Friendly Cambridge bike path turns into pole-wielding monster

[Bonefishblues]

Ok. Posting warnings about particularly hazardous ones and pushing the highway authority to put its house in order are also good IMO. The world isn't perfect so we should seek to improve it for everyone and not just selfishly say "I wouldn't hit that because ..."

Perhaps posts could be put up?

[Vorpal]

Better yet, buy some reflective tape for the post, mark the post, place a couple of traffic cones, and bill Network Rail & the council fro your work.



p.s. this may be more effective if you also invite the local paper to write about it.

[Graham]

Reflective tape + warning cones + road-marking spray . . . . . .

[Bonefishblues]

Reflective tape + warning cones + road-marking spray . . . . . .

Not sure cones on a path warning about a hazard is exactly the right way to go, someone is bound to ride into them

[peetee]

Bollards or street furniture placed in the line of a highway, such as those highlighting extended curbs or traffic islands are lit or carry reflective panels. This is to ensure that they remain visible to traffic that may have reduced visibility due to weather or glare from oncoming vehicles. Why should it be any different on a cycleway?
It shouldn't.

[Tangled Metal]

Better yet, buy some reflective tape for the post, mark the post, place a couple of traffic cones, and bill Network Rail & the council fro your work.



p.s. this may be more effective if you also invite the local paper to write about it.

Funny enough I said to get that 3m reflective tape and wrap the post a few pages back. However that got lost by objections with my other suggestions.

[alexnharvey]

Bollards or street furniture placed in the line of a highway, such as those highlighting extended curbs or traffic islands are lit or carry reflective panels. This is to ensure that they remain visible to traffic that may have reduced visibility due to weather or glare from oncoming vehicles. Why should it be any different on a cycleway?
It shouldn't.

Indeed they should. As recommended in the regulations posted earlier in the thread.

[desphillips]

OP here. This is quite useful Best Practice:

Local Transport Note 2/08, Cycle Infrastructure Design, October 2008

8.11 Street furniture
8.11.1 Where a footway or footpath is being converted for cycle use, obstacles within the track such as sign poles, lighting columns, pillar boxes, bus stops and telephone kiosks may need to be moved. If barriers or bollards are required to restrict motor vehicle access to the route, they should be highlighted through the use of reflective material or highvisibility paint, especially in areas where there is no street lighting. A cycle audit during the hours of darkness as well as in daylight may help to identify potential hazards.

QED. This installation fails on two counts.

Notwork Fail have gone very silent to my emails.

[Bonefishblues]

Not necessarily.

One refers specifically to bollards to keep cars out. The other equivocates by saying 'may'.

[desphillips]

"It aint necessarily so..." lalala

The important thing here is the sense of what is being discussed. Take out hazardous obstacles, if possible (hence "may"), and if bollards are needed, then make them visible. Most of the Cambridge Guided Busway complies with clearly marked reflective bollards at road crossings. They are not ideal, but are far less hazardous than the death-pole. Some attempt to risk-mitigate their presence has been implemented. And the final comment about the desirability of a darkness safety audit is the clincher to cover site-specific things which cannot be prescribed in the highly general language of design guidelines.

[tim-b]

Hi

Network Rail have gone very silent to my emails

Take legal advice
Regards
tim-b

[desphillips]

Yes, I'm using the preferential terms being a member of cycle uk through Slater & Gordon. It's a rather industrialised process, and lengthy to get a settlement. Key is to establish proportionately greater contributory negligence on the part of the landowner, and you must have some proper injury needing treatment that is verifiable. Finding best practice standards is useful for a court appearance... they are not legally mandatory but establish what a competent traffic engineer might be expected to implement. So nit-picking can miss the point in these documents. Generally the message seems to be that putting hard-to-see hard big things deep into cyclepath space = bad & negligent. Mitigate by making them hyper-visible or make them not be there in first place. Basic common sense, you'd hope! This pole is poorly visible and very "there" (0.85m into space).

[wjhall]

The first design flaw in the cycleway is that it does not have a 1 metre verge from the kerb, providing proper separation from the motor carriageway. Apart from its own advantages this would avoid this additional post problem. For a newly built cycleway this has a remarkable resemblance to the traditional practice of taking an existing pavement, with lampposts and declaring it a shared space.

Is this actually a cycleway or just a bus lane maintenance track that cyclists are allowed to use?

[brynpoeth]

Read of two 'accidents' near me, children cycling beside the road meandered onto the carriageway
Cycle ways must be seperated and protected from mortons

[Tangled Metal]

Read of two 'accidents' near me, children cycling beside the road meandered onto the carriageway
Cycle ways must be seperated and protected from mortons

That's right, motons shouldn't be on the road.