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fras wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 22:03
Until cyclists are compelled by law to use facilities expensively installed for their use, any new facilities will be a complete waste of money. This bullet has to be bitten by politicians. Why waste money on unused cycle facilities when money is very tight and could usefully be spend elsewhere
I had a look at this last night on streetview, it’s obviously had a lot of money spent on it, but cycle traffic is forced to give way at every side turning and every pedestrian crossing. Vehicle traffic isn’t expected to give way at every side turning so why should bikes?
I certainly wouldn’t use it or any similar bike lane for exactly that reason - when you are cycling having to stop and start takes a lot more energy
fras wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 22:03
Until cyclists are compelled by law to use given properly designed infrastructure, rather than facilities expensively installed half-heartedly introduced for their use as lip service, any new facilities will be a complete waste of money. This bullet has to be bitten by politicians. Why waste money on unused ****-poor cycle facilities when money is very tight and could usefully be spend elsewhere properly designed cycling infrastructure gives bnefit/cost ratios road schemes can only dream of.
fras wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 22:03
Until cyclists are compelled by law to use given properly designed infrastructure, rather than facilities expensively installed half-heartedly introduced for their use as lip service, any new facilities will be a complete waste of money. This bullet has to be bitten by politicians. Why waste money on unused **** cycle facilities when money is very tight and could usefully be spend elsewhere properly designed cycling infrastructure gives bnefit/cost ratios road schemes can only dream of.
Fixed.
Yes, I agree with this quotation. As for the Leeds / Bfd. cycleway then a further extension (running from Bfd. to the outskirts of Shipley) opened in 2019 to much fanfare. However, I think it is important to critique such schemes rather than get bedazzled by all the media (isn't it great) hype. Now, I am a big fan of 'high quality' cycleways and find they are an interesting thing to discuss on SABRE, as they can literally be 'mini roads' for bikes. I've transposed my post from Road CC https://road.cc/content/news/261283-new ... nt-1892416 to show my annoyance at the poor design standards;
essexian wrote:
I've just looked at the photos on the local papers site and I can see why I would not be using it apart from for social rides with kids etc.... call that a path! It looks hardly 2m wide so less than the suggested standard of 3m meaning there would be no room to overtake slower riders/people who have stopped for some strange reason or other and the like. If you are going to build cycle routes etc at least make them as good, or indeed better than the road if you want everyone to use them. If not, keep the money and put it into policing the roads to make sure that everyone sticks within the law so roads are safer for everyone. This path looks just like a box ticking exercise to me.
Yes, I couldn't agree more
There are a number of major problems with the design of this new cycleway which is no doubt why the bike riders were pictured on the road. If the new route was any good, then they would have been using it! I used to live in Bradford, so I feel I can comment in more detail.
Firstly, as others have mentioned is the width. I measured the earlier Bradford (Church Bank) section of bi-directional cycle-way at 2.8m. Although without measuring to confirm the new (Valley Road) section, I would agree with the other comments that it looks narrower, possibly down to as little as 2m to 2.5m? Then, there is the issue of the 90degree kerb edging stones. I emailed ‘City Connect’ (the organisation behind the scheme) to ask why? They emailed back to say ‘someone had tripped over’ the 45degree chamfered ones on the earlier Leeds to Bfd. section, so they decided on use right angled ones. This however, goes against all the current thinking and best practice. 90degree kerbs reduce the usable width and represent an unnecessary hazard for pedals. This gives users the feeling of cycling in a culvert or a trench.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/20 ... kerbs.html(link is external) To quote David Hembrow; "Parallel kerbs can be quite dangerous for cyclists. A slight lapse of concentration and you can be off your bike, and possibly injured badly enough to end up in hospital. Like so many things, this doesn't have to be the case. The kerbs in Assen (Netherlands) for example, are "forgiving" shallow angled ones. These kerbs make it possible to cross from the cycle path to the pedestrian path without falling from your bike. They reduce the risk of injury due to a lapse of concentration."
Another issue is the route switches from one side of the road to the other when it approaches the inner ring road. Why didn’t the designers keep it on the same side? This can in turn make the cycleway unappealing for those travelling in a different direction to the other side of the road to which the cycleway is located. Combine this with restrictive kerbs, tight turns and extra time needed then many commuter cyclists will often choose the quicker option. As Essexian said above; "If you are going to build cycle routes etc at least make them as good, or indeed better than the road if you want everyone to use them."
Finally, there is the use of the colour green. Because there are no national standards, each council / constructing body are using different coloured surfacing. Manchester opted for orange and Cambridge red. Birmingham used blue and had the foresight to use chamfered kerbs and rounded edging stones making the whole thing more user friendly.
A large part of the new route in Bradford runs through an industrial area and everything should have been done to make it an exemplar piece of design, what we have got instead is a rather clunky cycleway which is already starting to look tatty. I am sure it will get used but, it could have been so much better.
