[Closed] Warning - Now they want to tarmac our Muddy Trails

ninfan - Member

"But the linked blog is about an old railway, not a hundreds of years old unsurfaced bridleway?"

No it's not, ithe blog discusses several routes, one of which is a bridleway that appears on old maps as a lane

Which one?

i have read the article, and agree with it completely.

more well-surfaced* traffic-free routes please, and yesterday.

(*tarmic is ok with me, but i don't mind compacted gravel-type-stuff, as it's less sketchy in winter)

Why? Out of interest? Genuinely, how would that be worse off if tarmaced? You'd be able to use road bikes, pushchairs and wheelchairs on it.

My concern with tarmacking paths like in your earlier picture, how suitable is tarmac going to be in later autumn and over winter? Your pics show full tree cover and side banking, the mud is there because it stays damp the whole season long. Without cars to scrub the surface the tarmac will be left very slippy, it wont be cleaned by the council will it. Yes many areas could be improved but there is a risk with tarmac in this type of loaction, especially in winter with ice (see the thread about riding on the road in winter, a sheltered track will be much worse for ice). It certainly does need something done to it tho, but as mentioned maintenance and proper preparation of the surface could make it useable all year round.

I know those lane comments were in jest, but... if it really is a lane, then presumably that means horses and carts once upon a time? And again not a countryside trail, but if provides a genuinely useful link between places that would get used if it had a better surface then why not surface it and open it up to cyclists as a viable non-road option?

Afterall, all you'd be doing otherwise is letting another lane fall into disuse bar a few walkers and the odd intrepid mud-loving cyclist.

If we ever want people to use more sustainable forms of transport and be less dependant on cars then there needs to be appropriate and accessible infrastructure.

Since we can't just throw all the cars off the road overnight, nor claim back even 30% of road space for cycling on all roads to facilitate it then decent surfaces on other routes are an option.

Throw in the fact that once humans are moving under their own steam they invariably will take the most direct and easiest route possible then that means that often existing roads are NOT where they want to be as even when totally traffic free they may not be the most direct route, which is precisely why so many old lanes and bridleways exist like this, because they take direct routes.

Old railways are another example of this as they will be mostly flat and straight between areas of population, perfect for conversion to cycling and walking routes, to not take advantage of them is madness.

I think getting hung up on tarmac is a bit of a mistake as well, decent surface doesn't have to be tarmac.

The point being that it needs to be suitable, ie: hard wearing, smooth, and clean. in a lot of situations tarmac is appropriate, but where it isn't other surfaces are available as an alternative.

But if we get to the stage where the only problem we have to deal with is routes being surfaced inappropriately that's a much easier problem to address than the current one of routes not being surfaced at all!

To be fair the tarmac will only be pristine for a couple of years then it will break up into more challenging terrain.

I'd think a hard pack surface - akin to the section from Bramber castle to Shoreham would be a better solution.

They might be better used if they were just maintained properly too...

Who's going to provide ongoing maintenance to a 40 mile path than runs through 2 counties and at least 4 different local authorities?

It would be cheaper, easier and more effective to surface it properly, and for this particular path (not every path, this specific one, which I know well) I think tarmac would be a great choice.

Without cars to scrub the surface the tarmac will be left very slippy, it wont be cleaned by the council will it

Mmm, interesting thought. I must say I was imagining something akin to the Bristol-Bath railway path, which is tarmaced, and similarly sheltered along its length, and yet doesn't seem to have any such issues. Not sure if they do anything special to protect it.

Which one?

Last example

Who would want this?

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or this...

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When they can have this?

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The first is in the Veluwe national park and the second is on an island just off the North coast of Holland. Not my pictures but I have similar of my family on the same two paths including my 75 year old parents, my young children and my wife's disabled mother on an electric bike. I have many many pictures in fact despite not living there. Funnily enough I have yet to persuade the same group of people to try the various bridleways near me and so though we live here, I omly have selfies and pictures of my muddy mates.

