Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post Reply
ChrisButch
Posts: 1188
Joined: 24 Feb 2009, 12:10pm

Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by ChrisButch »

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/17/transport-secretary-admits-new-cycle-lanes-leaving-roads-backed/

'Transport Secretary admits new cycle lanes are leaving roads 'backed up' with traffic'...

'Grant Shapps warns he is 'not prepared to tolerate' badly designed closures and cycle lanes, imposing 'sweeping changes' to communities'...'

Depressing but, alas, predictable, given the tight deadlines for local authorities to apply for the cash, with no time for planning or consultation,
drossall
Posts: 6115
Joined: 5 Jan 2007, 10:01pm
Location: North Hertfordshire

Re: Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by drossall »

I don't envy local authorities, because it is difficult. On the one hand, there's a long and somewhat self-inflicted history of putting cycle facilities where there's space and it's convenient, with insufficient attention paid to demand. On the other, putting them in truly useful places often, though far from always, does mean inconveniencing drivers, which can be politically difficult.

Indeed, in some cases, especially with pop-up lanes, the point is partly to restore the balance of convenience towards cyclists and pedestrians. This should result in sufficient modal switch to reduce the resulting traffic jams - and to encourage local drivers at least to seek convenience by changing modes - but these effects may take time to be seen. It all ends up as a bit of a tightrope, not helped by putting facilities in badly-thought-out places, so that drivers are inconvenienced but cyclists aren't helped, and no modal switch occurs.

But, on day one, it may be hard for anyone who has not looked at it from the point of view of the cyclist (or the pedestrian, as the case may be), to see the difference between something that has not yet built up its levels of use, and something that is just a road to nowhere and will never do so.

We had quite a good debate around here (on the local Facebook group). A councillor raised, in a perfectly even-handed way, the issue of a planned "upgrade" to the lanes along the main road through our extended housing area. Frankly, they don't go anywhere very much, and stop where conditions actually get difficult; also, they are used as parking for the nearby station. The last sentence explains why they don't help much with the journey to the station. The road orbits rather than goes towards the town centre, so they don't help much with the other obvious journey either. If you were spending money to help cycling, it's a glaring case of the best plan being to spend it somewhere else. So I'm sympathetic to the outcome, which was to put the scheme on hold. But I suspect that the result was not to spend it at all, or at least not in our town.

At least round here, I think the focus on "big" cycle lane schemes misses the point. Far more can be done by looking at desire lines, and putting in very short connecting links - paths between two estates that back onto each other, cycle exemptions to one-way systems, and the like. But we do have some very inconveniently-placed hills, where the choice is to send bikes either on a roundabout and hilly route, or through a narrow pinch point that could only be fixed by borrowing some of the sort of digging equipment that they are using for HS2, neither of which looks that feasible in a commuter-belt town.
Last edited by drossall on 18 Oct 2020, 2:28pm, edited 2 times in total.
Jdsk
Posts: 24639
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by Jdsk »

Well said.

But the original story was only about one statement by one Minister, and was in the Telegraph.

Jonathan
thirdcrank
Posts: 36776
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by thirdcrank »

When it comes to improving conditions for cycling, two important qualities tend to be in short supply:-

1/ Competence
2/ Good faith
Pete Owens
Posts: 2442
Joined: 7 Jul 2008, 12:52am

Re: Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by Pete Owens »

ChrisButch wrote:'Grant Shapps warns he is 'not prepared to tolerate' badly designed closures and cycle lanes'


We can all live in hope.
John Holiday
Posts: 528
Joined: 2 Nov 2007, 2:01pm

Re: Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by John Holiday »

Live in Hope& die in Caergwrle, as the saying goes!
merseymouth
Posts: 2519
Joined: 23 Jan 2011, 11:16am

Re: Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by merseymouth »

Hi Drosall, You should appreciate the fact that many of those "Pop-Up" lanes can be dangerous for tricyclists, I speak from experience!
Ill conceived, poorly executed, often making motorist even more intolerant of cyclist.
Hope the Minister bins boh them and so called "Smart Motorways" at the same time, blooming dangerous!!! MM
Malky 1422
Posts: 92
Joined: 18 Apr 2011, 6:30pm
Location: WINSFORD CHESHIRE

Re: Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by Malky 1422 »

This country will never have a good cycling infrastructure, the place is full of haters and people with their heads up their own arses. This country is nothing like France or Germany and the Netherlands where they are a much more civilised and tolerant people. I worked in Germany for 8 months cycling there as well. Every morning at work the Germans shake hands with each other....imagine that here, the English are too busy calling each other from my experience at work. Something in the water I reckon. I gave up with it all years ago , I have been cycling all my life and seriously since 22 years old...I am now 68.
mumbojumbo
Posts: 1525
Joined: 1 Aug 2018, 8:18pm

Re: Pop-up lane backlash now 'official'

Post by mumbojumbo »

You need to emigrate before 2021 and become a Prussofile.
Post Reply