Pete Owens wrote:mjr wrote:The one I can think of which goes all the way up to the lights, outside King's Lynn Rail Station, is not available for cycling (and it's not particularly needed, with a 3.5m cycleway next to it).
That is not a bus lane that is a bus lay-by - designed to keep buses from interrupting the flow of motor traffic.
How wrong you are! It's the opposite, designed to allow buses to cross the flow of cars and get ahead. It combines with the yellow box at its start
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.754205, ... 312!8i6656to allow buses to leave Portland Street (where they come from the bus station to head south), cross two lines of queueing cars and get an immediate green... and then get stuck in traffic because our eminent highways department hasn't yet given them bus lanes to get to Millfleet and the start of the bus lanes out of town south.
The cycleway doesn't go through the bus shelter. The shelter canopy edge is well back from the cycleway kerb, as you could see by
looking back from near your next view, but anyway, we objected to that one at the last rebuild, suggested a floating bus stop instead and were overruled. It's not what we wanted, but equally it doesn't go through the shelter like you claim.
Yes, that's wrong and it makes it one of the most dangerous junctions for cycling in King's Lynn because it's where minicabs often parked on double-yellows obstruct the view of motorists leaving the car park and cyclists rushing to trains. It should have been rebuilt the same time as the bus lane, but wasn't. It could do with enforcement but there's a fun game of buckpassing between highways, police, borough parking and rail company car park operator.
See how much space is allocated to accommodate two-way cycling ... and a fence:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7536839,0.4029099,3a,49.1y,184.84h,85.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s9ykmhw9iVnHIKRKLdEiqkw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656Think how important the owners of this house must be:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7534981,0.4027922,3a,75y,112.39h,75.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVBcLaaslHKsoWX_OS8BbZw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Yeah, the owner is the established church ... don't get me started on the problems it's caused over the years! The cycleway markings are ambiguous, with the give-ways having been erased, then partly reinstated when other stuff was being repainted, but the white line continues across it, which it doesn't at other give-ways.
That 20m stretch is one of the few bits of bad 1990s layout still surviving on a main cycle route. It has been annoyingly excluded from both the Heritage Lottery Fund renovation area to the south and the section 106 Transport Interchange area to the north. I'm sure it'll surprise no-one that the white lines are now ignored by almost everyone, as the walking and cycling flows tend to go in bursts at different times, released by the nearby lights.
Erm, no-one. The left-turn phase doesn't affect any other phase so the demand-activated crossing is usually almost synchronised with the cycling one (but it's only almost - you do have to roll across slowly else you'll reach the second stop line on the island before getting a green). This section has been bypassed and is no longer part of a main cycle route, though there seems little point pulling it up.
Yep, more now-bypassed 1990s crap. Still better than Warrington where the cycle lane is also half-width but not even a solid line:
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.391786, ... 312!8i6656That's not the other direction (see below), but yes, it's not the current way round, as usual for the 1990s.
Yeah, Morrisons needed to cut their hedge back. Or are you confused by the Norfolk practice of white-lining the kerb edge of cycleways?
Some more island hopping:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7547958,0.4028704,3a,75y,43.53h,67.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2eTIpIdjTCc76T4b47GTGw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656The seamless way you can rejoin the carriageway here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7550923,0.4028566,3a,74.2y,49.62h,72.61t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stmO2EXAD5G_Nc0klQFDfvw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Yeah, that's pretty useless, but you missed what happens on the other side of the island: the cycleway basically runs into a hedge and officially dead-ends just past it with no way to rejoin the carriageway. The only reason this side of the island is a Toucan is to connect to a primary school, but there's no signs telling you that's the only place it goes!
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7549231 ... 312!8i6656Anyway, I'm sure Warrington's approach to rejoining the carriageway works far better, sending you into a dashed-lane cycleway and ramming straight into the side of a give-way where the buses comes out
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.3914835 ... 312!8i6656OK, Lynn's got 20-30 years of cycleway and yes, some of the older stuff is crap but most of it's redundant. In reality, from that train station, there's the admittedly weak bit past St John's Rectory, but the signposted cycle route 1 takes you over the Toucan and through this No Entry Except Cycles no-motors-except-access shared-space-y street:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7537466 ... 312!8i6656then over another Toucan to this cycleway to the Lynn Museum:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7537678 ... 312!8i6656where there's good cycle parking:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7538023 ... 312!8i6656and then you go along a contraflow-cycling street that is still a building site now:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7537164 ... 312!8i6656to turn across the other end of the bypassed half-width cycle lane from earlier and continue the route south.
The other direction from the station and the 20m of old junk is actually into the Walks, with its 9m wide tree-lined shared-use areas:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7526324 ... 312!8i6656Although if you spin the camera, you'll see the dog's dinner of a combined road/rail crossing/bend because Network Rail still won't put in a new bridge to replace the one removed 30 years ago.
If you want to continue directly north from the station to the residential areas, what people actually do is fork off the cycleway here and turn right round the car park corner:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7539643 ... 312!8i6656then cross the little-used service road:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7541896 ... 312!8i6656and ride past the front of Matalan, across Morrisons car park - where there's good cycle parking:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7548681 ... 312!8i6656to use a cycle-only exit into a neighbouring residential road:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7550319 ... 312!8i6656which then connects to a Toucan crossing of the A148:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7564408 ... 312!8i6656and Kettlewell Lane which becomes cycle-only:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7576489 ... 312!8i6656and connects to the Long Pond in North End (viewed from the other bank because the Google camera got stuck in the willow tree on the side the cycleway connects to!):
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.7586462 ... 312!8i6656Anyway, back to bus lanes. You may have noticed on your browse about we don't have many bus lanes in King's Lynn and most places where they should be created would not connect the green arteries, so even apart from the bus-dodging problem, they would be of limited use for cycling except at major interchanges. Let the bus companies campaign for bus lanes. As you've illustrated, we've got enough work to do getting more good cycle lanes!