EDIT: also these trails go somewhere, lots of places in fact. So even in the rain with no special clothing other than a waterproof and mudguards one can cycle to the beach café or the pancake restaurant or the cinema or the pub or an art gallery or......and wander in without looking like a mudwrestler

Who's going to provide ongoing maintenance to a 40 mile path than runs through 2 counties and at least 4 different local authorities?

This is such a massive problem at the moment, there is no joined up thinking or planning from central government on transport unless it's motorway or high speed rail, and even then it's not that joined up!

It's really only charitable organisations that have made any attempt at a national network, or even intra-county, and that's a major problem for such small organisations with limited funds.

Even if we could get local governments and councils to plan and build properly it would be a start, at least then the national focus would be on linking things up, rather than starting from scratch, but we don't really have much to link at the moment as routes can be wildly differing on ones side of a town to the other, let alone between towns or counties!

Mmm, interesting thought. I must say I was imagining something akin to the Bristol-Bath railway path, which is tarmaced, and similarly sheltered along its length, and yet doesn't seem to have any such issues. Not sure if they do anything special to protect it.

A lot of minor maintenance on the NCN is done via volunteer rangers, and when not done by them, its reported by them to the local authority responsible when action is needed, and they then have a duty to act on it, even if that action is often lacking.

Also if the infrastructure was built and provided by local authority then they will and do maintain it, but the level of maintenance varies depending on what is actually required and what resource is available. There's a few sections round here that literalyl need nothing doing to them ever, and others, on the same route where obstructions are frequently removed, and maintenance crews are sent to clear debris (leaves, mud etc) when necessary.

This is why bits of the NCN around urban areas are often so much better, not only are the rangers more active on them to do minor work, but they report on it more regularly, and it's given more focus in populated areas by local authority, it's often smaller sections too, but then once you start moving outwards it's where it becomes trickier, less used, less frequently maintained, and less incentive to do so, and you end up with large chunks of totally inappropriate NCN.

For the specific path, perhaps they want to emulate the Cuckoo Trail, also in Sussex, part of route 21 and also an ex railway line. It joins towns, is flat, and is heavily used by commuters and families.

For the most part it is a tarmac-type material running alongside a compacted mud path (for horses and the gnar), the tarmac sort of disappears in more rural bits though. Deaf n blind dog walkers are more of a concern tbh.

I've no issue with unconnected poorly surfaced bits of path that you can cycle on. Like bridleways. Joining these up though and calling them a National Cycle Network gives a false impression of a, erm, national network of cycle paths that you can actually travel around the country on a normal bike.

Anyway, my local volunteers meeting is on the 17th and I'll be there.

ninfan - Member

Which one?

Last example

Can't see where it mentions Pedlers Way was ever a lane?

Kerves Lane is still very much a road (and horrible to cycle) and was where a guy was killed last week.

I've used Pedlers Way in the summer when I was working in Southwater and if it was a tarmaced path it'd be absolutely brilliant. But it's not, and it's not.

I must say I was imagining something akin to the Bristol-Bath railway path, which is tarmaced, and similarly sheltered along its length, and yet doesn't seem to have any such issues. Not sure if they do anything special to protect it.

Never had the pleasure of trying that path. Just my experience of sheltered paths and roads that dont get much/any traffic suggests they could get slippy, especially when you move to the side to pass/let someone pass. I imagine you could lay some sort of rougher surface under bridges etc.

How do surfaced tunnels compare (suppose the bit nearest the entrance is the most at risk of this) for anyone who uses them?

[img] [/img]

Bristol - Bath looks like this, this tunnel was always a bit wet - dripping and what not, rode it year round on a CX or road bike and never had any issues.

put me down as another local who thinks tarmac would be great on the Downs Link, I think it would really change a lot of people's habits and they'd use it for commuting.

Bit like the path to the side of the main road in Dorking, loads of cyclists use that.

I rode the Devon Coast to Coast earlier this year, lots of which is a tarmaced or well surfaced old railway line and it was great.

It was quite busy with families, kids, couples out cycling.

I can't see any disadvantage other than cost tbh?

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Who would want this?

