🙄

    iamroughrider
    Free Member

    interesting video.

    Drac
    Full Member

    jfletch
    Free Member

    My particular favourite is the cycle lane on the road from Hope to Hathersage. Nice wide road with a good cycle lane but no real need for it as the road is so wide, then every time the road narrows the lane disappears. F’ing pointless!

    In fact it’s worse than pointless as the car drivers get complacent as they don’t have to worry about bikes on the wide bits so forget there might be a bike sharing their bit of the road just round the corner.

    igm
    Full Member

    The answer to Mr Boardman’s question would appear to be drivers judging from that clip.

    kcr
    Free Member

    My favourite; Gogar Roundabout:

    Just beyond the 40 sign is what used to be a signed cycle path running across 6 lanes of the one of the busiest roads in Edinburgh, the main city bypass. A bit like playing Frogger, for anyone daft enough to try it.

    It was such a stupid route that I see they have now removed the cycle path signage.

    Excellent video by Boardman. The thing that most struck me about Dutch cycle paths was that they go directly to where you want to get to, following the same route as the roads, with none of the convoluted detours, kerb hopping and junction crossing that you get in UK “cycle routes”. They are designed to transport people, with no compromises.

    Marin
    Free Member

    I’ll be riding round that mini roundabout tomorrow and ignoring the cycle lane. Most on Wirral and Liverpool are rubbish and full of parked cars. Our council is rubbish and probably meeting targets. Still it’s bloomin cold so won’t be too muddy through the park tomorrow.

    brooess
    Free Member

    There’s one issue that’s really muddying the water when it comes to public opinion towards cyclists, and it’s those annoyingly idiotic roadie group rides who cycle two or three abreast at a leisurely pace chatting amongst themselves whilst pointedly ignoring the inevitable queue of cars built up behind them. Made worse by garish man-leotards, big padded bollocks and what appear to be tap shoes when they dismount for the inevitable fisty cuffs.

    Red light jumpers yes. ^^ no. We ride in groups for a number of reasons:
    1. Efficiency
    2. Safety

    It’s how club rides were ridden in the decades before cars became mass usage. Why should it change now?

    MrOvershoot
    Full Member

    TBH I often cycle Arrowe park road and apart from the stupid traffic lights by the Arrowe Park inn/pub I don’t think about the road layout as I’m just about on my last legs by then.
    Actually last year I rode with Chris the wrong way down the footpath on that road!

    aracer
    Free Member

    There’s a great library of examples, these are my favourites

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-month/June2011.htm

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-month/September2007.htm

    The latter is also my favourite, so I thought it worth putting the image up on the thread for those who can’t be bothered following links:

    dazzlingboy
    Full Member

    ^^^^ that kind of s**t drives me nuts. Just barking.

    andyl
    Free Member

    how about making giant elevated clear tunnels for bikes?

    A bit like this:

    That would be pretty cool to cycle along in and no getting wet so less reason for people to not cycle.

    Okay, ignore the cost for now…

    igm
    Full Member

    Nice, Andy, nice. These a prototype at the SECC from the station to the centre itself.

    oldbloke
    Free Member

    My favourite; Gogar Roundabout:

    Just beyond the 40 sign is what used to be a signed cycle path running across 6 lanes of the one of the busiest roads in Edinburgh, the main city bypass. A bit like playing Frogger, for anyone daft enough to try it.

    It was such a stupid route that I see they have now removed the cycle path signage.

    They changed the layout there when they changed the roundabout. City’s cycling officer admitted around 2004/5 they had failed to consider cyclists in the re-design and could offer no credible alternative route.

    alex222
    Free Member

    This is the most tupid cycle lane ever. That photo is the full length of it; Near what is now Tesco’s extra (the Beehive) at the bottom of Far Lane Wisewood.

    Here is another view of it so you can see the full extent of it’s worth.

    joao3v16
    Free Member

    Cycle lanes exist purely so that morons motorists can carry on driving around not paying proper attention to other traffic.

    They’re also an excellent way of reinforcing the “them” and “us” mentality, and gives justification to morons motorists who say “cyclists shouldn’t be on the roads”.

    They’re also there so that councils can tick off one of their “sustainability” targets so that their budgets aren’t cut for the next year.

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    they had failed to consider cyclists in the re-design

    Has he been sacked? If not why not?

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    The answer to Mr Boardman’s question would appear to be drivers judging from that clip.

    I suspect that was rather his point.

    I think I have a mancrush on Chris Boardman. For a public figure and “celebrity” he speaks a great deal of quite remarkable sense. (Almost makes me wish I’d bought one of his bikes… but.. Halfords..)

    I firmly believe that good, well-designed cycle lanes are a fantastic way to get people cycling.

    But sadly such things are practically non-existent in many areas, and instead we get these convoluted routes that exist purely to get cyclists out of the way of the cars.

    stilltortoise
    Free Member

    …and instead we get these convoluted routes that exist purely to get cyclists out of the way of the cars.

    Take the convolution out of it and this is not necessarily a bad thing. My bro’ lived in an out-of-town part of mid-Sweden. The cycle lanes into the nearest town were superb, taking the direct line through some beautiful countryside rather than sharing the roads. My missus even said she enjoyed cycling when it was like that, which is some result 🙂

    crispy
    Free Member

    Do we need cycle lanes at all? Would all the money that was being used to create physical cycle lanes on roads be better spent instead on driver (and cyclist) education?

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Completely agree stilltortoise and I’ve banged on numerous times about how lovely my traffic-free segregated ride to work is.

    But the difference is motivation.

    Cycle lanes should exist to provide safe usable direct routes for cyclists.

    But the motivation behind many of them seems to be to steer us to the side, out of the way of “real traffic”, with no real thought to whether the resulting route is actually usable or even safer.

    uwe-r
    Free Member

    All they serve to do is sheppard you off the road and out of the way turning you in to a quasi pedestrian. I ignore large sections of this on my commute as it would be a massive pita.

    Where they are on the road they are useless as the road is perfectly wide enough, when the road gets to narrow they just disappear – pointless.

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