Chris Armstrong wrote:
I cycled along the Selby/York railway line at the weekend on the
Sustrans path. My young lad isn't up to going on the road and this was
great for him, - gets his interest up in cycling without me being
worried about him being on the road and at the mercy of car drivers,
and I don't need to get on his back, keeping on about keeping in etc.
The path had a scale model of the solar system which stretched for 10
miles which had informative stuff for him (and me) so it wasn't a case
of just being cycles painted on the floor. We had a great day, and got
some exercise, so I would say thanks to Sustrans, and whilst they may
not be perfect, I think overall they do more good than harm.



There are bits that are OK but large parts of it are poorly executed by
people who don't actually seem to use a bicycle or they would know
they'd got it wrong. There is the classic barrier problem which makes
them easily accessible only to single bikes without panniers, the
surfaces are often poor (at the Newcastle end of the C2C a horrible
black gungy surface that gets over everything in the wet) and the
junctions can be a nightmare (in Kings Lynn a single width blind bend
with a bollard in the middle just as you round the bend). Signing
leaves a lot to be desired too such that locals tend to be quite good at
redirecting lost cyclists.

I like the idea, I dislike Sustrans, their attitude and the way they
have gone about implementing it. As a short leisure ride as you used it
bits are fine, as a transport network, fuggedit.

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon