Vehicles parked on cycle lanes

[thirdcrank]

The underlying problems involve much more than cycling provision. The basic problem is that the highway authority devises the schemes and the police enforce them, or increasingly don't. I think it's fair to say also that once the feeling spreads that there will be no enforcement of traffic regulations, blatant disregard increases and that not restricted to the drivers of motor vehicles.

In the early 1980's, I worked for a couple of years in a Heavy Woollen District town, which prior to the 1968 amalgamations had had its own borough police force. I soon realised that the traffic wardens only enforced the yellow lines on some streets. When I inquired of the sergeant i/c traffic wardens, he explained that some of the yellow lines had no TRO to mandate them. Apparently, a former chief constable had an arrangement with the borough surveyor that if they thought there was a problem they bypassed the niceties. In those far off days there hadn't been a problem with the likes of Mr Loophole because the streets were so regularly patrolled by police on foot, few would have dreamt of transgressing. Fewer people wanting to park then, of course, most people more compliant, and the police probably showed more discretion - were more deferential - towards their betters.

I could go on, but the short point is that the "have you nothing better to do with your time?" merchants have won.

[millimole]

I've had a similar exasperating experience with pavement parking (in relation to walking, rather than cycling).
While there's generally a clear case of obstruction, the attitude of the police taking the inquiry is 'parking is the council's problem'. The council say 'obstruction is a police matter'. Even when I've had it in writing from both sides, neither will do anything - because - it's the other side's problem.
I've given up.


I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my iPad using hovercraft full of eels.

[Annoying Twit]

Millimole: is this a general Leicester thing, or specific to Anstey?

[Flinders]

Here, drivers routinely park across cycle lanes and pavements (sometimes both at once) even when there is an empty parking space right next to them. One road in particular has a long line of such cars every day. Nobody in authority here in Stafford gives a monkey's nuts about cycling.

[Flinders]

I've had a similar exasperating experience with pavement parking (in relation to walking, rather than cycling).
While there's generally a clear case of obstruction, the attitude of the police taking the inquiry is 'parking is the council's problem'. The council say 'obstruction is a police matter'. Even when I've had it in writing from both sides, neither will do anything - because - it's the other side's problem.
I've given up.


Flushed down the thunderbox : my iPad using hovercraft full of eels.

We're on a narrowish road here, and the police have said when asked that they would rather people parked half on the pavement than blocked the road. Our neighbours have four vehicles, they park two on their drive, and the biggest (commercial) ones one outside their house, and one outside our house, both half on the pavement. They are so large it makes it difficult for us to see out of our drive when joining the road.
I just hope nobody thinks the one outside our house is ours.

[thirdcrank]

I've mentioned pavement parking a few times before. This is just one more area where "unnecessary obstruction" has been undermined by a combination of decided cases and subsequent broadening of a narrow set of "facts" into a more general interpretaion.

There was a time when pavement parking was very rare - not only because there were fewer vehicles to park. Any pavement parker coming to official attention was likely to face a prosecution for unnecessary obstruction.

On that basis - as I must have posted before - a bill poster working on a hoarding who had parked his vehicle with two wheels on the pavement ended up in court and there was an appeal. The judgment (and this is my wording from memory) was that he needed his vehicle to be nearby (heavy paste bucket and brush, ladders etc) and it was better partly on the pavement than completely in the carriageway. Floodgates now open.

A couple of years ago, our local neighbourhood police unit dropped some flyers at school about problems caused by the "school run" and in it pleaded with parents who parked on the pavement to leave enough room for a buggy to pass.

Anybody wondering which way the wind is blowing should remember (Sir) Eric Pickles, i/c local govt in the Coalition Govt urging highway authorities to remove yellow lines except where parking would be dangerous, and to soft-pedal on enforcement.

[blackbike]

My local council enforces mandatory cycle lanes during the day, but after the wardens clock off at 6pm they are often blocked with parked cars.

I've told the council about this and it is obvious the staff are not interested in the slightest.

[Mistik-ka]

There was a time when pavement parking was very rare - not only because there were fewer vehicles to park. Any pavement parker coming to official attention was likely to face a prosecution for unnecessary obstruction.

I have no reason to doubt your truthfulness, tc, but as a recent visitor to England I must admit that this image strains credulity. Apparently it's true that "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be".

[millimole]

Millimole: is this a general Leicester thing, or specific to Anstey?

No, this was in the Blaby DC area - but it's everywhere!

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly using hovercraft full of eels.

[millimole]

There was a time when pavement parking was very rare - not only because there were fewer vehicles to park. Any pavement parker coming to official attention was likely to face a prosecution for unnecessary obstruction.

I have no reason to doubt your truthfulness, tc, but as a recent visitor to England I must admit that this image strains credulity. Apparently it's true that "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be".

Sorry, but pavement parking is something that was completely unknown in the 60s, 70's, very unusual in the 80's and widespread in the 90's. Thirdcrank is not mistaken.

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly using hovercraft full of eels.

