As the sign at the top was missing back in January, I started coming down these steps on my bike, but decided it was safer to get off.
I'm sure I've posted this one in Chippenham before Downright dangerous being on the inside of parked cars.
Every junction along here used to have these stupid stripes on the road, but GSV suggests this is the only one left.

The best facility locally has to be in the Netherfield lagoons - heading from Colwick park along the signed route you reach the end of a path on an embankment and then have to go down the edge of it (a bit rubbish really) at an odd angle (if you look on Google satellite http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Colwick ... 6&t=h&z=19 you can even see where the constant use by cyclists has wiped all the muck away!) then go under a bridge - at which point you have to pass a sign on the newly installed (2011) cycle barriers to enter the Netherfield Lagoons which says "No Cycling", then about ten meters later you pass these signs...



Unsurprisingly the "No Cycling" signs are universally ignored (and in fact I have only ever passed cyclists on the riverside stretch though the lagoons - never anyone walking)

I really will have to get a photo of the crap cycle lane next to the train station though...

One of the facilities I use every day is a erfect illustration of why off road cycle infrastructure in this country is held with such contempt (I can't argue with the route, just how it's been implemented) - bare in mind that this route was improved about six months ago as part of the Clifton commuter cycle route, so lets have a look at what we have



So we start with a very narrow entrance and the bollard being in the worse position possible (everyone is turning with that on their inside here) - traffic joining has just had a handy right turn lane. Otherwise not too bad.

The second photo shows the route and how unobvious it is - the painted bikes were added less than 12 months ago, after some rider was apparently attacked for "riding on the pavement" when actually in the cycle lane. In the distance you can see someone walking in the middle of the cycle road about, oh 20cm away from the footpath!




To show it a bit clearer I have now gone passed the bollards visible in the second picture and turned round...

1. The lady in the white cardie is in the middle of the cycle path as pedestrians usually are here - the planning documents for NET Line 2 mention using different surface material at a different level to the footway so that there is something to allow people to understand the differences in the purpose of the surfaces, obviously ignored here!

2. The section across the the square isn't wide enough for cycles to pass

3. The only remotely flush transition to the cycle road is between the two right most bollards




Another look back up the path and what do you see - ah yeah, two peds walking in the middle of the path!

While I am glad to have a route which takes you all the way out of the city to the river Trent with hardly any on road running (a tiny bit required later on and a crossing too) it's annoying that this is what the money has been spent on, baring in mind this is after TWO lots of improvement works in the last five years!

I also use this every day as it is the main connection between the station (as can be seen in your photos) and pretty much all points south & south-west of the city.

Although I have become blind/indifferent to the specific problems you've noted, eg the narrow lane across the vast expanse of paving is just dumb, there is one far bigger problem that eclipses everything else. That is the route is mostly road, ie the two unconnected (for motor traffic) parts of Queens Bridge Road. This means at least twice a week a lorry just sits right in the way to make deliveries/pickups from the brewery. From the driver's point of view, they're in the turning head of a cul-de-sac; no big deal. From a cyclist's point of view, you have to cut down the side of him with no sightlines and hope the bloody peds are actually on the footwalk.

Actually this whole stretch of route is pretty sound (mostly because it's over in about 20 seconds): the Toucan at Waterway Street West actually syncs up with the lights at Carrington Street once you learn it. What is just brain-dead is the underpass under Robin Hood Way. It is properly split ped/cycle route purposefully laid out so as not to be encumbered by vehicles in any way (like the MK Redways) but there are pointless baffler railings across the cycle path in the underpass tunnel and, if you look carefully, cycles are directed up the ramp, across the road, and back down again. I can't think of a way in which anyone could make this more frustrating and dangerous and what's worse is that they've actively and purposefully undone the whole point of the underpass in the first place. I don't know about you, but an advertised cycle route that requires the negotiation of baffler railings, bollards, and other "calming" measures can scarely qualify as one. I'd rather take the road, thanks (again, thus defeating the point of the off-road route in the first place).

Pics to follow.

Surely its utterly pointless having cycles lanes which fill half the carriageway in Ambleside?

You'll have noted the lanes are bound by broken lines which means you can straddle them anyway, thus negating their purpose IMO.

The NET Line 2 planners have managed to find a way of making it more frustrating - they are getting rid of it and you'll be crossing the road "at-grade"

Can't say the barriers bother me too much - at least you can negotiate them reasonably quickly unlike the motorcycle barriers that are spreading like a rash across the county. However I have never noticed the signage directing you up the side paths.

If only the whole route was like this (surprisingly deserted for 17:47 of a Monday evening - although I think this was the first day of the school holidays).

One nasty bit I forgot about which I am reminded as a twig fell out my helmet when I got home - the horrid dog leg just after the third toucan - where the tree is getting lower and lower and I'm struggling to duck under!

