cycle madness

[cb a1]

Spaces for People - funding success for 20mph
Angus Council has made ambitious bids totalling £789,000 from the Scottish Government’s Spaces for People fund aimed at supporting public health, active travel and road safety.
Managed and administered by Sustrans

This is just a means to divert local taxpayers' money to their mates at Sustrans, who very often are people they have worked with in the office in the past, and fellow political travellers.

In my career I've worked on many transport projects.

I've been in the pay of everyone from major oil companies and their petrolhead mates who infest every aspect of the public sector to all those bloody greenies and their virtue signalling pals who infest every aspect of the public sector.

The only consistency in all these claims is that they are made by those who happen to object to whatever the project is

[gazzaman28]

I don't think you get the point, the Sustrans national cycleway network is not any us for serious road cyclists. Yesterday I cycled 110 miles from my home near Reading to Hayling Island at back, using a mixture of country lanes, A roads and B roads, but as a serious cyclist who averages 18 miles an hour on the flat, the national cycle way network is a waste of space.

Within towns, cycleways are basically for non confident cyclists, while confident cyclists use the carriageway as it is safer and quicker.

I have some very good experiences of the national cycleway network in my area between Dumbarton and Glasgow (route 7), there are parts that follow an old railway line so are wide, well surfaced and nicely bypass traffic lights, but then other parts are narrow with annoying bits where you have to cross at street level, plus canal towpath parts (which can be slow and bumpy). You basically have to pick and choose when to use it and when to just use the road, so it's not really ideal to promote as a single route for keen road cyclists. It is, however, hugely popular at the moment with those getting into cycling, and that can only be a good thing - that's essentially what their purpose is, along with unclassified coloured tarmac too. We just need drivers to be educated and realise that there are many different sorts of cyclists, some are happy to plod along at less than 10mph and can cope with annoying give way/road crossings, but some of us want to go at least 15mph, and if a marked path doesn't work for us then we'll simply use the road instead.

[WHBM]

In my career I've worked on many transport projects.

I've been in the pay of everyone from major oil companies and their petrolhead mates who infest every aspect of the public sector to all those bloody greenies and their virtue signalling pals who infest every aspect of the public sector.

The only consistency in all these claims is that they are made by those who happen to object to whatever the project is

I've been on one or two projects as well ... but I've never seen oil companies, or any of their fellow travellers, scooping public funds like this. Lobbying, yes, but not actually wanting to charge the authority. It's like a reverse Section 106 Agreement.

[solocle]

We've done this many times before. Inevitably it's because the cycle lane is unsuitable in one way or several eg. in the wrong place such as on the other side of the road, poorly surfaced or potholed or not kept clear of debris, too narrow, many interruptions such as giving way frequently to side turns when the main carriageway doesn't, shared with other folks who don't mix well with cyclists, takes a circuitous route etc. etc.

So if I don't like the route the road takes, I should be allowed to drive over the verge/chicane etc? I have to share the road with HGVs and cyclists... does that give me the right to drive along the footpath? No, of course not!

It really does grind my gears that councils spend £lots narrowing roads to install cycle-ways, which are then ignored by their intended users, who block the remaining carriageway with their dawdling!

But I do agree that we should have minimum standards for cycle-ways... minimum width, physical (kerbed - not white line) segregation and priority over side roads (as with Germany) being three non-negotiable requirements. And then mandatory use by cyclists.

I don't think you get the point, the Sustrans national cycleway network is not any us for serious road cyclists. Yesterday I cycled 110 miles from my home near Reading to Hayling Island at back, using a mixture of country lanes, A roads and B roads, but as a serious cyclist who averages 18 miles an hour on the flat, the national cycle way network is a waste of space.

Within towns, cycleways are basically for non confident cyclists, while confident cyclists use the carriageway as it is safer and quicker.

So yesterday, I went via Basingstoke , Alton, Selbourne, Petersfield, Havant, came back Petersfield, Bordon, Crondell, Fleet. I could have used sustrans route 23 between Reading and Basingstoke, but that is 25 miles, compared to 14 miles using roads. In fact between Stratfield Saye and Bramley, the distance is 2 miles, but route 23 takes 6 miles, instead of going directly south west, it takes you miles west, before going south and coming back east. Then when it reaches Chineham on edge of Basingstoke the signed cycleway route, on shared paths through housing estates, numerous side roads says town centre 5 miles, when its only two miles on the direct line.

