Clifton CC

The more I ride around York, the less I like cycle lanes. How do I resent them? Let me count the ways:

Pavement cycle lanes are bad because:
* they are full of broken glass, dogs and pedestrians
* they weave treacherously around lamp-posts, crossings and trees
* you never know when they're going to dump you back on the road
* they leave you vulnerable to left-turning traffic when they cross side-roads.
* drivers expect you to use them, however inadequate.

On-road cycle lanes are bad because:
* they are full of broken glass, drains, pot-holes, hatch-covers, and the feet and elbows of cellphone-crazed pedestrians
* and they collect all the best p*ncture-fodder (sorry, 'Macbeth')
* you never know when they're going to disappear (into a line of parked cars) and force you to cut back into traffic
* buses and artics love to drift into them
* they push you to the side of the road, which may be out of view, and often not the safest place to be
* they are often comically narrow
* drivers expect you to use them, however inadequate.


I can still think of two valuable types of bike lane:

* Clear, broad and straight on-road lanes that cover whole stretches of congested roads which are wide enough to hold them. That allows you to cruise safely past traffic jams without surprises. A good example is the path on the newly-surfaced Fulford road between the Barracks and Fishergate .

* Off-road paths like the Selby planetary path. You have to look out for dog-walkers and others, but it still gives the cyclist a good alternative to dicing with traffic - in daylight at least.

But I think the vast majority of cycle lanes don't help cyclists at all. They literally marginalise us, and implicitly deny us our fair and safe share of the road, without offering any genuine protection from encroachment by motor vehicles.

My safety is more important than your convenience and I don't want to be pushed into the gutter or onto the pavement, just so you don't have to think about me. A Cycling City should demonstrate a true commitment to cyclists by upgrading or removing the mess of existing lanes.

Tom

Hmmm yep. I hate most cycle lanes too, for all those reasons, but especially for the one that some car drivers seem to feel we're fair game if we're not in an available cycle lane. A far better solution is just for all road users to show a bit of mutual respect and consideration. However...

...having run public consultation events for Safe Routes to Schools projects, parents don't half go on about the dangers of cycling on the road and how they'd only let their kids ride if there were proper cycle lanes. Personally I reckon cycle lanes are a weak response to this (especially the way we do them) - whether they're a worse response, in terms of getting bums on bike seats, than simply telling parents to get out there with their kids until the kids are confident and there's some safety in numbers, is a tricky question....

Edit:- And the particular nasty event on your way home tonight which prompted this was....?

Couldn't agree more Tom. I particularly dislike the new cycle route over Clifton Bridge - the roads now so narrow you are forced to use it and its a bloody obstacle course! My view is bikes and pedestrians don't mix. Cars and bikes mix better because hopefully they are all going in the same direction. Have always thought most cycling risks are perceived - most of you will know the cycle route from Haxby to Jo Ro school. Would the little lambs' parents let their kids cycle if the line wasn't painted on the road? But how does that make the route safer - it doesn't make the road wider or stop cars parking on it!
I used to cycle daily from Copmanthorpe to York - on the cycle path to Dringhouses and across the Knavesmire. Pleasant enough in summer although you still have to contend with dickheads with their dogs. But it was a complete joke in winter. Cycle tracks are never gritted so it was absolutely treachourous when icy and you had no chance of spotting unlit pedestrians or worse - unlit cyclists.
There are other cyclepaths around York and I'm thinking of the one across Bootham Stray from Wigginton Rd to New Earswick which is again great in daylight but very isolated. Even I would be uncomfortable on it in the dark. Plus there are metal sticky up things every few hundred yards.

A Cvcling City should do more to encourage more people out of their cars. The company I work for talks the talk but loads of employees must drive just a couple of miles and few of the senior managers lead by example.

Shared use paths are bad because they encourage pavement cycling, which can't be a good thing. They also end without warning, so you suddenly find yourself riding along an actual pavement with a slowly growing feeling that you should really be back on the road by now.

Off road paths are bad because you have to stop and look three ways each time they cross a side road, and I'm not going to look up the figures at this time of night but they're more dangerous than the road itself.

On-road lanes are bad because in addition to all the previously mentioned reasons, motorists pass you closer than if there was no cycle lane at all, as found by Ian Walker at Bath university.

All cycle lanes are bad because they're put there either because the council wants to narrow the road and a cycle lane is the most PC way to do it, or because motorists want cyclists to get out of the way, as has been the case for many decades, long before anyone thought of a bike lane as a safety measure.

Finally, on-road lanes are bad because they discourage good positioning. You want to turn right? So get to the right of your lane! But no, many cyclists will stick in the bike lane.