It's the inconsistency with which the council treats underpasses with respect to barriers and other detritus that bothers me, which I'll demonstrate shortly. What's more annoying is that Queens Walk is about as close to perfect a cycle route as dared be dreamt of yet has been occluded by what I can only describe as very nearly a literal manifestation of council obstruction for its own sake.

We'll pick up the journey close to the Trent and try and get to the Bridgeway Centre in the Meadows by the signed off-road route, as can be seen here:


So far so scenic until we reach this... thing. I've actually snapped this from the other direction (since I can't get through it, I had to divert round it via other streets; qed):


(I won't post the Queens Walk underpass under Robin Hood Way since you've beaten me to it.)

Here's the Kirkwhite Walk underpass under Sheriffs Way but this one has barriers only part-way across the path (ie it is actually usable by cyclists and pedestrians alike:


Continues...

Turn left in the Bridgeway Centre precinct to pick up the Arkwright Street/Carrington Street axis towards the station and Broadmarsh. So, the Arkwright Walk underpass under Meadows Way with (unequal) bafflers again:


Just in case you were wondering if you'd lost your way by this point, a quick look back over your shoulder shows: no, we're still on a cycle route as evidenced by the signage to West Bridgford (compare with first photo in post above):


Grrr.

I don't find Queens Bridge Road that bad (though, again, note pedestrians in road). Here it is in its entirety. Note the excellent line of sight:

Oh!!!
You reminded me of one of PCC's new gems.
The cycle route that is too narrow to cycle through.
Yes, I have got wedged blocking the path.

There's a raised area by a museum in Southsea which I used to demonstrate somewhere too high to use the kerb ascent techniue (by getting someone to try!)
This raised area has now been used for something: Cycle parking.

On a positive note, here's my favourite cycle lane. It's the B764 which has been changed to a single track road with passing places and a cycle lane on either side.

It starts here http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=eaglesh ... -6.71&z=13

this one (a nice little cut through, shame about the lights taking ages to change)
and this one. the footpath is the one next to the road, the cycle path is againt the hedge. don't tell pedestrians that whatever you do.
the tiny red sections at the edges are cycle paths. when driving, I leave 3 times that gap and am still some distance from the centre of the road.
a 'wrong side' cycle path. they had to put the bricks there cos cars ignored it before. and most people go the wrong way along the cycle path.
yep. it reaches a junction. the lights are supposed to auto change for bikes. they don't. at least you're running with traffic once past the junction.
the cycle path ends at the boot of the black car. the cyclist in the pic (who'd just been to Sainsbury's by the looks of it) is in a time-restricted zone for cyclists. the police don't enforce it.
the other end of Beeston, and those white-ish bricks are the edges of the cycle path. the 3 cash machines just to the left are usually a lot busier and queued back to where the cycle path spits you out.

part of the route I described in an earlier post.

more of a twitchel than a cycle path. part of National Route 6.
go down here, through some nice cycle gates, turn a sharp left (sharper than the turning circle of a moving bike), through another gate, and pop out here.

Contraflow cycle lanes without a divider can be lethal - http://g.co/maps/fb8ym is horrid - a really nifty route completely ruined by all the single and double deckers needing to use the full width of the road to turn the corner - alas some drivers seam to be unable to see cyclists meaning I've seen more than a handful of close calls This bit of road is only usable by Buses, Taxis and cycles (not that that stops a steady stream of cars).

It'd be this then:

...which is actually an exemplary bit of cycle route planning! Yes, the path itself it very short, but it connects up two culs-de-sac and is part of a largely traffic-free route from Castle Boulevard to the Dunkirk area.

I used to use this one in Leicester every day. On my second to last day at work I nearly got flattened by a halfwit in a well-known luxury make of Germsn car who was overtaking a cyclist coming uphill as I was using the contraflow cycle lane to go downhill.

But logically, there's no good reason apart from driver incompetence why these layouts should be any more dangerous than an ordinary S2, where a driver is physically able to overtake into oncoming traffic. The problem is that a big enough subset of drivers either don't see cyclists (find this hard to believe in my case, as I was wearing a big fluorescent jacket and it was broad daylight) or don't consider them to be valid road users. Personally I'd rather TPTB dealt with the problem (which in this case is the drivers) rather than tinkering in other ways that inconvenience other people, both drivers and cyclists, who aren't causing danger or inconvenience.

I doubt any car driver will use that route properly. Oh look, someone's coming towards me and I just drove past the passing place, looks like I'll either have to reverse or drive into the cycle lane...

Yep. Unless there is a cyclist present, that's pretty much how it goes.

That's the whole idea... it's an advisory cycle lane marked to emphasise that they use the road and to give way to them.

Which leads to the question.... Why the passing places????