UKH

Painted bike lanes are waste of money, say cycling commissioners

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/17/painted-bike-lanes-waste-m...

I think some of us could have told them the same 25 plus years ago. But better late than never ? (& maybe they listen to someone like Chris Boardman whereas I would be ignored)

I wouldn't say all of them are completely useless although many are.

In Glasgow they built a load of cycle lanes which are separated from the road by a kerb, and are dropped down from the pavement. So clearly separate, with lane markings and bike traffic lights etc. Great.... except that pedestrians just walk onto them anyway without looking! I have been knocked off by a pedestrian before and have often had to shout at people as I approach!

We need better infrastructure and better awareness of it!

Cycle lanes do seem to work better abroad than in the UK. I think that this is down to a large degree to law enforcement. I see cars regularly parked all day in cycle lanes. I pass one repair garage that regularly parks at least 5 ( customers ) cars in a cycle lane. They should be treated like double yellow lines at least.

I think that they do want segregating from the road by something more substantial than a white line as it's more dangerous to have to pull out around a parked car than to have to ring a bell at a pedestrian, annoying though it is.

I think this varies - Paris doesn't seem much better than the UK with many bike lanes just a painted white line, others are separated but not recognised by most pedestrians. But then Copenhagen works really well. But in Copenhagen there are so many cyclists that its impossible not to be aware that the strip between the pavement & the road is for bikes and maybe the same would be true in France & the UK if the N° of cyclists increased, but how does that happen when cycling is perceived as dangerous by so many ?

Cycle lanes work quite well in Edinburgh. I think the difference might be that they are reasonably wide and the whole road surface in the lane is painted a rusty orange colour making them impossible to ignore. Cars generally respect the space but can use it if necessary and safe to do so. I think that's a good compromise between safety and congestion.

What is still an issue are the boxes ahead of the stop lines at junctions. While they too are coloured and have a picture of a bike on them, a lot of motorists ignore them.

Planners should have this website bookmarked when designing cycle paths: http://wcc.crankfoot.xyz/facility-of-the-month/February2019.htm They should also be made to use their own shitty designs 7 days a week for a year.

Highways Engineers generally rather than planners doing the implementing. Personal experience would suggest that they are getting more cycling aware and some of them even cycle.

I’ve been doing a lot more cycling recently, some painted cycle lanes are very good, some are pretty dreadful, the problem is often the pinch points, where they seem to completely forget about cyclists.

<splutter>  Really?  Here is an example of a cycle lane in Edinburgh which is (a) not coloured (except at junctions, where it's largely worn away) and (b) regularly used for parking:

https://tinyurl.com/y5nhenxn

Unusually, when the StreetView van went past none of the parked vehicles had two wheels on the pavement, like most of them along this road usually do (as I know because I live nearby), despite the fact that the road is wide enough to accommodate a ghost island down the middle.

Cycle lanes like this also perpetuate the decidedly unhelpful view that when riding on the carriageway cyclists should be adjacent to, if not actually in, the gutter.

Far too much of Edinburgh cycling "infrastructure" is like this.

Another one that I have driven past a few times recently makes me shake my head in disbelief:

https://tinyurl.com/y27dkdku

Note how the lane moves out to pass the marked parking bays, directing bikes to be squeezed between parked vehicles and moving traffic, and positioning any cyclist preferring not to be on the right-hand edge of the lane (i.e. preferring to keep their distance from overtaking motor vehicles - observe how the vehicles in front of the Google van are right on the edge of the cycle lane, and in one case drifting in to it*) plumb in the "dooring lane" to be taken out by careless car occupants intent on exiting their vehicle.   That lane has recently been re-painted with solid white lines but that doesn't stop drivers from drifting in to it at pinch points and where the cycle lane kinks around the parking bays (because turning your steering wheel a little bit further in order to guide your motor vehicle on safe path is just tooooo much effort, obviously).

Here is another example of Edinburgh's finest cycle infrastructure:

https://tinyurl.com/y5em6d67

Bearing in mind that this is a one-way street with a contra-flow cycle lane, what exactly is a cyclist expected to do at the end of it?  You can't move out on the road, so you have to dismount.  It's a token gesture, not infrastructure as most people would understand the term.

