The thin blue line

DonDaddyD

Yep, another 'superhighway' thread.

There are going to be many of these in days to come. Why? I suspect however positive or negative they will greatly affect how we commute. (Perhaps a moderator could make this a sticky to track comments on the highways impact from implementation to finish.

OK my issues:

The first is a temporary issue but still important. When the superway highways are laid they (the builders) don't press the stones down. This means that my tyres are picking up the stones and are either embeded in my tyres or flicking off my tyres into me, my bike and anyone behind me. Not a long term issue, sure, as buses soon press those stones into a mostly flat surface. However, the other day I was behind someone riding over a newly laid lane and a stone flicked from their read tyre and straight onto the lens of my glasses.

Though the lane's are wide they really aren't a two bike's wide. Thus overtaking is nigh-impossible, especially when you have traffic on your right. To be really safe they need to be at least another half a foot wide. In fact because the lane is wide I found that I moved further out into the road to overtake another cyclist than I normally have done in the past.

Because the lanes are there, I've found that motorists now don't expect you to move in to what has become their lane to turn right, go straight etc.

Road markings are still in the lane so this means cars (in Tooting) can park smack in the middle of it.

Good point:

Because the lane is wide, it means that if you ride on the edge, you can block a vehicle, in my case a HGV from effectively overtaking. Sure, this was overly defensive but had he overtaken me - as has happened in the past - I would have had to push myself up to the curb i.e. ride in the gutter. So I blocked him off and moved in when I felt it safe to do so.

More to follow, surely....

rjsterry

DonDaddyD wrote:

Road markings are still in the lane so this means cars (in Tooting) can park smack in the middle of it.

I think this is one of the biggest problems with the stretch through Tooting. In the evenings, there are a lot of cars parked either side of the road, so the CSH effectively ceases to exist. Add to that the bus stops, which bisect the blue paint at regular intervals and your left with a sequence of little short stretches of blue, which don't really make any difference other than brighten the place up a bit. At no point do they seem to have dealt with the fact that the road is just too narrow in places to get a decent CSH lane and 1 or 2 car lanes side by side. As you say, the danger is that motorists start assuming that us cyclists will stay inside the blue zone, where they don't have to worry about us, and then driving into us when we don't.

They also haven't put any white lines down the outside of the blue zone, dashed or otherwise, so at the moment, the CSH is in a sort of legal limbo.

glauciaregina9

DonDaddyD wrote:

Yep, another 'superhighway' thread.


Because the lanes are there, I've found that motorists now don't expect you to move in to what has become their lane to turn right, go straight etc.

This is exactly why I am not convinced specific cycleways are as good an idea as they seem - rather than encouraging an attitude of awareness, consideration and tolerance on the road, it just enhances the attitude that cyclists shouldn't really be there in the first place.

Not good for improving motorist vs cyclist relations.

In my opinion anyway...

wgwarburton

rjsterry wrote:

....bus stops, which bisect the blue paint at regular intervals ....

Hang on...! This is a "superhighway" with bus stops?

I would have assumed that the absolute bare minimum that one would hope to achieve with a superhighway is a continuous route!
What, exactly, is the difference between a "lane" and a "superhighway"?

Cheers,
W.

asprilla

WGWarburton wrote:

What, exactly, is the difference between a "lane" and a "superhighway"?

One is blue and the other is occasionally green.

rjsterry

Asprilla wrote:

WGWarburton wrote:

What, exactly, is the difference between a "lane" and a "superhighway"?

One is blue and the other is occasionally green.

Yup, that's about it really.

Dismal.

I wonder if the CSH's will get the chop in the government spending review. TBH I hope so, because what they are doing at the moment is a waste of money, and I'd rather it were spent on something more worthwhile (like maybe buy every cyclist in London some cycling lessons). Seems awfully negative, but there you go.

mtb-idle

Agree with everything you say DDD.

Upper Tooting road/Tooting High Street is a deathtrap in the evening (it's quite pleasant in the morning) and all SCR hostilities are postponed in a deperate bid to make it successfully from Tooting Bec tube at the top to Tooting High Street at the bottom of the hill.

Have you encountered the 'trench' that is about four inches deep and extends three-quarters of the way across the road just before the set of lights after Tooting Bec tube?

DonDaddyD

MTB-Idle wrote:

Agree with everything you say DDD.

Upper Tooting road/Tooting High Street is a deathtrap in the evening (it's quite pleasant in the morning) and all SCR hostilities are postponed in a deperate bid to make it successfully from Tooting Bec tube at the top to Tooting High Street at the bottom of the hill.

Have you encountered the 'trench' that is about four inches deep and extends three-quarters of the way across the road just before the set of lights after Tooting Bec tube?

Yes, yes I have many many times. Tooting Bec to Tooting Broadway (the journey home) is the only part of my commute I hate. Terrible driving, terrible road and kamikaze pedestrians, which has been made more complex buy broken strips of 3 - 4 foot wide blue painted tarmac.

Maybe in time it'll work.

Porgy

[ Hang on...! This is a "superhighway" with bus stops?

I would have assumed that the absolute bare minimum that one would hope to achieve with a superhighway is a continuous route!

TfL promised a continuous route when I saw their presentation on this just 18 months ago. I think even they agreed then that there would be no point in this exercise unless it was a continuous route.

