cycle lane design

[Onvlnaay]

How do people feel about cycle lane design?

In the UK, as far as I know it is illegal to cycle on the pavements, in that you cause a danger to pedestrians. Therefore I think that cycle lanes placed on pavements with a painted line dividing the foot/wheel sections are a ludicrous idea, because pedestrians NEVER stick to their side and never will do.
I also think that just painted cycle lanes are useless on roads. It puts you alongside the traffic and means you fall victim to cars which turn across you without looking in their mirrors or signalling or sometimes just moving over to make more room for a large vehicle coming the other way, knocking you off unless you manage to leap up the kerb successfully and quickly enough. I think that all roads are better off without the painted lane at all, you so the cars are in front and behind, or with an intermittent row of kerbstones/ballards to make the lane more of a feature. How do others feel?

 

[goatgoat]

I think the bicycle lanes painted alongside the other lanes of the road do a very good job of creating more distance between the cyclist and motorists. If you can't maintain 50km/h while riding then cars will pass you one way or another, and I believe it's better they do so without having to merge into an adjacent lane. The problem of cars turning in front of a cyclists path is unavoidable (unless you don't ride near automobile roads), and can only be managed with vigilance as a rider. As for the intermittent ballards, great idea! It's a shame the cities I ride in are far too cheap to even repaint the road lines. :/

 

[Robert 85]

This clear seperation of cyclist lane and pedestrains is a great idea. In Germany it seems to work perfectly. Everyone respects it and rings a bell if someones in the way! I think the British public needs time to adapt to these changes.
On the other hand the roads in England are too narrow to afford to have large bicycle lanes and really should the goverment be introducing lanes at such a time?

 

[BHOFM]

This is what they are doing here, work in progress. They have about forty
miles done and planning on just over seventy.

We have very little foot traffic, I mean very little. This morning on a fifty mile
ride I saw four people walking! Maybe twenty plus bikes.

BTW, all side walks here are designated as multi use paths.

 

[Stuartm9999]

I believe we will probably be seeing more shared pavements in the UK as the government is going to devolve their creation to local councils - I remember reading this somewhere but can't find where - I think at the moment these have to be made/approved by central government.

I use some shared paths daily and find that a bell makes it all fine. These shared paths seem to be used widely in other European cities such as Barcelona where they work fine - although they do have nice wide pavements to put them on.

I don't mind the painted on road lanes either - at least it means the road is usually slightly wider - but it would be nice if the police were to clamp down on people parking in them.

I use shared bus lane for a lot of my journey - again this is good - Belfast bus drivers seem to be pretty considerate on cyclists.

The only issue I have with bike lanes are the ones that "disappear" just at the really busy bit of road - or the ones that are practically impossible to cycle along.

You can read some more of my bike lane rants on my blog.

Oh - and you are right - it is illegal to cycle on the pavement.

 

[Moto700]

Depends on how wide the road is to begin with. Here in Houston, Texas there are some roads that have bike lanes on the roadway as you mentioned and the roads are wide enough to it doesn't become a hazard for cyclist. But, there are other roads that were 2 lanes for autos and now have 3 lanes, 2 for autos and 1 for bikes, in the same width of roadway. I tend to stay off busy roadways and stay on side streets as much as possible. When I'm on a side street I'm on the road but if I need to get on a busy (major) road I'm on the sidewalk. Yeah, I know. It's illegal in Houston to ride a bike on the sidewalk but when my safety is concerned it outweighs the law every time. I'll take the ticket, plead my case to a judge (make the cop put in a court appearance too) and continue to ride sidewalks if I'm on a busy roadway.