* Which is odd, given how reluctant so many drivers usually seem to be to keep to the left.

Oh yes, I agree that the segregation is much better, but also want pedestrians to recognise it!! Some just change direction and walk In front of you with no warning at all, no time to shout (Glasgow traffic always felt too loud for a bell). 

Tell me about it!

I used a signed cycle path/pavement in Carlisle returning from a bike ride earlier today and slowed to walking pace when I saw a bunch of middle-aged men of a certain appearance all over the place (dressed in black, polo-necked sweaters, beer bellies, closely-cropped greying or balding hair) and one of them managed to full onto my bike knocking me into the railings separating the path from the adjacent dual carriageway and skinned my arm. He was incoherently rat-arsed, foam-freckled around his mouth, and trying to pick a fight with me as he couldn't grasp the concept of a shared-use path: luckily one of his compatriots could handle his drink a bit better and pulled him away.

I had to retreat to Carlisle's Brewdog pub soon afterwards where I was allowed to prop my bike against the bar and everyone was civil, asking me about my bike and my day's ride.

Jeez, that looks like a dream!  I give you Bristol's finest in 'paint a line and call it a cycle lane': http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/motoring/this-wonky-cycle-path-will-drive-you-...

But seriously...on the hand hand it is nice to have a demarcated space to call your own, on the other it often isn't big enough and is sometimes designed with no thought about how one transitions on and off it when it begins/ends.  There are a couple round Bristol which just direct you back onto the road with the hope that drivers will expect you to suddenly appear sharing their space again.  They give me the heebie jeebies.

Because it's not illegal. Crazy, isn't it...?

I present to you Stirling's finest:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/p2NjeRQYxhL4Ee2q9

Hopefully the link will work, if it doesn't then I can try to save it somewhere else 

We have a few bits round here - couple of hundred yard of scabby verge sectioned off with a white line that takes up a fair bit of the existing road. You have to ride close to the white line to get a decent bit of road, then cars and lorries pass really close safe in the knowledge that they’re their side of the line. The “bike lane” either peters out or diverts you onto a footpath and tells you to dismount before crossing a side road where you had the right of way. I think it’s just so councils can say they’ve installed x miles of safe cycling provision (and in doing so made everybody worse off). 

Here we have one of Sheffield's finest bike lanes... https://i.ibb.co/SQnWH8z/Capture.jpg

It squeezes you between the pavement and the tram track with no run out. After questioning, the council said despite being painted red and having a white line down the side of it, its not a bike lane, its there to warn cyclists. Presumably a warning about the council incompetence. 

This one less than a mile away... https://i.ibb.co/3v1ZgXS/Capture1.jpg

Directs you downhill into a grit filled central section crossing on coming traffic. You're on the brakes all the way down that hill so as soon as you go into the cycle lane the grit causes you to slide into cars accelerating up the road. 

While I'm generally in favour of dedicated cycle lanes, road planners need to decide if bikes are traffic or pedestrians. 

It certainly is. Rule 140. 

Get rid of the lot of them and introduce and enforce 20mph limits in all urban areas for both cars and bicycles. 

They do it differently elsewhere:

https://bycs.org/bab/#selection

Only if it has a solid white line, and even then only during its hours of operation.  I don't know about your neck of the woods, but round here those marked with a solid line are in a vanishly small minority (and the one I know about that does - linked in my earlier post- has parking bays on the footway side, so drivers have to drive across it to park <rolleyes>).

They are trying in Southampton:

https://transport.southampton.gov.uk/transport-projects/inner-avenue-segreg...

Admittedly only a short stretch but there are a few more in or going in soon, however there are many other painted line horror shows to be seen too...

My favourite is the dual use pedestrian/cycle pavements plus dogs with thin, black, hard to see extendable leads combination.

I am currently recovering from a large hole in my knee, sustained by the bike slipping away from me in 1/2" of sharp gravel (it looks pretty, even if it's dangerous and causes punctures) on a corner on a National Cycle Route. It's nearly six weeks now, to heal a fatty-tissue-deep wound that required 2.5 hours in A&E to clean and patch up. My road-cycling colleague rode on it once and decided it was safer to cycle on the road...