Cycle lanes - not used

yorkie2

JP1978 wrote: »

Why, when local councils have spent millions of pounds installing either dedicated cycle lanes near to a road or have signposted existing footpaths as shared cycle lanes / footpaths do many cyclists insist on still using the road?

This is a meaningless question unless you ask about a specific road; otherwise what do you want people to say?

People use whatever facilities are most appropriate/convenient.

For example, some car drivers may choose to use local A roads rather than a dedicated motorway, where such a choice exists.

JP1978 wrote: »

Many of the dedicated lanes are adjacent to busy, fast moving roads so are clearly there to help the safety of cyclists and help that road to stay free flowing.

Ah, it's pretty clear what your agenda is! However in my experience, it is usually cars that cause congestion and prevent roads being free-flowing

JP1978 wrote: »

Is it like an attitude thing that cycle lanes are for !!!!!'s and your not a true cyclist if you use a lane?

:rotfl:

JP1978 wrote: »

However, when been stuck in a queue behind a 5mph bike waiting for it to be safe to overtake it does get rather irksome to then see a cycle lane no more than 3 meters away they they could be using.

I rarely see bikes travelling at 5mph; I frequency see cars driving at that speed - or even slower - in my city

JP1978 wrote: »

As an example, although not shown on streetview yet, the A70 at Hyndford Bridge, https://goo.gl/maps/P8jWhCAULbD2 & https://www.cyclestreets.net/photomap/tags/hyndford/ there is now a cycle lane 2m meters from the road and runs a substantial way along that road and I assume is primarily there for the uphill section from the bridge west bound. The road is used heavily by lorries from coal, quarry and logging operations. On several occasions I have seen cyclists struggling up the hill and the HGV's, been in a low gear due to the traffic lights and been uphill, struggling to pass. In fact on one occasion, a line of about 20 vehicles had to go the full distance up that hill at the same speed as the cyclist.

If you can provide full details of access to/from the cycle lane, maybe people can answer that. In short; if the cycle laine is inconvenient to use, cyclists will no more use it than motorists may use a piece of inconvenient optional infrastructure for car drivers to use.

JP1978 wrote: »

Just dont see the reasoning for ignoring the cycle lanes - maybe cycling isn't that dangerous after all and the government could save millions of ££......

Many cycle lanes are utterly pointless; some make cycling less safe. It's not easy to generalise as it very much depends on the scheme in question. Without seeing the actual infrastructure, it's not really possible to say.

Voyager2002

yorkie2 wrote: »

Many cycle lanes are utterly pointless; some make cycling less safe. It's not easy to generalise as it very much depends on the scheme in question. Without seeing the actual infrastructure, it's not really possible to say.

We can all agree that poorly-designed cycle lanes are a colossal waste of money. The people to blame are those who produce such schemes, rather than the discerning cyclists who refuse to use them.

Head_The_Ball

JP1978 wrote: »

...Many of the dedicated lanes are adjacent to busy, fast moving roads so are clearly there to help the safety of cyclists and help that road to stay free flowing. ....

It isn't cyclists that usually cause road congestion



Next time you are stuck in traffic consider this.

You are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic.

patman99

A prime example of un-used cycle paths has to be two built in Colchester.

The first was built (at a cost of well over £1m) to provide safe passage for cyclists travelling from Wivenhoe to the Essex University.
The path is never used by cyclists because it is on an open stretch of wide, straight(ish) road rather than further back towards Wivenhoe where the same road is narrow, bendy and mostly up hill.

The second runs alongside Mill Road, Myland (or Mile End depending on viewpoint). This was built after much consultation in which even the leader of the local cycling campaign group warned it was not suitable.
The cyclists refuse to use it because there are 27 driveway access crossings along it's route, so they choose to cycle along the now much narrower road instead.

Lrimas

I recently started cycling to work and I thought that the dedicated cycle lanes would be the most relaxing part of my journey. They are not. They are either:
Very badly lit, forcing me to use a very bright cycling light
Very badly maintained full of pot holes and other debris
Dirt roads - not suitable for a hybrid bike
Full of parked cars
Shared with pedestrians/dogs who take a while to get out of your way.