Oh hum...complete waste of money..TfL probably blew their budget on a pointless bus and an expensive bike-hire scheme.

rjsterry

Thanks for the reminder of that one for the run home. I've not done a full run home for 2 weeks now so I'm a bit rusty. The little 20" wheels on the Dahon don't help either

Dudu

I used one of these for the first time today, from Clapham Common to Clapham South.

Before, there was no cycle or bus lane and I was given plenty of room by drivers.

Today, they passed a lot closer until I realised the new blue line was there and rode further out from the kerb.

ALL on-road cycle lanes are a PITA. The only bits of segregated road I find of any utility or safety are bus lanes.

Chewy Cheeks

The strech from Tooting Bec to Blackshaw Road is the part of my commute home that causes most consternation. Blue or not blue, its the folk that walk and drive on this
part of the A24 which worry me .

rml380z

rjsterry wrote:

...
I'd rather it were spent on something more worthwhile (like maybe buy every cyclist in London some cycling lessons).
...

You can already get free one-to-one lessons through (some? all?) local councils.
Although I bet they're another thing that will be cut soon.

DonDaddyD

That was the most god awful commute I've had this year. Ok today's conclusion on this:

Superhighways attempt to make 3 lanes mostly on roads where there were previously two. It does this however, without increasing the size of road so effectively it just creates less space. The irony is that the number of road users is increasing so this just compounds on this problem. It could be argued that currently Superhighways are a great example of an over-subscribed London's inabilty to handle and effectively manage being over-subscribed.

Where the Highways become useful is if you are a unsure cyclist or out for a pootle. The wide lane causes you not to rid in the gutter and feel secure riding within a bright blue lane.

Since the Highways have emerged I've noticed that groups form on it. Reason being overtaking is a nightmare. cyclist can be as far as 3quarters of the way into a single lane you either go with the cars to overtake, sit behind the person infront or use the small gap between crashing into the cyclist on the left or vehicle on the right. If you make it through, like I did, you'll spend your time looking back to make sure the person you pass hasn't wobbled into a crash as passing them so closely is likely to startle them.

The third lane on a two lane road also means there is many many many times vehicles have to drive into the Highway as they drive up the road.

Tooting bec - broadway, forget he lane ride mainly in the centre of the road unless it's safe to take the cycling primary - which isn't often.



This does disadvantage overtaking as the wide lane means

bearfraser

I'm guessing you suffer from "Taxi's" thinking that the advance stop box at junctions is for their use as well !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :twisted:

TheStone

I don't get them.

I hate criticising and moaning about everything, but these are a total waste of time.
Not sure what the answer is, but this isn't it.

Does anyone know how much it cost?

I'm sure they've moved a bus stop at Clapham Common so it's now in the blue lane? I don't
think it was there before.

Also, why so much going on at the same time? Water, gas, super highway plus something
else that I can't work out ..... and no tubes at the weekend. Where's the coordination?

In the meantime, the roads are falling to bits....

itsbruce

DonDaddyD wrote:

This does disadvantage overtaking as the wide lane means

That you are abducted by aliens in mid post?

gaz545

Please see the playlist of my youtube videos about the Cycle superhighway - http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... C3DB154C83

Note one has over 13,000 views, been included on the Guardian, the Evening standard, road.cc, treehugger, bikeradar, ctc and LCC web articles / newsletters.

The bad press is out there.

rjsterry

The Tooting Bec to Tooting Broadway (southwestbound)section of CSH is a complete nonsense. The width of the CSH weaves in and out, principally, it appears, to accommodate parking bays, which are actually wider than the CSH. If the bays are occupied, as is often the case during the evening commute, then the CSH (remember this is, one assumes, something more than just another bike lane) is completely blocked.

So the CSH is actually less use than some of the bike lanes I have seen (I think there is an example on Upper Richmond Road West, coming into Richmond), where the bike lane runs around the outside of the parking bays. I realise this is because the road in Tooting isn't wide enough for parking bays, CSH and two lanes of normal traffic, but that was pretty obvious from the start. Why not address the road width issue, rather than blow several tens of thousands of pounds on some road paint?

DonDaddyD

itsbruce wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

This does disadvantage overtaking as the wide lane means

That you are abducted by aliens in mid post?

Sorry let me finish that off...

"This does disadvantage overtaking as the wide lane means"... I was posting on my iPhone and still haven't quite gotten used to jumping between words in paragraphs.

rjsterry

This week just gone there seemed to be a big push on the A24 CSH. There now seem to be actual road/kerb layout alterations rather than just blue paint, and there are temporary information boards next to each of these (presumably to explain to motorists what all the cones are in aid of). Upper Tooting Road (Tooting Bec Tube to Tooting Broadway) seems o be pretty much 'finished' though and resembles some kind of elaborate TfL practical joke. As TailWindHome pointed out, the least you would expect from a 'Super Highway' is that it would have the minimum of interuptions, but the CSH along this stretch probably has about 60% of its length also designated as parking spaces, all of which take up the full width of the blue lane (in fact n places, the blue lane widens to accommodate the parking space!). Add in the bus stops and I think they have actually made things more dangerous on this stretch by giving the (false) impression that they have provided a 'safer' cycling facility.

tailwindhome

rjsterry wrote:

As TailWindHome pointed out, the least you would expect from a 'Super Highway' is that it would have the minimum of interuptions.

I'm fairly sure I didn't

But to be fair I do get confused easily