Cycle lane conditions in the UK ?

Raffles

Like others here I watched the war on britains roads show and there were the usual cavalcade of motorists mouthing off with the usual use the effing cycle lanes and where is your road tax garbage. The other day I was out and with that show in mind I deliberately elected to show us riders in a good light and use the dedicated cycle lane. I wasnt on it 20 seconds and I heard the dreaded PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST from my rear wheel :x

Upon a closer inspection you can see those roads are littered with all kinds of debris that will cause punctures for riders and thus defeat the reason for having those lanes in the first place :roll: .From shards of glass, to accumulations of sharp pointed small stones to bits and pieces that have been flung out of cars and left to rot in the cycle lanes. Do any of you see the same issues and have lanes that are meant for riders but simply arent fit for purpose ?

BillyMansell

Some people do rename cycle lanes as glass re-cycling lanes for the very experience you describe.

The other annoyance with cycle lanes and shared paths away from the roads is that hedgerows are infrequently maintained. This can lead to a 1.8m shared path being less than a metre wide and a risk to cyclists and pedestrians alike.


BTW, I may be wrong but I only heard one reference to paying road tax that was buried in one of the disputes Gaz was having. It would have been beneficial to have a piece explaining this fallacy but I'm guessing that educating people had no place on the producer's agenda.

Gabbo

Today has been quite an eventful morning for me. After suffering two punctures, yes two punctures in quick succession; I had two very near misses (one woman and one guy driving his big 4x4) and potentially a 3rd near miss but the lady got off her phone in time. I did, however, pull up in front of her trying to confront her about her disregard for other cyclists and road users in general but she told me to f*** off and drove around me, haha. I tend to cycle more in rush-hour and find cycling on a Mon/Tue morning significantly safer than cycling with weekend motorists around.

As for cycling lanes I feel they are a recipe for disaster. Firstly they give the cyclist a false sense of security. Just because a cycle lane is used by cyclists only does not mean we should disregard our surroundings. People still tend to cross in and out of traffic leaving a potential accident on our hands. Secondly, the condition of cycling lanes are awful. As the OP has already mentioned, there are shards of glass and other various debris that can cause a puncture. Further, I tend to notice some significant potholes situated at times right in the centre of a pothole. This again is a recipe for disaster. And lastly, in the winter the roads tend to get frosty. But as the centre of the roads melt from heat being emitted from motor vehicles, the cycling lanes tend to remain frosty in part.

pete_s

They definately are pretty shit. The one I use for my commute is Ok, but the council doesn't appear to have any authority to enforce that junctions on private land need to be kept in a good condition. As such I have to do a bit of off-roading where military vehicles weighing a million tonnes have cut up the road that intersects the track.

I also find it absolutely bizarre that the designers of cycle tracks put bollards and fences in them, causing you to negotiate a slalom course at 7am. Nearly all of the dodgy bits of my commute is on the cycle track. The rest is pretty much plain sailing and all on the road.

It's also bloody stupid the way they design the entry and exits for them. The one I use you have to turn in and park in the hatching area of a busy road to wait for a gap to appear. Another one I use next to a dual carriageway just stops, leaving you to do three things:
1) Ride on the pavement (this is what I opt to do, always give way to peds and begrudingly pay a fine if i were ever to receive one, and think of it as a tax in order to ensure my safety)
2) Enter the carriage way and ride against the traffic
3) Not use it and ride on the dual carriage way in the right direction, negating the very purpose of the feckin' cycle lane and increase the chance of death to 99%.

TheLondonCyclist

Cycle lanes are the worst thing ever invented, especially for cities. Britain's roads weren't made to add another path, they were made to share and I don't know why other people just can't get along, whether it's in a car, on a motorbike or on a push bike.

BillyMansell

TheLondonCyclist wrote:

Cycle lanes are the worst thing ever invented, especially for cities. Britain's roads weren't made to add another path, they were made to share and I don't know why other people just can't get along, whether it's in a car, on a motorbike or on a push bike.

Not only segregated cycle paths but many pedestrian barriers as well; segregation has created division and has lead to the mistaken belief where pedestrian and cyclists are made to accede to a motorists' "right" to own the road, which is counter to the highway code and much of the law.

Evidence has shown getting rid of segregation and a sharing of (social and human) responsibility yields improved outcomes.

