Cycle Paths Are Good

[Ian Blake]

Ok, Not Really.

This week as I commute past Valleywood (site of new film studios near
Llanilid [near Bridgend [near Cardiff [West of Bristol]]] I encounter
temporary traffic lights at the new roundabout they have been building
for about six months. Among the constructions that appeared recently
is a short section of cycle path (CP). At the moment the entrance is
just by the start of the traffic lights so when the red light is
showing I ride up the dropped kerb on to the CP and ride past the
oncoming traffic. Brilliant. In a while they will move the traffic
lights so I doubt I will ever use the CP again.

 

[MartinM]

Ian Blake wrote:
> Ok, Not Really.
>
> This week as I commute past Valleywood (site of new film studios near
> Llanilid [near Bridgend [near Cardiff [West of Bristol]]] I encounter
> temporary traffic lights at the new roundabout they have been building
> for about six months. Among the constructions that appeared recently
> is a short section of cycle path (CP). At the moment the entrance is
> just by the start of the traffic lights so when the red light is
> showing I ride up the dropped kerb on to the CP and ride past the
> oncoming traffic. Brilliant. In a while they will move the traffic
> lights so I doubt I will ever use the CP again.

A traffic light in Oxford was the only place I saw any of the riders of
the Poor Student use a cycle path (as it avoided it)

 

[Geraint Jones]

"MartinM" <[email protected]> wrote:
| A traffic light in Oxford was the only place I saw any of the riders of
| the Poor Student use a cycle path (as it avoided it)

Is that the one that passes the light on the Headington Road,
going Headingtonwards from Headington Hill past the Gypsy Lane
junction? It's there to allow two parallel lanes at the lights,
and drops you into the unprotected beginning of an on-road lane
just past the lights. I've never been keen on it because you
have to be really sure there's no other vehicle going to go
straight on into the lane where it rejoins the road. I think
I have only used it once, and that was last Tuesday night.

Mind you, a similar construction on Horspath Driftway (again to
allow a right-turn lane) comes with a small island in the road
at the point where it rejoins the road. This means that if you
are bowling along at twenty miles an hour (as I usually am there,
having just had to negotiate the roundabout at the end of the
Slade) and opt not to bounce up onto the kerb and back down
again, then you run the risk of being either impaled on the
bollard on the island protecting the restart of the lane, or of
being flattened by the passing fire engine that hasn't anticipated
your sudden swerve into the road to avoid the island.

Short psyclepaths that dodge around traffic lights are odd in a
place like Oxford which has numerous traffic lights planted in
the middles of cycle lanes, like the one at the bottom of the
very same Headington Hill. That one's unforgivable, because the
cycle lane was there before the traffic light pole was planted
in it. At least the one by Jordan Hill is one that was in the
pedestrian side of a segregated path that had its polarity switched.

 

[Andrew Chadwick]

On 2006-03-09 17:08 +0000, Geraint Jones wrote:
> Short psyclepaths that dodge around traffic lights are odd in a
> place like Oxford which has numerous traffic lights planted in
> the middles of cycle lanes,

Theres another of the wretched things on Cowley road, going away from
town opposite the Bingo hall. It helpfully takes you through a crowded
bus stop on a busy route, perhaps as a means of encouraging public
transport or warm fuzzy engagement with the local community.
It's all of maybe 50m long and terminates parallel to the road at the 90
degree left turn into Bartlemas Close (allotment fences, poor
visibility, dubious traffic islands littering the main road at that
point and beyond). Shoud you want to rejoin quickly having been led
astray, you can't. Should you want to turn left, you have a badly
obscured 270 degree arc to survey first.

But hey, you do get to avoid traffic lights. And I bet that'll sell it
to the lycra types because we all know that they never stop at traffic
lights, isn't that so?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=51.74435,-1.229149 (ish) for the record.

Unrelated to the pavement stupidity, I was struck by a passing minicab
at that junction last year (without fall, injury, or damage I'm glad to
report). I was mid-lane, indicating left and taking the turn slowly
(there'd been works on the corner recently, being cautious, and did I
mention the 90 degree bend?); cabbie overtakes through the junction,
presumably decides he can't make it between me and the Questionably
Placed Traffic Island, picks the softer option and clips my saddlebag in
passing. Tuckfard. All I caught was a glimpse of the bugger's hack
plate in those glorious few seconds of what-the-heck, but no number alas.

--
Andrew Chadwick

 

[MartinM]

Geraint Jones wrote:
> "MartinM" <[email protected]> wrote:
> | A traffic light in Oxford was the only place I saw any of the riders of
> | the Poor Student use a cycle path (as it avoided it)
>
> Is that the one that passes the light on the Headington Road,
> going Headingtonwards from Headington Hill past the Gypsy Lane
> junction?

no it was going west after the station bridge, near a
multiplex/leezhur/retail therapy outlet centre IIRC. I used to go along
the one in Headington (?) Park; not sure if it's still there. Talking
of which, has the shark man sold the house or does he still live there
? (the house was called untitled 1985 when I was there)