As for the problem with perception of danger, I'm convinced that as long as we keep throwing up more extra 'safety' farcilities like bike lanes and hi-viz clothing, we'll increase the perception of danger. Scrap the bike lanes and work towards a society where it is seen as normal for cyclists to integrate with the rest of the traffic flow, and we won't have so many people petrified to ride their bikes. The current strategy of bike lanes, hi-viz, helmets ad nauseam, encourages people to see cyclists as something other, as something special and as something a bit crazy, which makes them all the more scared and less likely to take up cycling for themselves.

I am glad there no cycle lane across Lendal bridge. Love getting onto the pavement when it's choked with cars, or getting squeezed into the gutter! So much more REAL than zooming past the traffic on the bike lane on Skeldergate bridge, for instance. Why they ever wasted money putting that in I do not know!
I say let's continue battling it out on the roads with the vroomvroomers, just like the bike warriors do in London! That will get your pulse racing allright.

I've never checked it with a tape, but I suspect Lendal bridge is narrower than Skeldergate bridge, which is the root of the problem rather than the absence of "cycle lane"....

Cycle lanes like Skeldergate Bridge are great. I particularly like the way they are a catalyst for constructive conversation and polite dialogue with car drivers who love them so much they feel they should share them with me ...

... and as for the concentric green lane around the outside of the Heworth Lane joustabout that absolutely guarantees my safety as I circumnavigate to a right hand exit road in a lane that, logically to a road user, is for turning left ...

... and then there is the great delight to be had in using the green lane to legitimately pass through the first set of (red) traffic lights at the junction of Holgate Road and Blossom Street, then, legitimately again, filling up the green box at the next set of lights to get lined up for the three lane free-for-all towards Micklegate Bar and Nunnery Lane.

Not sure if anyone else has read this but I found it thought-provoking and it does inpinge upon the cycle lanes issue...

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/09/fe ... parts.html

Well I think the real problem is to do with the quality of the on road cycle lanes and off road cycle lanes that are provided for us in the UK, they are often very poor.

On the whole they are a good idea - they seem to work well in Holland where i grew up, where cycle to work percentages vairy between 13% (in a hilly part of holland) to 40%. Have a look around Holland on google maps street view to see what I mean.

I think cycle lanes are particullaly good in urban areas, to be honest who in their right mind would want to cycle next to articulated buses that over take you inches from your handlebars.

The death rate per Km cycled in the UK is about 4 times higher than that in Holland. That is due to a number of factors but seperating cycles from buses etc is not really a bad idea.

York has the lowest pro rata casualty rate in the UK for cyclists. The cycle lanes of course have not helped at all to achieve this. Cyclists who have been campaigning long for the development of these dedicated routes are clearly deluded.

Cycle lanes may not suit road bike riders in a hurry, but they do help to get 'ordinary' people on their bikes again. 20% of staff at the University of York now cycle in, mostly on the shared use off-road Low Moor path and the Millenium Bridge.

The great thing about cycle lanes is that you don't HAVE to use them. You can mix it with buses, trucks, white vans, taxis anytime if that is your thing. But others might not be so keen, and feel happier in bike lanes.
Oh, would cycle lane deriders be happy for their children to ride on the road to school by themselves when there is a cycle path route available? Answers welcome!

"Oh, would cycle lane deriders be happy for their children to ride on the road to school by themselves when there is a cycle path route available? Answers welcome!"

Answer:- Yes! Because riding on the road improves your road sense and awareness; because riding on the road increases the "safety in numbers" for cyclists, because riding on the road generally gets you to your destination by the most direct route. I've always taught my daughter to stick to the roads, because I'd rather know she's safe on the roads when she has to be on the road.

She rides to school over the Millennium Bridge because it's a far more direct route than any other - I'm sure the same is the case for many cycle journeys which use it, rather than the fact it's a "cycle path". The fact it's traffic-free makes it thoroughly pleasant in all sorts of ways but I'm sure it's not the sole reason it's well-used by cyclists.

And the cycle lane "push off" point just before the traffic light always either have motocycle or a ped in them or a white van man in them which means you have to go in front of them in to the pedestrian crossing...

david

Better in York then Cambridge. I was down there last week, twice nearly hit by cyclists travelling the wrong way in one way streets.

Pinch points frequent with the lanes & barriers/signs. So much street furniture in Cherry Hinton "traffic calming" area to get around. Also their lanes end abruptly & dump you straight into traffic without warning.

I still have problems with the trike in York as several paths have "elephant traps" guarding them. I borrowed a Brompton recently which opened up loads of traffic free paths I cannot lift my trike into. No reply from the Council officer about how to get through the traps.