Last edited by Jim606 on Sun Sep 08, 2019 22:14, edited 1 time in total.
I started in the highway/traffic engineering business over 20 years ago as a junior technician and worked my way up. In that time I've been lucky to work on a wide variety of projects. It amuses me to see posts on this forum about the supposed scandals of, for example; the safety of smart motorways, the use of traffic lights to deliberately slow traffic, speed limits implemented solely to raise money and of course, pandering to the lycra brigade, all of which are conspiracy theorist nonsense.
In fact the one true scandal I have come across in this time is the treatment of pedestrians and cyclists, something that, apart from a few posters, barely raises a murmur on here.
For example, no highway engineer will ever ask "what lane width can we 'get away with'" or suggest 2.75m is eminently suitable for 2-way traffic - ped and cycle facilities on the other hand can be as narrow as whatever we can fit a little blue shared-surface sign on. We deliberately build in conflict to slow down cyclists, ignoring the protests of both groups. Motor vehicles and the ICE are still king and every other mode has to fight for the merest scraps.
Of course this doesn't suit the 'war on drivers' narrative, but I challenge any of the other industry professionals on here to contradict this opinion.
Tomorrow marks ten years of me being part of the industry too.
Ten years ago I was going ho car is king nonsense too.
I worked on a few schemes for disabled residents in Calderdale like providing drop kerbs and the like. I started to work on cycle schemes.
We do not provide for non motorised travel because the economic appraisal system is rigged in favour of MOAR CARS.
Basically the motoring lobby has also undermined all efforts to make roads safer by peddling the war on cars narrative and managed to ingraine it in the public consciousness by using vapid sound bites like "stealth tax".
If the railways killed 1,500 people annually we would shut them down. But cars are our guns and taking away their dominance generates an NRA style backlash.
Recently an already disqualified and drunk driver got a pathetic sentence because "hardship". Their deliberate actions killed someone.
Bryn Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already. She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
We need to copy the Germans on this - beautifully engineered and laid out cycle highways all over the place and ubiquitous in the main tourist areas. The Germans love their bikes, even though they also have beautifully engineered and maintained roads. However it is the law there that a cycle highway must be used if it is present. In their case the quid pro quo of this is that real money is spent and continues to be spent on cycle facilities, not just a couple of lines painted on the road.
Debaser wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2019 19:11
No highway engineer will ever ask "what lane width can we 'get away with'" or suggest 2.75m is eminently suitable for 2-way traffic - ped and cycle facilities on the other hand can be as narrow as whatever we can fit a little blue shared-surface sign on. We deliberately build in conflict to slow down cyclists, ignoring the protests of both groups. Motor vehicles and the ICE are still king and every other mode has to fight for the merest scraps.
Bradford cycleway opening fanfare photo c/o Bfd T&A newspaper. However, looks more closely and you can see it's too narrow and has nasty 90degree kerbstones! This is bad design. The Dutch would never produce a cycleway like this.
This photo from the https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/ ... ly-opened/ has all the fanfare of the official opening with various cyclists (no doubt brought in for the occasion - to help support the 'isn't it all just great tone'). A more recent article even states that the cycleways have raised-design-standards
A CYCLEWAY linking Bradford and Leeds has “raised the standards” for local cycling infrastructure - a transport report has claimed.
The Cityconnect route - a £29 million, 23 kilometre segregated cycleway, will be discussed by West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Transport Committee on Friday. A section of the route linking Shipley to Bradford opened in May 2019. A report to the committee says:
“The on-going delivery of the CityConnect programme has raised the standards locally for construction of new or improved cycling and walking infrastructure.”
It says future cycling projects in West Yorkshire will be inspired by the scheme - and a formal design for such schemes could soon be adopted.
The report adds: “The CityConnect principles have also led to new ways of designing cycling and walking infrastructure in other investment programmes through the provision of new segregated cycle tracks, separated and protected from vehicular traffic through junctions. “The development of these schemes now provides the opportunity for formalising the design principles for cycling and walking best practice, to provide consistency across West Yorkshire."It is therefore proposed to create a West Yorkshire design principles guide, which would align with the proposed Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans and would also ensure schemes delivered through the Transforming Cities Fund programme learn from City Connect and also meet the best practice standards.”
But, there is a problem with WYCATC 'awarding itself' an 'award for excellence' when nobody from outside i.e. 'a detailed reviewer' from has cast an eye on it first. The scheme isn't very good. It is too narrow. The use of 90degree unforgiving kerbs is a travesty, the bi-directional nature swapping from one-side of the road to the other makes the thing inconvenient in many cases. Why can't they see this or are the designers deluded? Setting high standards? This isn't true either, what's happening in Birmingham and London is much better.