But the real problem is as I encountered in Petersfield. After going through Liss, on the old A325, there is a 1.5 mile section where the the A3 Petersfield bypass follows the line of the old road, here a very good two way cycle way has been built adjacent to the southbound carriageway, which leaves just before the A272 turning and joins the route of the old A325 through Sheet. However the signed route says turn right and go back under the A3. I ignored it followed the road through Petersfield, before joining another excellent cycleway passed Queen Elizabeth Country park, which is formed from the old A3 southbound carriageway (I never realised that when the Petersfield bypass was constructed they lowered the A3 on a new line through the hill , with the new route at least 100 foot lower than the old) and once past the park follows the old northbound A3 or original A3 down to A3(M).

On the way back however I followed the cycleway through Petersfield, what a disaster, not on a desire line, going through, parks, cul-de-sacs and the best when leaving and crossing the A3, there was half a mile, which was a muddy bridleway, not even gravel. On a road bike i had to push it. It took 3 times as long then staying on the road!

Then in Borden, I could have followed the cyclepath, but again too many interruptions, to make it worth while.

The best cycleways are those painted on the carriageway or shared with taxis and buses. The shared off carraigaeway ones which councils promote for a keen cyclist like me are pointless and in fact dangerous. The ICE even stated last year that shared cycleways are dangerous and in fact hinder cycling not promote it. Near me, the local council spent £500,000 on a new cycleway, which is unlit and goes across the flood plain. It is the signed route to a business park, but it is twice the length of going along the lit road, its hardley used.

Don't blame the cyclists, who have a legal right to be on the road, blame the useless Highway Authorites for putting in infrastructure which is pointless.

My last Audax, 200 miles from Bristol to Cambridge at the end of December (and back, but I didn't complete the full 500 km). The best form of route planning is local knowledge, which was effectively impossible on a route like that. Tbh Audax routes do generally strike a good balance of speed, while avoiding the trunk roads!

On that particular route, the worst bits were a few miles of the A420 and A507. When I did Oxford-Cambridge again, I avoided most of the A507, but the little bit I still had to do turned out not to be so bad (it could have been time of day, or the fact that with a tailwind I was cruising along at nearly 30 mph!).

The big issue, though, was getting from Cambridge to St Ives. The official route was on NCN 51, which looks amazing. Sadly, on the day, it was underwater. Being aware of A14C2H, I plotted a route along the new A1307. Except... I get there, and it doesn't yet exist between Bar Hill and Swavesey. Since I was leading a little group at this point, I decided to go through the cones onto the unfinished road, which actually was, mostly pleasant! Beautiful smooth traffic-free tarmac for most of it. Then I nearly run into the side of a gigantic pile of gravel in the dark, and we all slow down. Very quickly it went to a muddy trench - but with a bit of ingenuity, we used some tarmac that forms part of the new A14's roadway. It was separated from the traffic by roadworks cones galore, as far as I could tell. But those cones ended up tapering out, leaving us facing the wrong way up a live slip road. After a bit of riding around like headless chickens and deliberation, we rode the wrong way up that slip road, for about 50m, at which point a tapered line of cones on the other side appeared - that took us all the way to the roundabout, and we were onto the dual carriageway part of the A1307 (the old A14), which was pretty quiet, and beautifully smooth.

Despite that whole palaver, it was almost certainly an improvement on the legal route that would be using the A14 between the two junctions! Had I been on my own, I'd probably have taken the A14, but I don't make that sort of route choice for others.

[Micro The Maniac]

I don't think you get the point, the Sustrans national cycleway network is not any us for serious road cyclists.
{snip}
Within towns, cycleways are basically for non confident cyclists, while confident cyclists use the carriageway as it is safer and quicker.

So what you are saying is that cycleways, whether urban or rural, are not fit for purpose.

So you are agreeing with me.

Don't blame the cyclists, who have a legal right to be on the road

I propose to revoke that legal entitlement when alternate provision exists.

blame the useless Highway Authorites for putting in infrastructure which is pointless.

We can end with an agreement-ish.

It may be useless, but it is not pointless... it ticks a box on their woke/green agenda checklist.

[gazzaman28]

Don't blame the cyclists, who have a legal right to be on the road

I propose to revoke that legal entitlement when alternate provision exists.

Would you class this as alternate provision?

https://twitter.com/chausseedeforme/sta ... 5963551752

Just watch the video, the guy has to go onto a pavement, to then be able to go onto a cycle lane, to then go back onto a pavement again. It would be like having a motorway only accessible by first of all turning off a good quality A road onto a farm track. No bugger would ever use it, and you'll find that will be exactly the case for these cycle lanes. They cost a fortune and aren't fit for purpose. Until there is some sort of overarching body who approve or reject these projects based on how useful and safe they are for cyclists, then this sort of waste will continue, unfortunately. Councils are clearly being put under pressure to put in cycling provision, but this sort of thing isn't the answer, it's just a box-ticking exercise.

