jgurney wrote:If there is a row of bollards or something similar between the footway and cycle path, that will help emphasise that they are separate. Putting the same row between the cycle path and the g/p carriageway would create an impression that the footway and cycle path belonged together and I suspect would add to pedestrian intrusions into the cycle path.
I think the kerb would be enough, most of the time.
jgurney wrote:Putting barriers between a cycle lane (as opposed to cycle path) and the rest of the carriageway would presumably be impractical.
And yet they manage to do it in Spain: in New York: in Slovenia: and so on...
Why do even many cyclists in this country have a "can't do, won't do" attitude to supporting cycling?
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Judging from the article I found the picture on it seems they have been doing it for a couple of years already so they are obviously not that unhappy with it.
jgurney wrote:Putting barriers between a cycle lane (as opposed to cycle path) and the rest of the carriageway would presumably be impractical.
And yet they manage to do it in Spain: in New York: in Slovenia: and so on...
Those are clearly segregated cycle paths, not cycle lanes. In the case of the two-way one, which has priority at the junctions with side turnings? It's not obvious in the picture.
Many of them, especially in New York, are only "paths" in that they have been protected from the road. They are carriageway surface that was initially simply painted lane, then had bollards installed, then islands and so on. Sadly the UK often puts the paint down, then doesn't move forwards and even when they put barriers down, they put the barriers IN the cycle lane rather than alongside.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
A part of me finds it distasteful to be talking about the situation on London Bridge as a cycling issue so close to the recent mass murder there, but it could be that a future movement towards installing barriers between pedestrians and motor traffic could help cyclists if, as Mjr suggests, the barriers are positioned to also protect cycle lanes. But the barriers will need to be something stronger than narrow plastic bollards to do the job. Remember, potentially we are trying to stop an artic driven at speed.
If those white posts are proper steel security poles, well installed. Then they'd do a lot to stop most vehicles.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way.No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse. There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
bovlomov wrote:There are 245,000 miles of road in the Great Britain, of which over 31,000 miles are major roads. If concrete blocks are to be laid both sides, that's (leaving gaps at junctions) something line 400,000 miles or 50,000 miles of concrete blocks.
I'm buying shares in Cemex and Lafarge.
A big point here is one that's been made before: terrorists only need to succeed occasionally. Another, is that armies are so often ready to re-fight the last war, rather than the next.
[XAP]Bob wrote:If those white posts are proper steel security poles, well installed. Then they'd do a lot to stop most vehicles.
So not just bolted with four bolts in plugs that go maybe 5cm into tarmac. A pick-up truck will take those out and still be able to proceed. On the other hand, if the angle of approach means hitting several before mounting the pavement that could bring it to a top. An artic would take a lot more stopping.
[XAP]Bob wrote:If those white posts are proper steel security poles, well installed. Then they'd do a lot to stop most vehicles.
So not just bolted with four bolts in plugs that go maybe 5cm into tarmac. A pick-up truck will take those out and still be able to proceed. On the other hand, if the angle of approach means hitting several before mounting the pavement that could bring it to a top. An artic would take a lot more stopping.
Why are you obsessed with stopping artics? It was a Transit-sized van on London Bridge, a car on Westminster bridge, a 19t rigid truck in Nice - have there been any artic attacks?
The bolted metal barrier on Westminster Bridge (last I saw) isn't going to stop an artic anyway and I'm not convinced the current large bricks on some of the others would. I suspect you'd need something the size of the Parliament barriers to stop an artic and the added weight of those would probably mean banning lorries from a bridge anyway!
Anyway, arguing about the size of the barriers and what they should stop is a different and entirely more distasteful discussion than whether they should be placed to protect cyclists too when it would have costed basically nothing.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
In Oslo, new installations have retractable bollards with light rings on them. I might have a picture somewhere. I did take one once. The bollards are about 10 cm across.
They retract them for street cleaning, snow removal, and service vehicles. The lights make them readily visible to drivers and cyclists alike. I don't expect that they are inexpensive to install, though.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
These barriers are going to have to be changed or I can see someone being killed/veryvseriously injurered pretty soon. I wouldn't ride alongside those barriers any more than I would go up the side of a vehicle with a brick wall to my left. I went over waterloo bridge yesterday, took the primary position and got hard toooted by a bus I was, ever so slightly, delaying. I pointed towards the barriers but not sure that the driver understood me. Caught up with him at the strand/aldwych lights but his window was down, so couldn't have a quiet word. The speed limit on the bridges should be reduced to 20 to calm the impatience of drivers with cyclists preserving their lives. That limit would of course have some other advantages.
[XAP]Bob wrote:If those white posts are proper steel security poles, well installed. Then they'd do a lot to stop most vehicles.
So not just bolted with four bolts in plugs that go maybe 5cm into tarmac. A pick-up truck will take those out and still be able to proceed. On the other hand, if the angle of approach means hitting several before mounting the pavement that could bring it to a top. An artic would take a lot more stopping.
Why are you obsessed with stopping artics? It was a Transit-sized van on London Bridge, a car on Westminster bridge, a 19t rigid truck in Nice - have there been any artic attacks?
The bolted metal barrier on Westminster Bridge (last I saw) isn't going to stop an artic anyway and I'm not convinced the current large bricks on some of the others would. I suspect you'd need something the size of the Parliament barriers to stop an artic and the added weight of those would probably mean banning lorries from a bridge anyway!
Anyway, arguing about the size of the barriers and what they should stop is a different and entirely more distasteful discussion than whether they should be placed to protect cyclists too when it would have costed basically nothing.
I chose to talk about an artic simply because I was thinking what a terrorist might choose to use as a weapon and could easily get their hands on. That's all. I'm anticipating the biggest, hardest to stop thing that is easily obtained. Stopping a very large truck / artic that has got up to a high speed would take something very heavy duty, and probably impractical in lots of situations. So part of the answer is to stop such vehicles getting to such speeds in the first place. At lower speeds it will take less to stop them, especially if they do not have room to turn and hit the obstacles head on.
Lorries have been used for attacks in other countries. Like it or not, it is a reasonable thing to consider when discussing barriers designed to stop attacks perpetrated with vehicles.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Re my point above about fighting the next war rather than the last, we've had bombs in aircraft luggage, aircraft being hijacked and crashed into buildings, suicide bombers, vehicles used as weapons and probably more I've forgotten. Each atrocity has led to widespread precautions against a repeat which have in their turn lead to a change in terrorists' tactics. I'd like to believe that the greatest effort is going into anticipating the next change. Media photo opportunities of armed police etc., may impress some people, but I doubt if they deter many.