Flexisurfer

I trashed a brand new Gatorskin in a cycle lane last Monday and never use the shared path/cycle lane. For me I think people are more cautious passing when there isn't a cycle lane, but that's just something I've noticed.

TheLondonCyclist

Flexisurfer wrote:

I trashed a brand new Gatorskin in a cycle lane last Monday and never use the shared path/cycle lane. For me I think people are more cautious passing when there isn't a cycle lane, but that's just something I've noticed.

They're more cautious when passing with no cycle lane because they feel they are "sharing the lane" but if there's a cycle lane, they're like f*ck that, my lane and pass without a care in the world lol

anti_podean

TheLondonCyclist wrote:

if there's a cycle lane, they're like f*ck that, my lane and pass without a care in the world lol

That's exactly what I've noticed.

Even removing the cyclist vs driver aspect: compare two drivers and one has sloppy lane discipline -- watch how the other driver behaves. Or if you're the latter driver, what are you thinking when some goon has been obliviously drifting into and out of your lane for 2 miles during heavy traffic. It's my lane!

pete_s

TheLondonCyclist wrote:

Cycle lanes are the worst thing ever invented, especially for cities. Britain's roads weren't made to add another path, they were made to share and I don't know why other people just can't get along, whether it's in a car, on a motorbike or on a push bike.

This is why the Highway code is really a bit of a joke. It looks great and sounds great but it's missing the most important factor: human nature.

Cycling lanes aren't the worst thing ever invented, they're just not implemented right. The Dutch realised this 40 years ago, and look at where they are with cyling today.

The Department for Alternate Transport has a good article on Dutch cycling scenes in a London setting. What it shows is that a segregrated cycling infrastructure is the way to get people on bikes. Not one of the images in the blog post shows a young man bombing it at 20mph. It's practical cycling for people of all ages and abilities.

stickman

Those things pedestrians walk on so they can keep the adjacent footpath empty, that motorists use as a carpark so they can keep their driveway empty. Shame they wont keep cycle lanes empty of their trespassing.

unixnerd

When I was working in Norway this summer I hired a bike and was astounded by the quality of the cycle paths and the positive attitude of the drivers. Just superb. As a result our Stavanger office has four times the %age of cyclists compared to Aberdeen. It's a good comparison as both cities have similar climates, hills and wealth.

In Aberdeen where they have put in cycle paths the junctions are a joke. On one crossing of a very busy road they decommissioned the lights at the crossing and put a sign up saying please don't cross here! A mate had a nasty accident when he hit a wall a night (ten years ago lights weren't so good), the cycle path just ended with a note to dismount now please. On another the island in the middle of a dual carriageway is so narrow you have to dismount and walk through the railings.

There is one cycle path near me that's well implemented. But to get onto it from one end I have to do a right turn across a busy A road, it really needs a turning lane. It should be mandatory for cycle lanes to be signed off by British Cycling or someone similar during the design phase.

On the whole I favour just having a lined off area at the end of the road. At least that way it'll get gritted and be usable in winter. Up here it's far too dangerous to use a separate path when there's ice about.

Guanajuato

unixnerd wrote:

It should be mandatory for cycle lanes to be signed off by British Cycling or someone similar during the design phase.

Completely agree. So many of them seem to be done because they have to be seen to be doing something. Sat in my office I can see a cycle lane that crosses a busy main road at a zebra crossing, shares the path over a humpback bridge, then crosses back across the same road, shares the road for a few yards before a kerb, then up onto the pavement with lampposts and signposts in the middle of the lane, which then narrows to 18 inches on a sharp left bend, just as a zebra crossing comes across the same road. Then its interupted by a layby. Then ends at a piece of common land, used a free car park. This is all happening where two one-way roads combine from opposite directions and split into 3 lanes. All in about 300 metres. http://goo.gl/maps/Z6eFw The google streetview was done when the lane was in the process of being done. There's now a light-controlled crossing at the build-out by the bed centre. And I'd forgotten about the stupidly wide access to an office car park, which encourages rather fast turning from the road. And notice the silly triangle thing where the roads combine. All a real triumph of road design. Should I point out the awful road surface across the bridge and round the bend too? The ToB came over that bridge this year. The riders didn't sound too chuffed with the 4-inch potholes around manholes and stop-cock covers.

