Saturday 10 December 2011

Hembrow will be weeping blood over this

Our dream "cycle paths the dutch won't laugh at". Well, Hembrow won't be laughing at the next set of proposals. He will be crying tears of blood, at what a wasted opportunity to make cycling -in an area where there are few of the space constraints of a city- vaguely pleasant.
It would be a waste of time to go through these point by point and criticise them, because nobody in the council will care what anyone says. The cyclists will be given something shite and expected to be grateful.

Rather than do the whole lot, let's look at the short stretch from the MoD Roundabout to Abbey Wood station on the ring road, covered in just one fraction of the plans.

Do the plans note the presence of a bus stop in the bike path, and propose adding some more path over the wide green space to the left?

Not a fucking chance.

Whenever something gets too narrow for a bicycle and pedestrian to pass each other, the segregated signage gets replaced by "shared path"

But even in the segregated path, they turn a blind eye to bits where it goes away.

What about this outcrop of greenery that forces pedestrians and cyclists to collide? Any thought of moving the signs -designed for passing drivers- and widening this? No. It will stay as is, with one more pole for some sign to go up.
One more, after things like the pillar saying this is a shared route, in the middle of what is painted as a segregated route.
If any of our members could be arsed to turn up at the "cyclists patronising forum", the question they would ask is
Why the fuck do you put signs in bike lanes saying "This is a bike lane" while you are at least sensible enough not to put them up in the middle of road lanes.

Then there is the underpass by the brige. Lethal on the road, impossible to pass anyone coming, on foot or bike.

yet because of all the no bicycles/no cycling/handlebar barriers on the other crossings nearby (like the Abbey Wood train overpass, 100 metres to the left of this picture), this and the equally useless path on the other side are all we have.

Now imagine such mediocrity to continue for  miles and miles. That is S Gloucs.


1 comment:

  1. And the rabid car drivers (not all, just the ones foaming at the mouth) will decry "f***ing cyclists! Why are they using the road??!! Theres a perfectly good cyclelane over there!!"

    I think the solution to this is to build roads to the same standard, starting by dropping in a few walls so that they end abruptly.

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