Friday 25 February 2011

Demand #1, repeated: Cycle Paths the Dutch won't laugh at

The A4174 ring road path. You can get from here to the Bristol-Bath railway path and hence into the city centre of either city without a single road or even vehicle turning over you. Lovely.

So, the Cycling Team thought "let's put a sign in at this three way junction to help people find the way". All well and good. But the plan, as Blackadder would say, had one small flaw. The team are incompetent idiots.



But why oh why did these idiots think that the middle of the path was the right place to put it. You do not get street signs in the middle of roads for an obvious reason: people would run into them and sue the council. So what was going on in anyone's head when they came up with this plan?

Presumably they expect everyone to cycle in one lane or other. but there's a flaw here.


Its on a corner. And bicycles, when they corner, tilt. So now you have a sign right on the apex of the corner where you are going to smack straight into it. if you get injured, you can be sure that in the coverage of the miserable bog roll that pretends to be the local press but is really a mouthpiece of the daily mail, the usual idiot commenters will say "did they have a helmet", missing the fact you don't need a helmet on what could be a traffic free route from S Gloucs to the two closest cities if it was not for the cycle path planners putting up fucking signposts in the middle of blind corners.

Also: notice how there's no hi viz or reflective markings at the height that bike lights will catch
 

What can we do about this?

We'd like the entire traffic planning team fired, as we've stated before, the cycle forums replaced by something where the new cycle team will actually come out on rides with the local cyclists. We'd also like whichever councillor claims to be the voice of cycling in the council to spend some time trying to get round their area by bicycle.  Which raises another point: why don't any councillors have to act as special representatives of motorists? Because everyone drives up and down the A4174 ring road, the road underneath this bridge -there's no need for a special representative, all the councillors will complain about the High Occupancy lane being under used, of the ratruns being closed off. So every councillor in the council is really a special representative of the motorists.

AReturning to the ring-road, nobody stuck in its morning or evening traffic jam is going to see this sign. They won't think "oh look a cycle path, I'd be better off there". So it's not going to encourage anyone at all to cycle. For that you'd need to stop spending millions of pounds widening the road and instead put some signs up saying "If you were on a bicycle, you'd be there by now". Cheaper, more useful.

If you wanted to show people already on the path how to get to Filton, Emerson's green or the railway path, why not just paint it on the pavement? Really? It's not hard, not expensive. If you use the right paint, not even slippery. Instead we get this piece of shite civil engineering going up in winter -you know, when it's dark during commuting hours- for what. Not the commuters, it must be the leisure cyclists. But nobody cycles alongside the ring for fun. Because it's got signs in the middle of and you could get hurt.

This is why we are not some spoof organisation, despite rumours. Someone needs to make it clear to the council that they are making a mess of things.

33 comments:

  1. This time, I did laugh. Out loud. Please send them over here to take a look at how to do it properly.

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  5. @Frank,
    Putting hi-viz & reflective markings will reduce risk of impact in low-light conditions, and we can do that. But it won't hide the fact that there is now a pillar in the middle of a path, on a bend. If it were moved to one side, there would be no risk. That would make a lot more sense.

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  9. @Frank
    If they hadn't put up the pillars first, that would be a possibility. That leaves as alternatives incompetence and/or indifference.

    On this path, there are no red lights all the way from this sign to either the centre of Bath or Bristol. So please, put down your your usual anti bicycle prejudices and consider this "if money was spent making these a viable alternative to the roads, why are they so awful". That's not slander, it's a question based on photographic evidence.

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  11. Frank, do you work for South Gloucestershire Council's Highways Team by any chance? If not you should apply, seems like you'd fit in.

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  12. Oh, and you carry on too, you're doing an excellent job of showing up just the kind of moronic attitudes we're up against.

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  13. @Frank. OK. so you agree that our statement here calling whoever put this pillar up is an incompetent idiot. That's progress. Therefore your going on about slander implies you are discussing the path with the 50cm dropoff. Presumably you are involved in this, which is why you take it so personally. Sorry. But why is there 50cm of height different from a lovely, perfectly levelled cycle path and the existing path, with only 1-2 metres of space to put in a slope. What went wrong? And how will it be fixed. Raise the existing path, that was only redone 12-18 months ago? Lower the new path? or add a slope that not only makes getting up hard but descending hazardous to everyone?

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  18. Well tell us what's wrong. What is the height difference between the two paths, what is the horizontal, how do you plan to link them together? You can't say we are full of errors when we aren't a position to know any better! If know better, tell us. But don't go on about the slandering. We've seen the two paths, they don't join up. Don't take it personally. Tell us what the plan is? We will even send a representative to test it on the official opening day.

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  23. @Frank, no the spam filter picked them up. They've all been restored. Please accept the Cycling Front's apologies.

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  25. Frank, you should try riding a bike occasionally, it's a good stress reliever

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  26. @People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire. I think in this case the SPAM filter applied good judgement!

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  27. "I see your slagging off SGC highways no predujice there than ".

    We called whoever in the council did the cycle paths incompetent idiots based on the pillars in the middle of the paths and other features. Evidence driven claims. We aren't saying anything bad about the BCC engineers as they don't do this. Go look at the bridge they are doing on Dovercourt Road, or the Muller Road to St Werbugh's route: lovely and gently lit at night. Look at the railway path: street lights, police cycling on it, direction signs painted on the ground, people walking and cycling happily along it. It's lovely. And then it hits the ring road and this. Unlit, pillars in the middle. And wait until we get to the Old Filton Road pavement path. This is our council tax being frittered away here. Even if you don't ride a bicycle, you should hope that the paths are at least half decent enough that people will and therefore won't be in your way on the roads. As it is they are so bad in some places (UWE to Parkway) you are better off on the road, and then the cars get upset that you aren't on the bike path, even though its dire.

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  31. Frank gone then? For those who missed his contributions they can be summarised thus:

    Anti-cycling rant

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  32. Carry on lying Asshole Andyit seems to be the only thing your Good at

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