My cycle path is worse than yours...

vanquished

The North end of Chanterlands Avenue in Hull, heading towards the Uni. Note the generous width of the cycle path, half of which is taken up with the double yellows.



This is a fast 'I-was-only-doing-30-officer, honest' residential road; this bit is on a bend - and see that rectangle shape in the path mid-picture?

Here it is in Extreme Close Up:



Needless to say, in the wet this gets more than a little hairy...

dirk_van_gently

That is clearly NOT a cyclepath, how LAs can get away with this kind of thing is beyond me.

BTW Vanquished, are you really David Badeel ?

graeme_s-2

Just ignore it, and get out into the secondary/primary position where it's safer.

It's a joke of a lane though

vanquished

@Dirk Van Gently: sadly, I'm not Baddiel (so don't get to co-host Fantasy Football League - is that still on these days? - years since I owned a TV...)! Anyway, to be fair, the South Park Character Generator isn't exactly brimming with customisation :-P

@Graeme_S: yep, it's a joke of a lane, and I truly think it makes life *more* dangerous for the cyclist, because the ignorant* car drivers expect you to use it, and so if you're out to the right of it (which, IMHO, would be a sensible position if the markings weren't there), you tend to be the target of intimidatory driving.

Parkey

Dirk Van Gently wrote:

That is clearly NOT a cyclepath, how LAs can get away with this kind of thing is beyond me.

They do it because they get to put a nice green line on their map. That's why.

mrchrispy

write to them and complain - make someone earn the tax you pay

secretsam

mrchrispy wrote:

write to them and complain - make someone earn the tax you pay

Agreed, my local authority have an online complaints thingy - I fired off a number of sharp ones recently, and Lo! A bloke-with-exposed-ar5e-crack and some tarmac appeared and sorted the holes in the usual tidy and in-no-way lumpy manner (better than a hole...)

dirk_van_gently

Going ever so slightly OT, what was that program with Baddiel and Skinner where they just ad libbed on a sofa? top entertainment.

Mr_Cellophane

Chop the trees down and concrete the grass verge and turn that into the CL.

beverick

I'm sorry but on the scale of "icon of good practice" to "poorly installed and unusable" your photo is closer to being an icon when compared to many others laid around.

Please see: http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.co.u ... -the-month

Bob

vanquished

@Beverick: OK, Bob, I concede that that safety railing is something special...

...although what actually irks me more is that the path takes bikes OFF the road, where they have right of way, plonks them on the pavement for, what, all of 10 metres, and THEN makes them Give Way. So straight from first-tier road user to third (giving way to a second stream of traffic presumably joining the original road).

secretsam

beverick wrote:

I'm sorry but on the scale of "icon of good practice" to "poorly installed and unusable" your photo is closer to being an icon when compared to many others laid around.

Please see: http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.co.u ... -the-month

Bob

That site is total class, the one in Harlow from Sept 07 is superb...mind you, I've been to Harlow and I'd want a car, that way you can get out quicker

beverick

vanquished wrote:

@Beverick: OK, Bob, I concede that that safety railing is something special...

...although what actually irks me more is that the path takes bikes OFF the road, where they have right of way, plonks them on the pavement for, what, all of 10 metres, and THEN makes them Give Way. So straight from first-tier road user to third (giving way to a second stream of traffic presumably joining the original road).

Again, January 2006 shows really how to get cyclists to rejoin the carriageway. September 2007's entry (noted by Secretsam) amuses me as the local authority have managed to put a "wavy" centre line down the middle of an otherwise straight path....

September and November 2004 are personal favourites.

(August 2005 is my entry by the way!)!

Bob

ChrisLS

...I work in Harlow...I have given up riding the new cycleway, shown in the Crap Cycle Lanes book, as there are too many junctions to cross, making it very dangerous...the original cycleways that were constructed when the New Town was built are generally reasonably good, but like all cycle ways anywhere in the country you have to dodge dog walkers, chavs and lberal sprinklings of broken glass...the road is still the safest place to be...

lynseyf

this is class, nice to see its a national policy to make cycle paths useless

My personal favourite is the 1m wide strip of red paint that has been put across every junction in Edinburgh, I guess cyclists are supposed to use their well known powers of levitation to get there as there is no cycle paths leading up to most of them.

On a personal note the cycle path to the new multi million pound hospital in Edinburgh was really thoughtfully designed. The planners obviously thought we would be bored of flat cycle paths by the time we got to work so thoughtfully put about 8 sets of 4 steps in a row, good practise for the mtbing at the weekend though

beverick

lynseyf wrote:

this is class, nice to see its a national policy to make cycle paths useless

My personal favourite is the 1m wide strip of red paint that has been put across every junction in Edinburgh, I guess cyclists are supposed to use their well known powers of levitation to get there as there is no cycle paths leading up to most of them.

On a personal note the cycle path to the new multi million pound hospital in Edinburgh was really thoughtfully designed. The planners obviously thought we would be bored of flat cycle paths by the time we got to work so thoughtfully put about 8 sets of 4 steps in a row, good practise for the mtbing at the weekend though

Leeds City Council were using a similar design guide a couple of years ago when they altered a bridle way. To cover the same dead flat 400m path you previously rode down, you now have to cover almost a kilometer and climb 60m in just under 500m. Ok, you then had the benefit of going down 60m in a similar distance but you don't always want to climb steep hills.

Bob

lynseyf

I just don't get who would ever think steps are a good idea in a cycle path. The other main users of the path seem to be people with prams or buggys and I'm sure they are as fed up with the steps as the cyclists, I don't see what would have been wrong with a normal sloping path.

secretsam

lynseyf wrote:

I just don't get who would ever think steps are a good idea in a cycle path. The other main users of the path seem to be people with prams or buggys and I'm sure they are as fed up with the steps as the cyclists, I don't see what would have been wrong with a normal sloping path.

Then there's the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) to contend with...I sense a campaign coming on in Edinburgh

graeme_s-2

I'll be passing the April 2006 one on the way home, although I'll be one the road where it's safe(r) rather than risking my neck on the cycle path.

October 2006 is another of Coventry City Council's finest.

Mr_Cellophane

Nice CL in Barking & Dagenham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9QCvhKPV8U
Hatched area to protect cyclists from the door zone and still enough room for a wide carriageway for cars.
and a polite WVM not pulling into the CL while he waits for a space in the traffic.