[marconaf]

Why do cyclists insist on using the main carriageway when an expensive separate cycle lane is provided ? The law in Germany is the cycle lane must be used if it is there.
We'll get nowhere in this country on better cycle facilities if councils spend a load of money providing them only for them to be totally ignored.

If the facilities improved things for cyclists then more cyclists would use them. Sure, there may always be a militant minority who will assert their right to ride on the road come what may, but they really are a very small minority. The reason that most cyclists who avoid cycle farcilities do so is because they offer an inferior journey to riding on the road.

Look at this one in York: https://goo.gl/maps/TxztXaDnfbxaMz2t5. Over a length of 200m, the narrow pavement cycle lane threads its way between lampposts, signposts and bus shelters and requires cyclists to give way to an access road, a side road, pedestrians, a main road at a signal-controlled junction but with no lights for the cycle lane, and pedestrians again, while also watching out for drivers turning in and out of other access points who are supposed to give way to cyclists but often don't. This is not a cycle facility, it is a shoddy pretext for drivers to shout POOP POOP GET OUT OF MY WAY! and bully cyclists off the road.

Where the cycle route offers a genuinely better alternative for cyclists than using the road then most of them will use it. But all too often, they don't come any where close.

I would never even consider using that lane in York. More time and stress would be spent getting in/out of it than just continuing.
Vehicles have 2 lanes anyway.

In urban areas, cyclists are doing 15mph plus, keen cyclists on road bikes 20+

Putting them with 2-4mph pedestrians is bad for both sides. With 25-30mph cars (assuming 30limit being obeyed...) they work far better.

Cycling on the pavement as an enforced/publicly viewed offence is a horse that long ago bolted the stable, lived out a long life in the meadows then died and became a beef lasagne.

Most cycleways are things we should be ashamed of frankly.

What is annoying is we’ve had these ideas/policies for 30 years, yet how many housing estates and business parks have been built with nothing, how many urban areas rebuilt with nothing? Or the “painted obstacle course” worse than nothing?

The Dutch and the Germans show how it should be done - and we could have done all that in huge swathes of new/rebuilt areas in recent decades.

[marconaf]

Don't blame the cyclists, who have a legal right to be on the road

I propose to revoke that legal entitlement when alternate provision exists.

Would you class this as alternate provision?

https://twitter.com/chausseedeforme/sta ... 5963551752

Just watch the video, the guy has to go onto a pavement, to then be able to go onto a cycle lane, to then go back onto a pavement again. It would be like having a motorway only accessible by first of all turning off a good quality A road onto a farm track. No bugger would ever use it, and you'll find that will be exactly the case for these cycle lanes. They cost a fortune and aren't fit for purpose. Until there is some sort of overarching body who approve or reject these projects based on how useful and safe they are for cyclists, then this sort of waste will continue, unfortunately. Councils are clearly being put under pressure to put in cycling provision, but this sort of thing isn't the answer, it's just a box-ticking exercise.

My God that is appalling!

What are you supposed to do at the bus stop? Get off and walk?

Should car drivers have to get out and push past bus stops? (Be good for fitness and people buying smaller cars plus encourage travelling with pax!)

The near miss with the red car spells out very clearly why cycle lanes need to be sided with the road flows and not that kind of daft (and dangerous) “separate when easy then shared at every difficult point”!

To be fair to the red car, a cyclist coming the opposite way there is not what they would expect at all. The white van half over the white line in order to try and get visibility shows up the other failure (by going two ways the lane is much wider thus blocking sightlines and on a busy road making it hard to pull into available gaps). Clear priority at that Junction is entirely absent.

All in all massive fail but typifies what passes for provision.

Take the road, quicker and safer - and if that stupid effort wasn’t there it’d be wide enough for people to pass without issue.

[marconaf]

An alternative, particularly if you don't want traffic turning off the main road to have to stop on the main carriageway itself, is to slew the cycle path so that it crosses the side road 6m or so back from the junction, leaving space for a car or medium-sized van to wait between the cycle lane and the main carriageway – if the road is used heavily by buses or lorries then you may want to slew it further to enlarge the waiting space, but to do that without giving cyclists too tight a turn is starting to take up a lot of space and may be difficult to incorporate in an urban context.

That is exactly the wrong approach forcing bikes to accommodate cars - the cyclist wants to go straight on, not detour metres to the side, cross a road with dubious priority and have to slow etc. Doing this for every side road would be exceptionally tedious and for me I’d just take the road straight across. Cars can go extra metres easily at no effort - it is physical for the person on a bike!

The problem doesn’t need solving - a single bike lane isn’t that wide to block sight.

How far would you set the crossing back? Car length? Estate? Trailer? HGV? Bus? Bin lorry? Whet happens when one of those is there and fouls the rear line, that they can hardly see?