I ride along one of the paths that's been ruined by tarmac every day - as do at least half a dozen other STWers. Can't say I've noticed it getting slippy except when it's icy and then virtually everything is slippy. It's a phenomenally pleasant and practical way of getting to work.

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Joni Mitchell is crying somewhere over these travesties.

lemonysam - do you ride any further west than newburn? thats not tarmac, and its very popular, and perfectly fine to ride on all year round. Infact the newburn ending (tarmac, east side) of the Hadrian track is pretty slippy in the sheltered bit if you stray off the line (to avoid the dog walkers).

do you ride any further west than newburn?

[s]Two [/s] Three of those photos of tarmac are west of newburn...

edit:

Infact the newburn ending (tarmac, east side) of the Hadrian track is pretty slippy in the sheltered bit if you stray off the line (to avoid the dog walkers).

I really like how several of the above photos of pristeen, unmuddy tarmac surfaced tracks, aren't actually, well, erm, tarmac 😆

It's almost as if it turns out you actually can create a robust, four season trail that's nice to ride without resorting to Tarmac...

several? I can see one, the small section of tarka trail and its an all weather surface. Lets not be stupid about this - tarmac/all weather surface is all the same thing as long as its not a muddy rutted track.

Personally, I think we should make the most of the naturally occuring resources to resurface the trail. In the case of the Downslink, that's bags of dog poo and empty lager cans

And badger baiters (as we 'met' on a night ride near Copsale a few years ago)

The first is in the Veluwe national park and the second is on an island just off the North coast of Holland.......also these trails go somewhere, lots of places in fact. So even in the rain with no special clothing other than a waterproof and mudguards one can cycle to the beach café or the pancake restaurant or the cinema or the pub

Much like Center Parcs* here..... where coincidentally just about everyone gets about on a bike, most of whom wouldn't dream of using a bike to get from A to B in the real world. I'm all for this tarmac

*I am aware Center Parcs is Dutch

I ride it most months. I have never had this experience.

Must never happen then! 🙄

+1 Horsham local keen to see the Downs Link with a "better" surface.

Summer its lovely- well used by walkers, runners, families with toddlers on bikes, horses, MTB/CX/leisure cyclists, all-sorts. I often use my 23mm-tyre road bike with no issues, its that type of route.

Winter- pretty much deserted apart from the hardcore. Its a muddy, puddled mess, which is unpleasant to ride on any kind of bike- and this is from a MTBer who loves gloopy muddy natural trails- which are interesting to ride (which the DL is not).

The Downs Link is a great multi-use resource, and with a better surface it would be used year-round which has to be a good thing.

Tarmac seems to be emotive, and I would never want any proper "trails" to be sanitised, but if it serves as a robust and cost effective surface, then I don't have an issue in this particular case.

JJ

[quote=ninfan ]It's not exaggerating whataboutery, I fundementally oppose the tarmacing over of perfectly good existing trails as an alternative to either
i) making our roads safer
ii) increasing access to well surfaced trails that already exist but bikes are not allowed to use

Ah, so you're fundamentally opposed to getting the population healthier and reducing congestion and air pollution?

I ride it most months. I have never had this experience.
]
Must never happen then!

Nope. I've done a search and I cannot find all the "outraged at being forced off the Imber trail" posts you would have posted...

In all seriousness, it;s too wide, your've definitely exaggerating. "Forced off". I doubt it, mildly annoyed at passing speed maybe.

+1 for Tarmac. Then great marathon pacing route. Pretty flat and a decent surface - great to test pacing strategies. Oh and better for biking too.

Nope. I've done a search and I cannot find all the "outraged at being forced off the Imber trail" posts you would have posted...

Unfortunately I don't suffer from the I must tell the whole world about my exploits on a forum!

fundamentally oppose the tarmacing over of perfectly good existing trails as an alternative to either
i) making our roads safer
ii) increasing access to well surfaced trails that already exist but bikes are not allowed to use

Point i)
Good luck with that. I completely agree we need a major cultural change in attitudes to driving, speed limits on rural roads and enforcement of traffic laws (including addressing careless and dangerous driving which might be within speed limits - eg close passes). However, when you've got attitudes like [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/advanced-driving ]these[/url] on a cycling forum that isn't happening any time soon. Moreover, even when it does it's going to do nothing to make a country A road comfortable for 8-80 cycling because you're never going to reduce the speed or traffic volumes sufficiently.

ii) Not sure what you're getting at here. I'd agree there are a lot off road paths across our hills currently classified as 'footpaths' on which bikes should be allowed. More mtb trails would be a big win.