I've seen a van driver deliberately drive into a cyclist who didn't ride on that death trap arrangement. And been abused for not using the F*&%(^% cycle lane. Whilst overtaking the stationary traffic. :roll:

There's a cycle lane from Windermere to Ambleside that's under about an inch of leaf mulch and thorns, along with give-ways at each and every driveway.
Whats almost as bad around here is the lack of maintenance on some of the Sustrans routes that are roads. Little more than farm tracks with the occasional lump of tarmac, overgrown with brambles, nettles and grass, leaving a patch of road about 4" across on each side. Add in steep descents with loose gravel and I'd heartily suggest avoiding Sutrans Route 6 North of Milnthorpe unless you like punctures and gravel rash. Actually, looking at the Sustrans map, there's a hell of a lot of Route 6 through Kendal that's specifically signed 'No Cycling' :?

samsbike

As with the above, they are awful. I still use them as its safer than the road (a40 into London) but I am careful. Peds seem to thing the whole lot belongs to them and there is loads of debris on them. So much so, then when I took the longer route into London via the bus lanes, I could not believe how much better it was.

unixnerd

Whats almost as bad around here is the lack of maintenance on some of the Sustrans routes that are roads.

It IS worth complaining about that. In my case NCN7 over Drumochter, 18 miles. I wrote to my MSP and MP about it and they managed after a few months to get a meeting of all the stakeholders on the actual route two weeks ago. Responsibilities were agreed and the guilty parties send off to revert with an action plan (due soon). Also managed to get an article in some local papers to give it publicity, that spurred things on a lot.

With all the recent cycling publicity now is the time to act!

DrKJM

pete_s wrote:

1) Ride on the pavement (this is what I opt to do, always give way to peds and begrudingly pay a fine if i were ever to receive one, and think of it as a tax in order to ensure my safety)

You might be able to argue your way out of the charge in any case. According to a piece on the BBC from back when the FPN was introduced "In a letter to cycling MP Ben Bradshaw Home Office Minister Paul Boateng wrote "The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of the traffic, and who show consideration to other pavement users.""

It might be worth being able to quote that if a CSO decides to try to ticket you.

pete_s

Good point. I've always felt like I've been able to justify riding on that section of path if it ever came down to it, and I'm pretty sure any reasonable plodman wouldn't think anything of it.

CanalRider

I ride through Sandwell where cycle lane implementation appears to have been invoked purely to meet a government requirement. Most are of 30 to 80 yards in length and add nothing to the cycling experience. The ring-road has a lane that is less that 24 inches wide - it does enter into an ASL but you can't reach the ASL if traffic hugs the white line. As for maintenance don't get me started.

peat

It was the subject of a discussion at the pub with some non-riding mates. "I don't normally mind bikes, but when they are riding in the road when there's a perfectly good cycle lane, they deserve to get hit."

I tried to explain my side, citing debris and damage, poor maintenance of hedges, peds, interesecting drives/side roads, poor design etc but they literally laughed in my face. You can't argue with morons.

robertsims

I totally agree with comments above BUT not all bad. I live in Bradley Stoke on outskirts of Bristol and started cycling about 2 months ago. This is very much a 'new build' area that was farmland 20 years ago. They have really tried to promote cycling with excellent separate cycle paths (mostly shared use but very wide) and also cycle lanes on side of all the roads. Good routes to just about everywhere (I cycle into centre of Bristol which is about 7.5mile and only on roads for about 1m mile). Add to that the excellent Bristol/Bath cycle track (13 mile of smooth tarmac old railway totally seperate from the road that is like a cycle motorway in the morning) and I must add that some places do it right, not perfect true but well. This has in turn greatly increased the number of people cycling in my area, which in turn makes it more the 'norm' and hence I find drivers are very good (as used to cyclists and may well be one themselves). Just wanted to say not all bad!

peat

Sounds good Robert. That just goes to show that if they are thought out, they can be good.

The problem comes when you try to retro-fit them in areas that are unsuitable as a council box-ticking exercise.

robertsims

Totally agree - very hard when the area is already built. The Bristol/Bath cycle path has been around for years - old railway line made into a cycle track (I believe one of first in the country). The area I live in was farmland 20yrs ago and when the built it they incorporated bikes into the planning.