The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

Michael MacClancy wrote:
On Mon, 24 May 2004 14:51:35 +0100, Helen Deborah Vecht wrote:



I call it the respect/contempt issue.
Cyclists in the Netherlands are respected and numerous.
Cyclists in Britain are hated and not numerous.

I don't know what will change the numbers.
I don't have a clue what will induce the Brits to accord more
respect to cyclists. Some cycle farcilities are definitely
counter-productive here (and there's a large feature in the local
rag entitled 'Cycle lane has hit profits, angry traders tell
minister')


Here's a link to the story:
http://tinyurl.com/3ezt3

"former customers tell me what a shame it is that they can't shop locally
any more" maybe if they made the effort to shop locally then the shops
wouldn't have closed. Once again we see how small minded some folk are.
Instead of finding another means of travelling such as bicycle or public
transport, which I presume is one of the intentions of the scheme, they
chose to go elsewhere - then whinge about it.

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

On Mon, 24 May 2004 18:29:11 +0100, Peter Tillotson
wrote in message
:

Cycle lanes also have the irritating habit of stoping at every road
junction. I don't mind cycle lanes, as long as they are well designed
and recognise that cyclist like to maintain momentum.

Oooh! Where? Where? ;-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

In article ,
bikerider7 wrote:
[Note: I have not been on Blackfriars bridge, and the article seems
quite
vague on the "problem" with this particular cycle lane....]

For the edification of urc, I've put up a few pictures of the cycle
lane in question. I happened to be in London yesterday walking along
that bit of the Thames...

http://www.kantaka.co.uk/blackfriars_bridge/

The traffic lanes as painted on the road look appallingly dangerous to
me. I cannot believe any sane traffic engineer could possibly have
thought that this was a good idea.

It would be very easy for a cyclist to be caught in the blind spot of
a large vehicle which, on realising that it was in the wrong lane
would move across the cycle lane without ever realising that the
cyclist was there. This is compounded by the fact that the road is
uphill making it very difficult for even a very fit cyclist to keep up
with the traffic.

Interestingly, you can see on the photographs that the blue sign which
presumably echoed the road layout appear to have been covered
over. Anyone know what these said? I have a suspicion that the left
lane was designated a bus lane Mon-Fri at peak times, putting the
cycle lane *in between* a pair of bus lanes. Mad.

Phil

--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

In article ,
Philip Armstrong wrote:
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/blackfriars_bridge/

195.92.67.67 - - [24/May/2004:19:26:33 +0100] "GET /blackfriars_bridge/ HTTP/1.1" 200 2061 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"

Well, that took all of three minutes.

Phil
--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

Philip Armstrong wrote:

For the edification of urc, I've put up a few pictures of the cycle
lane in question. I happened to be in London yesterday walking along
that bit of the Thames...

http://www.kantaka.co.uk/blackfriars_bridge/


Just realised I've cycled that loads of times and didn't think twice about it
(I had Blackwall Tunnel ingrained in my mind for some reason). Like the
cyclist just visible in the flowers photo I stay in the left hand bus lane
until I am well past the solid separator before moving right into the straight
ahead cycle lane. By the time I move over, all the buses that are going to
swap over will have.

Mind you, maybe without my helmet now I will be simpering in the gutter there.

Tony

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

Right I'm really confused by this layout[1]. Am I right in thinking that the
layout is:

Left turn lane | Cycle Lane | Bus Lane (ahead only?) | Ahead (& right turn?)
only lane

Then why the need for a bus lane & a seperate cycle lane?

To me it seems like just two lanes (one for all left turners, one for all
ahead traffic) would be better :-S

Could you or someone else who knows the area enlighten me?

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

Philip Armstrong wrote:
In article ,
Philip Armstrong wrote:
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/blackfriars_bridge/

195.92.67.67 - - [24/May/2004:19:26:33 +0100] "GET
/blackfriars_bridge/ HTTP/1.1" 200 2061 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;
MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"

Not got mine, then?

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

"Peter Tillotson" wrote in message
...


snip

I think we need to start educating the car drivers, report everyone
comes too close or cuts you up. It'd be nice to take snaps of the number
plate, get home and automatically get a list sent to the local police.


There is a thread on u.r.d. regarding villagers being able to detect
speeders and pass registration no.s to the police so they can send out a
letter (or summons in extreme cases). I think it would be a good idea if
road users can report incidents like the PP describes to the police and that
they (at least) send a letter out detailing the incident and what should
have happened instead. I think the reasonable-but-ignorant part of the road
user community would respond well to that (although I doubt it would have
any effect on the selfish section of society).

Just thinking aloud :-)

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

On 23 May 2004 12:35:07 -0700, bikerider7 wrote:

[Note: I have not been on Blackfriars bridge, and the article seems
quite
vague on the "problem" with this particular cycle lane....]

Scandal of our deadly cycle lanes

Same story was on bbc local news tonight on tv. May be repeated later
after 9 if anyone missed it.

I'll encode it if wants it.

Steve

The _Observer_ on "deadly" bike lanes
 

On Mon, 24 May 2004 19:22:11 +0100, (Philip
Armstrong) wrote in message :

http://www.kantaka.co.uk/blackfriars_bridge/

What a dog's breakfast! Mind you, the buses might get the hint if
Green Kleptonite had been used on the bike lane.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University