I'll have to trike on the roads, probably until I can afford a Brompton of my own

Cycle lane barriers and cattle grids are on the action list and we're likely to see improvements there to allow better access for the more esoteric self-propelled transport solutions.
EasyRiders went along Water Lane yesterday. One (unprompted) comment received from Silka when using the new cycle lane was 'hey, this is great, wish there were more like this!' Water Lane of course was gridlocked with cars from end to end at the time. We lost zil time stuck in the traffic of course.
Made me think of the last para of the inscription we put on the plaque of Planet Earth 10 years ago on the Solar System path: 'Reports of existence of intelligent life on Earth are probably exaggerated'.

willyh wrote:York has the lowest pro rata casualty rate in the UK for cyclists. The cycle lanes of course have not helped at all to achieve this. Cyclists who have been campaigning long for the development of these dedicated routes are clearly deluded.
Cycle lanes may not suit road bike riders in a hurry, but they do help to get 'ordinary' people on their bikes again...
The great thing about cycle lanes is that you don't HAVE to use them...
Oh, would cycle lane deriders be happy for their children to ride on the road to school by themselves when there is a cycle path route available? Answers welcome!

When I started the thread I expected more people would take this line. But in fact, I sort of agree with Willy's argument, and Phil's earlier point about the concerns of parents. It's all very well for me, big bloke on a bike in a hurry, to complain about pavement paths, but what about my mum with her shopping, or parents with kids in tow, or besuited Dr Brompton on his way to work? Don't they like the paths, and don't they count for *more* in a way, because I'm the sort of idiot who regularly cycles up the A19 in the dark in funny trousers, so I plainly don't need any encouraging?

And yet... I can't help feeling we've been had. A man shares a house with his brother, then goes abroad to work for a few years. When he gets back, he discovers his brother has married, had kids, and moved half his in-laws into the house. There's no room for him any more, so being a quiet kind of fellow who doesn't like to make a fuss, he builds an extension at the back for himself to live in. You might think his brother's new family would be grateful, but instead, whenever he comes into the house they make pointed remarks about all the disruption the extension caused and why doesn't he use it?

My father-in-law tells me that, growing up in Nottingham in the '40s, you couldn't move for bikes at 5pm as everyone headed home from work. Car ownership was limited, and bikes, buses and trams dominated the roads. Some time (I guess in the 60s...) cars overtook bikes as the default mode of personal transport, and bikes steadily became marginal, unfashionable and undesirable ("just for kids").

Now, for health, pollution, space and all kinds of factors, cycling is on the rise again. Hurrah - but what's this? Cycle lanes? Car lanes, more like! We were here first. Cycling on the roads wasn't seen as dangerous before, and it *need not* be dangerous now, provided each of us (cycles, cars, trucks, pedestrians, donkeys) takes reasonable care. We've been playing the unassertive brother to the car's imposing in-law too well.

I don't recall any cycle lanes when I rode to school in the seventies and eighties, and I doubt they existed at all in the UK in the fifties (ready to be contradicted!); not only that, traffic surveys I've seen show average speeds of urban traffic have been *decreasing* by decades. Speed limits have also mostly decreased where they have changed at all. The important changes in the last forty years have surely been in the relative numbers of vehicles on the road (bike vs. motor) and the design of the cars (safer for their occupants and heavier when they hit you).

I *do* feel that an obsession with cycle lane provision in effect legitimises careless driving, and encourages the view among potential cyclists that they need a path to be safe. But there's some evidence of "safety in numbers" - simply getting more people on bikes on the roads makes all of us safer by forcing drivers to take account of cyclists all the time.

So my response to Willy is:

1. Glad to hear York is such safe cycling city, but can you really tell if it's the lanes making the difference - what about option (b): increasing numbers of cyclists made the difference? (but see next point...)

2. I'm pretty sure cycle lanes do help people get cycling (and so contribute to (1) perhaps) BUT they may also restrict the journeys they make, IF they encourage the belief that No Lane = Unsafe.

3. True, you don't have to use cycle lanes - but many on this thread agree that drivers expect you to. I've been beeped across York and shouted at in London for not using lanes I considered were unsafe or unreliable. I do think a badly designed cycle lane can be a positive hazard.

4. Cycling to school (about to be an issue - my eldest is 10). Whether I think a road is safe will not be affected by the presence of a stripe down the side. This offers no physical or legal protection (I heard the head of the Met Police's cycle safety group explain that a driver is perfectly entitled to drive into or park in a dashed cycle lane). A pavement cycle path is much more attractive in this respect. But I have a better solution: permit children (everyone?) to cycle on pavements unless explicitly forbidden, with the proviso that pedestrians have absolute priority. I rode to primary school on my own, mainly on pavements, from age 8 and nobody bothered about it.

The fascinating article Dr D linked contains a quote:

Cities are full of fear, which is partly why and partly because people move in cars

Cyclists ride in fear, which is partly why and partly because they confine themselves to cycle paths. Lanes can be useful, as I made clear in the opening post, but I would like our Cycling City to be more ambitious and less apologetic: promote cycling universally, for everyone, on every street. Lanes would have a supporting role in such a program - but in most cases, council money would be better spent fixing potholes and raised drain covers at the edge of our streets, not painting lane-lines down them or along the pavements next to them.

tom