All quiet on the Eastern Front

On the other side of the MoD from the Bollards of Death route lies "the eastern front". It's quite nice in daytime. Here we see two people with orange rucksacks doing the route into town.

The rucksacks say RAF on them, and as you can see, the cyclists are riding in formation. Years of experience paying off.

Is this a bike lane the dutch would laugh at? Well, let's look at some other bits.

Heading to the A4174 on a weekday morning.

The bike path isn't wide enough for two bicycles to pass, but at least there aren't any bollards here.

What is an issue is that anyone walking to work on the MoD site has to cross the bicycle side of the path to get to pedestrian side, increasing risk especially at the bus stops. Why not make the path wide enough for different lanes of bicycles and people walking? And put the footpath on the side by the bus stops, on the basis that that is the obvious destination?

One interesting feature is the green lanes on the road here. Some cars do actually give way to bicycles on these bits, even though it's not a legal requirement. You can't trust it, so perhaps both sides slow down just to make sure. It's a shared space kind of thing.

Now, the final view: heading south on a weekday evening. It's getting dim, and you can see that about one light in four on the MoD site is lit up. If all were lit up, you'd have better visibility on this stretch, which would really benefit pedestrians, who aren't encouraged to walk down here. Oddly enough, all the lights in the car park work.



The bike path is on the right (remember how it is on the left on the bollard path). With two bike paths joining, and the one at the end actually connecting with the bollards route, you have to swing into the pedestrian lane as you approach it, or to pass other bicycles.

Then you hit the rugby grounds. Pleasant at day, at night you have to deal with the narrow fence to get through -this was a change that got worse a couple of years back, before anyone with an MTB -as you need on these paths- could just clear the berm on the left. Now, if you have a road bike you have to slow down and zig zag through, on an MTB you can go on the grass and swerve through faster, hitting potholes as you go. There are more potholes at 1:18, stuff no bike can avoid, potholes that form massive puddle in the rain. At night you don't get any warning of this.

What could be done?

1. Widen the path between the bus stops and the nursery/car park, giving a proper pedestrian lane on the side of the bus stops. Eliminate crossing risk, better for everyone. It's not as if there isn't the space.
2. Move the bike path to the other side on the rest of the route, reduce risk of collision from the right. Or just recognise that there is no lanes. 
3. Fix the lights on the MoD site.
4. Change the entry point to the rugby grounds so you don't need to come completely to a halt. Instead widen it enough to get a trailer through, and line it up better. 
5. Fix the potholes.
6. Add some st-werburgh's path style solar LED lights through the rugby grounds. They show the route to everyone, and do benefit pedestrians.

The annoying thing none of these need much imagination to come up with, the problems are immediately visible. Yet nobody fixes them, nobody cares. Incompetence or Indifference: you choose.

Update: Fixed the link to the final video.

The Bollards of Death Path

Here is the famous "bollards of death" path at 17:30 on a weekday. MoD staff, other commuters. This is what it really looks like, compared to the sunny quiet-day video.

The bollards are visible, you can see where we taped some of them up, but they do blend in with the white line. It makes you realise why many road-side posts are in alternating white and black -visible in more conditions.




0:08 -swerve into oncoming lane. No protocol here so there's a risk you both swerve. It happens. That's why when there is a lower pedestrian count the path switches to normal left-side-of-road rules.

0:18 anyone walking over the zebra crossing is lined up to get hit here. Also note the barriers. Rationale unclear. Not bicycles, so it must be stop pedestrians crossing the road except at the zebra crossing. So why not allow that?

0:55 mediocre visibility on an uphill route; hope nobody is descending.

1:12 MoD pedestrian access point. Again, having the bike path on the RHS would reduce risk here, but look at what comes up

1:19 foot access to the train station, key part of the pedestrian route. Oh, and a pillar in the middle.

1:24 even two people walking side by side are something you have to worry about

1:39 notice the vast space for parking. This site fills up its parking, a lot of staff were reallocated from elsewhere. Now people who live within three miles aren't allowed to park. But what is the alternative. We're on it.

1:56 its quieter here as its either residents of Northville or Lockleaze on foot, or bicycles. At the end of the path there's a blind corner, but we are avoiding it as we are taking the Northville exit.