The answer has to be cycle lanes to the side of each carriageway with a kerb differentiating it from the road and with side entrances very clearly laid out that the cycle lane should be considered part of the road and the stop line painted accordingly.

Cycle lanes in the centre should also be avoided for all the “non standard” crossing moves that creates at the entry/exit points. If you have that space - move the roads into it and use the sides for bike lanes!

[AndyB]

Classic example.

Shared footway with a bus lane a short distance away.

What a pity, there is no way a cyclist can turn right without using the main carriageway, because the pedestrian crossing at the junction has no cycling facilities

[Helvellyn]

The answer has to be cycle lanes to the side of each carriageway with a kerb differentiating it from the road and with side entrances very clearly laid out that the cycle lane should be considered part of the road and the stop line painted accordingly.

I'd caveat that with "if you can keep it clean and free of debris."

[Micro The Maniac]

One logistical query regarding possibly why cyclists are virtually never given priority over sideroads...

I really do believe this is entirely down to political and engineering will.

They manage to give cycleways rights of way over side roads fine in Germany

[M19]

Ford Smith Boulevard, Sanford, US: https://goo.gl/maps/S9C2WCDqsYWaFjAT6

This to me looks like a nice straight forward way of marking out a cycle lane, using a solid line and dashed lines across junctions. No linage clutter, which is a problem in the UK. The same incidentally goes for the simpler, neater road marking and hatching in general, which in the UK is really messy.

[marconaf]

The answer has to be cycle lanes to the side of each carriageway with a kerb differentiating it from the road and with side entrances very clearly laid out that the cycle lane should be considered part of the road and the stop line painted accordingly.

I'd caveat that with "if you can keep it clean and free of debris."

Yes that is a problem - a full kerb may protect it but it will be a hard one to sweep without a special small vehicle!

[Debaser]

The answer has to be cycle lanes to the side of each carriageway with a kerb differentiating it from the road and with side entrances very clearly laid out that the cycle lane should be considered part of the road and the stop line painted accordingly.

I'd caveat that with "if you can keep it clean and free of debris."

Yes that is a problem - a full kerb may protect it but it will be a hard one to sweep without a special small vehicle!

Ahem...like this?

[Bryn666]

Ford Smith Boulevard, Sanford, US: https://goo.gl/maps/S9C2WCDqsYWaFjAT6

This to me looks like a nice straight forward way of marking out a cycle lane, using a solid line and dashed lines across junctions. No linage clutter, which is a problem in the UK. The same incidentally goes for the simpler, neater road marking and hatching in general, which in the UK is really messy.

America is slowly getting to grips with cycle infrastructure, such as having mandatory yield when crossing lanes and such, but there's nothing better than properly segregated infrastructure.

The fact we use messy dashed line for cycle lanes and don't give them any sense of legal status (mandatory lanes no longer need a TRO but you can't enforce them without yellow lines) just shows how contemptuous we are of it.

[solocle]

Talking of the national cycle network...


I'd like to see a signed network of good cycle routes for long distance travel, that, while avoiding main roads as much as possible, are reasonably direct, and always a suitable surface for any form of bike (unlike the NCN).

Green would be a fairly obvious colour of patch for such routes, as a primary cycle route. Perhaps shoddy NCN routes should take a brown patch, instead, as a tourist route. Black could be used to suggest alternative routes for large (cargo) cycles where there's an awkward gate, too!

[Conekicker]

Nah. Get yerself a kayak and use the canals. No hills, no cars or lorries and if you fall off you get a nice soft landing.

[Richard_Fairhurst]

I don't think you get the point, the Sustrans national cycleway network is not any us for serious road cyclists. Yesterday I cycled 110 miles from my home near Reading to Hayling Island at back, using a mixture of country lanes, A roads and B roads, but as a serious cyclist who averages 18 miles an hour on the flat, the national cycle way network is a waste of space.

Within towns, cycleways are basically for non confident cyclists, while confident cyclists use the carriageway as it is safer and quicker.

Yeah, I'm not really impressed at being characterised as not "serious", or "non confident" simply because my bikes aren't made of carbon fibre, I average under 18mph and I try not to get squashed by inattentive drivers. It's great that you like riding 110 miles a day, but try not to be so condescending to the rest of us!

[Richard_Fairhurst]

I'd like to see a signed network of good cycle routes for long distance travel, that, while avoiding main roads as much as possible, are reasonably direct, and always a suitable surface for any form of bike (unlike the NCN).

As a general rule, Sustrans would like the NCN to be like that, too. The failings of the NCN aren't generally because its designers like cycling through mud, it's because of inadequate funding.