However, I don't see many properly surfaced 'off road' paths providing useful links between towns or within towns that are particularly suitable for bike use in their current form. Shared use in towns is a recipe for conflict as it can't cope with any significant volume of cyclists.

Out of town is a different story - the Dutch approach is really good here. Very few people walk long distances between towns along major roads. There should be cycleways along these routes (rather than pavements) but the small number of pedestrians who might want to walk along these roads are free to do so and don't cause conflict (shared use *can* work if the number of cyclists OR the number of pedestrians is very low). However, just allowing cyclists to ride on the existing pavements is not the solution - path width, turning radius, gates, priority over side roads etc etc.

Ah, so you're fundamentally opposed to getting the population healthier and reducing congestion and air pollution?

Problem is, would this actually happen?

The trail lemonysam posted is tarmac but gets very little use. Ok so it probably gets a bit more than it would were it a muddy bog, but compared to sections of it that are gravel and 'all-weather' surface the tarmac does not get any different levels of traffic. Infact the parallel road gets more cyclists and the gravel bypass along the river at newburn gets loads of families at the weekend as its the nice bit and there is a park for kids.

In a number of cases (bristol bike path perfect example) a tarmac path that goes where people want will be well received and used, but just because its there doesnt mean people will use it. Another North East example is my home town of cramlington, perfect cycle paths with underpasses everywhere linking all parts of the town, I used to absolutely love it growing up, but still everyone drives and even on sunny days you dont get families on it.

The trail lemonysam posted is tarmac but gets very little use

I'm currently wondering how often you actually use it as that's just not true. The section through newburn and lemmington gets less leisure traffic as it's less scenic but it's still busy in the summer; the bit from Newburn to Wylam gets sufficiently busy that it's actually quite impractical on a sunny weekend afternoon.

edit: The bit about people preferring the parallel road is fairly misleading too give that it's an incredibly quiet, wide dead end lane which is the natural extension of the cycle path versus a potholed diversion onto a narrow winding route full of dogwalkers.

edit: The bit about people preferring the parallel road is fairly misleading too give that it's an incredibly quiet, wide dead end lane which is the natural extension of the cycle path versus a potholed diversion onto a narrow winding route full of dogwalkers.

I was talking about scotswood road, past the tank factory. And when i say use, i mean the use for commuters (hence quoting reducing congestion), you do get some, but the number is few and far between, especially compared to the incredibly busy road. The discussion (argument) people are having is that tarmac will get people using it, im saying this is (another) example of how a well surfaced path already exists and doesnt get used in the way we would hope.

Side point; (discussion, im not trying to argue) I thought to bit Newburn (from Blaney Row) to Wylam was Gravel? Certainly a large part of it is (or sounds to be when i ride it), i walked along part of it last week and it was a loose surface, maybe its tarmac under but its not like the pics of those dutch paths.

[img] [/img]

I live overlooking it, so despite being a lovely route into town, its actually a significant detour for me and not worth the effort of the hills at either end.

I thought to bit Newburn (from Blaney Row) to Wylam was Gravel? Certainly a large part of it is (or sounds to be when i ride it), i walked along part of it last week and it was a loose surface, maybe its tarmac under but its not like the pics of those dutch paths.

I can't think of any significant gravel on it - I only rode it about 3 hours ago - and I definitely wouldn't describe it as a loose surface: if it's not tarmac then I'd say it's a distinction that's beyond me. That photo looks like it's just been "dressed" or something.

Either way it's a bit of a distraction - the distinction between tarmac and a hard packed, sintered surface is pretty much irrelevent except aesthetically, both make the case for well surfaced paths rather than muddy "natural" trails on NCN type routes.

