Guardian "Assignment" -cycling infrastructure

[PatrickP]

Post your pictures of what cyclists have to put up with ....

https://witness.guardian.co.uk/assignme ... 3f4e6bb915

[Geriatrix]

That'a a good idea but there isn't unfortunately a good way of taking a photo of the things that are missing. Like secure parking for example.

[661-Pete]

This looks like just another 'Warrington'...

Now don't get me wrong, I think some of the 'Warrington' pictures - which have been running for several years now - are brilliant and hilariously funny (although there have been some accusations of 'shopping') - but nevertheless I don't think they play a useful part in a concerted drive to get spending on cycling focused where it really matters. It doesn't help, where an authority is offering to spend money, merely to remind it that it hasn't a clue how to spend money...

[reohn2]

......... It doesn't help, where an authority is offering to spend money, merely to remind it that it hasn't a clue how to spend money...

Why not?
It's not as if by not letting the world know about such stupidity(it is stupidity whatever anyone says)that such stupid council authorities are suddenly going to figure out they're stupid and become wise.
They need telling just how stupid these farcilities are,whenever I see such photos it doesn't make me laugh it just frustrates me to think that some suit in the highways dept of a local council,has given the order to some lowly road painters,lowly road painters who,whilst painting these stupidities are thinking to themselves "this is stupid" but have no choice but to just paint.
Then the said suit swans off home of an evening thinking s/he has done a good job instructing those road painters .
If I were a cynic( ) i'd say it was part of a national strategy to discourage cycling,whatever the cost,even if the cost is more than to actually thinking the job through and putting some decent facilities in after talking with local cycling groups as to what they think are the best options for any given circumstance.
As our friend Forest Gump said in the film "stupid is as stupid does"

PS,I think there's enough stupids in there to get my point across.

[PRL]

reohn-2

I suspect that the worst farciculities happen when two suits make adjustments to the same piece of road. If the painter who actually puts the thing in could get back and point out the stupidity the engineers would probably agree to change. Unfortunately once a thing has been agreed a contract is made to install it with no provision to check that it makes sense.

One impressive suggestion from Andrew Gilligan was to put things in cheaply to see how they would work before doing the final neat job.

[reohn2]

reohn-2

I suspect that the worst farciculities happen when two suits make adjustments to the same piece of road. If the painter who actually puts the thing in could get back and point out the stupidity the engineers would probably agree to change. Unfortunately once a thing has been agreed a contract is made to install it with no provision to check that it makes sense.

One impressive suggestion from Andrew Gilligan was to put things in cheaply to see how they would work before doing the final neat job.

Or if suits got off their fat arris's and did some proper real world surveying with an overriding thought as to whether they'd be prepared to use the cycling farcilities they (so called) plan,propose and subsequently endorse and pass as fit for their fellow humans,there'd be a lot better and safer infrastructure that cyclists could actually use.
As it is they couldn't give a monkeys and cheap and nasty is always the predominant feature.

[snibgo]

One impressive suggestion from Andrew Gilligan was to put things in cheaply to see how they would work before doing the final neat job.

But the suits will only hear:

Put things in cheaply.

Most cycle farcilities are worse than a waste of our money. Much worse because they encourage the attitude that we shouldn't ride on roads, but they don't provide anything nearly as good as a replacement.

From the list of farcilities, I used to exclude the infamous Cambridgeshire Guided Busway cycle track. Sure, it was late and over budget, but it was superb. It still is superb, if it hasn't rained for a week. But it floods for one day out of three.

It's been that way since before it opened. But it won't be fixed because blah blah blah, well, because it's not a road. If it was a road, it would be fixed sharpish. It probably wouldn't have been built wrong in the first place.

[Geriatrix]

Would motorist's put up with this brand new farcility?

[reohn2]

Would motorist's put up with this brand new farcility?

As the article says "what a total waste of taxpayer's money" you couldn't make it up
If you didn't know better you'd swear the people who designed and implemented this stupidity were trying their utmost to stop people cycling...................wait a minute.........hmmmmm...maybe just maybe..............they couldn't be could they?

[karlt]

I don't think they are. I don't need to ascribe to malice what is sufficiently explained by incompetence. Fact is, the "cyclist" in most planners' minds is travelling at about 8 mph tops (like the one that motorists think they see when they pull out in front of him when he's actually doing 15 and then alledge was "flying along") and can easily weave around things like that.

[Vorpal]

That facility is utter poo even if you are going 3 mph.

[MartinC]

This isn't entirely in jest but we need to get the process changed so that any cycle path work can't be signed off until the relevant highway authority's engineer responsible has cycled along it.

[Geriatrix]

This isn't entirely in jest but we need to get the process changed so that any cycle path work can't be signed off until the relevant highway authority's engineer responsible has cycled along it.

I think the planner who designed the tower hamlets farcility may have had a bicycle described to him but I'm not sure if he's ever seen one, let alone ridden one.

[TonyR]

During the recent Parliamentary All Party Cycling Group enquiry a Regional Director of the Highways Agency admitted " As a highways engineer myself I spend an awful lot of time designing roundabouts and bridges, actually I didn’t spend a great deal of time at university or subsequently looking at provision for non-motorised users.”.

You see a similar lack of competence and interest in a whole range of designs they put on the road which anyone with even one brain cell of cycling sense could see are nonsense/downright dangerous. TfL traffic engineers are a good example of the problem. It seems to me until we get a wholesale clear-out of these old dinosaurs or a wholesale retraining we are going to continue to get these misguided attempts to design for something they really don't get. In that respect I am finding Andrew Gilligan a bit of a breath of fresh air in London. Someone who understands cycling and has a bit of clout and is willing to use it.