2:10 This is a bike path, marked up on the maps, oddly not in the better by bike video. When we say "you need an MTB to cycle round here" we forgot to mention the max handlebar width and travel. The more travel your bike has, the higher your bars go, the harder it is to get through here. Good thing there's nobody in the way, and that we arent carrying children on the front bars -or in a trailer or tagalong.

2:17 narrow bridge. Clearly this is a path for pedestrians that's had some anti-motorbike barrier for a while and with a blue circle is now a pedestrian/bicycle shared route.

2:28 into the garage zone. It's interesting how much space is allocated to parking here. Even though you are a few minutes cycle/walk from the supermarket, the whole Bristol suburb culture is about driving. The busses are less frequent, the corner shops bleaker and further away. You are expected to drive.

2:46 and we are in the cars-on-the-pavement suburbs.

Now, is this path a failure?

Experience: Fail. In that it doesn't go out of its way to make you feel welcome and valued yes. Neither pedestrians or cyclists will enjoy this walk. Indeed, one of the things about walking round this area, or up to parkway station, is how mindnumbingly dull it is. Even the graffiti isn't that interesting. All you see are car parks, dual carriageways and cars, until you get to crossings that make you wait for 30-60s before you react. It's implicitly designed to make you wish you'd rather be in a car.

Maybe this is why its so rare to see anyone walking around. In the inner city, people out and about. Here, people walking to their cars, some teenagers loitering, and people waiting for busses looking miserable.

Use: Unknown. We have no before/after data, the MoD exclusion zone will encourage more walking and cycling so the statistics won't be reliable. It's busy with pedestrians and some bicycles. Some morning and school time data would be useful, probably between 8 and 9 am is the peak hours.

Scalability: Fail. The path may only have a few bicycles, but its already saturated. The segregation fails because the path isn't wide enough for two directions of walking and two directions of cycling. If the number of people cycling down here were to double or triple at peak times, it still wouldn't make much of a dent in the car traffic statistics, but it would overload the cycling infrastructure. And what then? A new lane?

Not a one-off

We looked at the signs in the middle of the bike path last week. Is that sign a one off?No, someone seems to have decided they can put them up directly after the hard zig-zag turns that were designed by someone who doesn't understand how people walk or cycle.

This path comes out of an industrial estate, only used by commuters. Regulars. So why  bother putting up a sign right in the middle of the path to remind them where their turn off to work is?

Again, painting something on the floor will work. That's why they do it on roads. But no, whoever has a bollard fetish -and is clearly a fetish- decided a triple-height bollard would do here.

This is painfully bad path design.

Is there hope. Well, the "old school" cycle campaigners have been emailing the council, here is the response they got

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Subject: Camouflage bollard on cyclepath near Abbey Wood

A reply to Terry Miller’s comments was sent by Keith Marsh last month, (attached), which outlines the situation regarding the ‘origins’ of the bollards near the MoD.  As for the larger direction sign posts, one or two of these have been repositioned where absolutely unavoidable.  In other cases, reflective tape has been applied to the recessed collar to make them more visible in dark conditions.

I’m sure you appreciate the number of considerations that go into determining the final position of these posts – the sign arms obviously need to be clearly visible from different directions and they should not protrude less than 450mm from a live carriageway, (for example).  Safety is also a prime consideration and the vast majority of all the recently erected sign posts and bollards create no additional hazard to cyclists or pedestrians whatsoever.

Where there are safety concerns raised regarding these features they will be investigated and rectified where appropriate.  This has already happened in some cases and as the Stage 3 Safety Audits for all the Cycling City routes take place, (the first ones will take place very soon), there may be cause to investigate one or two more specific locations.  In the meantime, construction works, including completion of often quite minor outstanding items, is still continuing on the Cycling City routes.  When this is finished and the safety audits also completed there will another opportunity to review some aspects of the route design, including the bollard / sign positions.

It would be premature to assume that all the current positions of all bollards and signs will not change.  At present the construction works are still being completed – when this is finished a further assessment of the routes will be carried out.  Any of the bollards or signs that might appear to compromise safety to an unacceptable degree may be removed or relocated.  I am sorry that this process has not already been completed – there are other works still being completed which have arguably greater potential safety implications in the short term.

I hope this is helpful.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

See that? "Premature to assume that all the current positions of all bollards and signs will not change". Why on earth were they put in the middle of the path in the first place? What person though it was a good idea, and has this person been escorted out of the council offices by site security yet? Because until they have, we have no confidence that such things won't stay there -to change them would be to acknowledge mistakes, and nobody likes to do that.