I avarage about 5mph when I go on cycle roads. As I live 15 miles from work this is not sufficient and I'm starting to avoid them as much as possible.

Head_The_Ball

JP1978 wrote: »

Why, when local councils have spent millions of pounds installing either dedicated cycle lanes near to a road or have signposted existing footpaths as shared cycle lanes / footpaths do many cyclists insist on still using the road?

Many of the dedicated lanes are adjacent to busy, fast moving roads so are clearly there to help the safety of cyclists and help that road to stay free flowing. .....

Why, when £billions have been spent on our motorway infrastructure, do many motorists insist on driving in the middle or outside lane when the inside lane or lanes are empty, thus blocking and slowing down other traffic?

That is a more widespread practice and more serious problem that what you describe.

Mids_Costcutter

Voyager2002 wrote: »

We can all agree that poorly-designed cycle lanes are a colossal waste of money. The people to blame are those who produce such schemes, rather than the discerning cyclists who refuse to use them.

Unfortunately, in my experience most local councillors don't see the connection between the quality of facilities for cyclists and their use. The answer is that more of us need to write to / email them to demand decent facilities and a safer environment that will encourage the next 10% to switch to cycling for some / all of those shorter journeys that are currently made by car.

Johnmcl7

It's a depressing spiral as I'm sure as in other locations, the council spent a load of money on a new cycle route (without any consultation with cyclists) and did a terrible job of it as most of it is narrower than a pavement despite being for two way bike traffic, it's right beside the road and gets lots of debris thrown onto it as well as from the trees above, it has various breaks in it to cross side roads including one dirt track and a back road section it uses is heavily used by tractors so most of the time it's several inches in mud. It's not rideable on a road bike or road orientated hybrid so unsurprisingly few use it and most stick to the road which in turn has motorists beeping and shouting at them while people are criticising the council for wasting money on the ungrateful cyclists so less chance of any proper cycling infrastructure.

I really dislike this commonly held belief that cyclists feel themselves too good to use cycle routes as it simply isn't true, I can only assume that people make up this reason when they see cyclists on the road rather than try to understand why. My Mum has recently taken up cycling in retirement and has been genuinely surprised how bad most of the cycle lanes and routes are here as they look fine from the car.

The truth is, most cyclists want to be on dedicated cycle routes and separate from cars. There's a busy retail park here out of town and the previous cycle route was terrible, it involved going across a dual carriageway slip road with no traffic lights then going along a narrow pavement shared with pedestrians and with no barrier to the 50mph dual carriageway it went alongside, it also crossed an entrance/exit with poor visibility on the cars coming out.

They've now finished a proper, dedicated cycle route and it's absolutely superb - it now goes over the dual carriageway on its own bridge, through the new Uni campus then onto a wide, smooth track that's got its own lighting. It is shared with pedestrians but its wide enough that isn't an issue, it's great having such a route making it easy to get to the retail park any time (I avoided busy times going the old route) and also the variety of people using it - I've seen other road bikes, hybrids, e-bikes and best yet parents taking their young kids on bikes which they just couldn't do on most other local cycle routes as it would be too dangerous. On this one they're nowhere near any traffic and can take it at any pace they want.



John

Mids_Costcutter

Looks like a decent quality cycle path in terms of width - around 3m? but surface looks wavy. Also why have railings been installed on one side? This reduces the usable width by approx. 0.5m as no one will walk or cycle right up to the edge of the railings.

Johnmcl7

Mids_Costcutter wrote: »

Looks like a decent quality cycle path in terms of width - around 3m? but surface looks wavy. Also why have railings been installed on one side? This reduces the usable width by approx. 0.5m as no one will walk or cycle right up to the edge of the railings.

It doesn't show in the photo but it's a reasonable slope, the wavy effect is to step it slightly so it's not a straight slope and the railings are to help people walking up and down the slope, I see them being used regularly.

John