True, looking at the strava heat map it does seem to get a decent amount of traffic overall, just dont ever seem to see it with my own eyes when i do use it as a commute route or on night rides.

Does anyone know if its possible to get cycle traffic data for paths/roads. I know systrans do it and some councils. Be interesting to see the usage distributions.

Simon

As for i) there were some fantastic trials done some years ago on 'quiet lanes' whereby minor routes were designsted as quiet lanes, where other users and animals were to be expected, as part of that some areas used some fairly radical ideas like narrowing the vehicle lane to singletrack with passing places and putting in loads of sleeping policemen to slow cars down, even allowing the surface to go into managed decline to slow cars down, there are plenty of options like that open, along with closing down direct through roads to cars so that motor vehicles have to take the long way round between two villages on the main roads and reclaiming the lanes for cyclists and walkers, there's alot that could be done that would likely initially be unpopular with motorists, but that I think is a far more positive approach in the long term than paving over more of the countryside.

ii) there are a lot of routes out already there that are well surfaced and have the potential to give really beneficial transport links and recreational routes, but we are not allowed to use - if we look at the example given in the original linked blog, they were calling for the tarmacing of an old bridleway as a transport link, just a few hundred yards to the west is an existing well surfaced route through an old deer park and country house, part of which was an old coach road - the estate is criss tossed with unsurfaced public footpaths and a few years ago someone applied for that surfaced route as a footpath, which they did not win the case for as the evidence was not substantial enough - that route could entirely fulfil what they were asking to be done with the bridleway without a single fresh bucketful of Tarmac being needed, it could link one town to the other perfectly without any work at all, all it needs is a S26 creation order, a power the council has where it feels that a new bridleway would benefit a substantial portion of the public or local residents, a power that they could use tomorrow. The point I'm making is that more often than not we don't need to start building more paths, or tarmacing over the few we already have, the routes are often already there and just need the willingness of people and councils to use their statutory powers to improve access for all, more often than not at a fraction of the cost of building anything new.

Does anyone know if its possible to get cycle traffic data for paths/roads.

Not many councils will have meaningful data, and even less so on off-road paths. So no, not really!

[quote=STATO ]Problem is, would this actually happen?

If you don't build it, you can guarantee it won't. Yes of course there is a cultural change needed as well, but you have to start somewhere and it might as well be decent infrastructure in places where that isn't difficult to do. Of course in this case it does also appear to be somewhere people do want to ride to get from one place to another, hence knocking down that argument - remember it's only those which we are suggesting tarmaccing, I'm very much in favour of leaving anything else alone.

Of course there are sometimes other options - ninfan's second suggestion sounds good on the face of it, though I don't know any of the routes mentioned or the feasibility of that. His first suggestion is likely to be rather more difficult to implement in reality than improving the surface on existing traffic free routes (and whilst I kind of like the idea, it's still likely to suffer from the problem that many people won't perceive it to be as nice and safe a place to cycle as a dedicated path). An awful lot of the time though the best and easiest solution is tarmac on existing traffic free routes.

The thing is, the arguments against are pretty weak - if you're bothered about "paving paradise" then these routes would only make a tiny contribution to that, there are rather more significant targets.

Different things for different riders really.

There's plenty of room for bike "roads" for family cycling, touring, commuting, through pleasant countryside, nice views, tarmac all the way. Slap on the slicks and off you go. Would suit half the audience of STW anyway 😉

Keep the tarmac away from singletrack though, and the likes of some bridleways in the Lakes, Peaks, up mountain sides. Not just for bikes but for walkers, horse riders and hill climbers who like that raw stuff. It's less to maintain as well.

My worry is that a lot of bridleways may get smooth surfaced thanks to EU regulations, H&S, enabling them to be used by everyone, wheelchairs, prams/buggies etc. Rather than stating that it's not suitable for such use but promoting off road use, even off road wheelchairs, adaptive bikes etc if there's an insistence that must be accessible to all.

Van Halen - Member
porous asphalt required

Kiss my asphalt 😀 (Mr Plow / H. Simpson)