What can we do here?

We propose

1. Publicising such incompetence more widely. 
2. Putting up reflective markings, and publicising this.
3. Putting up warning signs ahead of the sign posts warning of signs in the middle of the path. 
4. Put some signposts in the middle of the car park behind the council office. 

Other ideas are welcome. Remember, proposing acts of violence against the council staff is a no-no. That doesn't solve problems, merely polarises opinions. We plan to use the white light of publicity and rely on ridicule and the fact that whenever anyone from the S Gloucs cycling team goes to any meeting with other councils, people will snicker and ask about signs in the middle of paths. Our big concern is this: they won't care.

Incidentally, this path joins Old Filton Road. That's the road that was closed to cars until a local councillor campaigned to have a rat-run reopened so he wouldn't have to spend so much time on the ring road. Presumably, that was done with cycle city funding. This is why the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire is opposed to the council team getting any more funding from central government. We need a new team, or at least new councillors, before any new money can be justified.

Cycle paths the Dutch won't laugh at

One of our requirements of what pretends to be part of the cycling is "cycle paths the Dutch won't laugh at."

Unlike inner Bristol, there is the space. We know that, because they keep putting up new dual carriageways, new buildings with lots of parking.

If there is room to add a dual carriageway and lots of parking, there is room to add a quality cycle path

If there is not, then the blame has to go on competence or a complete lack of willingness to care.

Such incompetence is unacceptable to the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire, even if the Popular Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire think differently and are happy to accept the shite the council gives us.

We want, as stated before "cycle paths the Dutch won't laugh at."

That means

1. Cycle paths that require cars to give way. Interestingly, this exactly what is going up in the housing estate behind the MoD Abbey Wood site.

2. Cycle paths that connect up to create a network of traffic free routes. Again, the new development paths do this, as here they connect with the existing UWE-Lockleaze route

It also means no fucking drops the height of a wheel between the two paths, ones that do require you be sporting an MTB with 100-120mm worth of travel on the bike along with hydraulic disk brakes because otherwise you aren't going to do the dropoff and reduce speed and turn left or right fast enough not to clip one of the students.

What kind of idiot would do this? Not just design it, but notice, while they were perfectly levelling the new tarmac, that there was 50cm worth of difference between this new tarmac and the existing path? 

At some point in the future, David Hembrow is going to see this. And he'll laugh. At some point Amsterdamize will see this, and they will say "one of those English jokes". Eventually Mikhael from Copenhagenize will see it and say "That monty python humour, I almost get it"

Because whoever did this is one or more of:

• Utterly incompetent and in need of having their right to design any kind of road or path removed, banned from ever calling themselves a civil engineer again, until they spend a year's apprenticeship in Haarlem or Den Haag.
• Utterly ignorant of the needs of people trying to get round the city alive by bicycle.
• Utterly indifferent of whether or not the cycle paths they design and get built can actually be ridden by someone who isn't a mountain biker that thinks 50cm dropoffs are fun.

This is the problem S Gloucs suffers from. It is a problem that means the Cycling Embassy of GB is only going to make progress here if the entire S Gloucs traffic design team die in a bizarre accident involving a white minibus and a snow plow  -and they replace it with one person who has been to mainland Europe at least once since 1972 instead of some apprentice who learned about road design from the old team and A-Z maps of glasgow and leeds.

But before Carlton Reid and Vehicular Cyclists say "Told you so", these are the same fucking idiots who are trying to accomodate bicycles on the roads. You cannot expect the incompetent and indifferent idiots who do things like this to look at the new dual carriageway they are planning and think "how will a family of four on their own bicycles get over this alive". No, they will produce something that will end up with that family of four getting mentioned in a footnote on the evening news, "family of four died", then some fat git will appear on TV and patronise everyone and say "did they have helmets on?".

For everyone who thinks we are some kind of joke. No, the council cycling team are. Which is why anyone who tries to use these paths will be joining the campaign. Contact us via twitter, @cyclingfront. And together, the council will come to fear us or at least feel vaguely self concious about their imcompetence, and note that whenever the say "We are the South Gloucestershire cycle planning team" everyone from Europe will snicker. 

This is why we have to overthrow the council, or at least embarrass them so much they will hire a new traffic planning team.