[karlt]

Thirdcrank is correct.

A lot of this is due to three things, IMO - widespread car ownership, the sale of council houses, and Maggie.

In the first case, many cities, especially in the north and midlands, have many Victorian and Edwardian terraces. These were built before the days of cars, or when they were rare, and there was no parking provision. Often the streets on which these are built are narrow, too narrow at least for cars to be parked along both sides of the road.

In the second case, again, social housing was often built without parking provision, because it wasn't thought that the target market would be car owners, as was largely true during the 50s and 60s when a lot of these houses were built. Again, there's only on-road parking, and again, often not the space for on road parking on both sides.

Finally Maggie. Thatcherism heralded the end of long term industrial jobs and the rise of the portfolio career, short term contracts and mobility. Unfortunately, moving house is harder than moving jobs, so many people have found themselves having to take on jobs further afield, and often with no security and short-term. Maggie also dregulated the bus network, leaving many commutes by bus impossible to all intents and purposes; her dream was lots of people driving around to work, although her quote about being on a bus at 26 marking one out as a failure is apocryphal. And that's what happened. On this last point, the current mob are making the same mistake, praising the "gig economy". The result of all this is multi-car households, putting even more pressure on the driveway and on-road parking available. Additionally, I find that multi-car owners are often unwilling to have two cars on the driveway, presumably because they might need the "inside" one first in the morning, and so use the street - or the pavement. They shouldn't, of course, but they do and it's easy from a policy viewpoint to predict that that's exactly what people will do. I often wonder where the insurance company is being told that on-road second car is being parked...

[mjr]

The TSRGD 2016 regulations have changed things, mandatory with flow cycle lanes can now be created without a TRO. What implications that has for lanes painted before that time I really couldn't say.

I hope all such lanes now have full force of a TSRGD 2016 lane regardless of whatever screwups were made in its TRO. Driving or parking in it is an unambiguous offence and the police may act upon the traffic offence.

I can't comment on any change in enforcement, as it's mostly cycle tracks around here, so I remember only three such solid-line lanes in King's Lynn (Market Street, Clough Lane and Blackfriars Street into Paradise Place) and local police have always seemed willing to go have a word with anyone stupid enough to obstruct them. If anyone did leave a vehicle there, it would probably have a bike bump into it before long (some riders really don't look up often enough, while others skim scarily close to cars) and the paintwork damage would probably cost more than typical paltry traffic fines, which is quite an incentive not to dick-park in Lynn.

[blackbike]

There was a time when pavement parking was very rare - not only because there were fewer vehicles to park. Any pavement parker coming to official attention was likely to face a prosecution for unnecessary obstruction.

I have no reason to doubt your truthfulness, tc, but as a recent visitor to England I must admit that this image strains credulity. Apparently it's true that "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be".

Sorry, but pavement parking is something that was completely unknown in the 60s, 70's, very unusual in the 80's and widespread in the 90's. Thirdcrank is not mistaken.

Flushed down the thunderbox : my wobbly using hovercraft full of eels.

As a teenager In 1970s I got a moped and I parked it on a very wide (about 10 metres) pavement up against the wall while I went to the nearby shops, in the same place I had parked my pushbike many times.

I was ticketed by the police and paid a small fine of about £10, for obstruction of the footpath.

That same pavement is now used as a parking space for dozens of cars every single day and the police and the traffic wardens don't mind one little bit

[stork]

The TSRGD 2016 regulations have changed things, mandatory with flow cycle lanes can now be created without a TRO. What implications that has for lanes painted before that time I really couldn't say.

I hope all such lanes now have full force of a TSRGD 2016 lane regardless of whatever screwups were made in its TRO. Driving or parking in it is an unambiguous offence and the police may act upon the traffic offence.

The TSRGD only give effect to a prohibition on driving/riding a vehicle other than a pedal cycle in the lane. They don't prohibit parking there. Given that the equivalent provision in the Highway Act (prohibition of driving on a pavement) is never used to prosecute people who drive motor vehicles on the pavement to park there, I can't imagine that this will be any different.

The mandatory cycle lanes in King's Lynn are contraflow, not with-flow, and so this bit of the TSRGD doesn't apply. So driving in those lanes is only illegal if the TRO says so.

Cycle tracks (including 'shared-use footways') are a totally different kettle of fish: it's illegal to drive or park (either wholly or partly) in them under s.21 of the Road Traffic Act. (This means that one simple way to prohibit pavement parking is for the local authority to convert all its footways to cycle tracks).

[mjr]

The TSRGD only give effect to a prohibition on driving/riding a vehicle other than a pedal cycle in the lane. They don't prohibit parking there. Given that the equivalent provision in the Highway Act (prohibition of driving on a pavement) is never used to prosecute people who drive motor vehicles on the pavement to park there, I can't imagine that this will be any different.

Blast, you're right, again.

The mandatory cycle lanes in King's Lynn are contraflow, not with-flow, and so this bit of the TSRGD doesn't apply. So driving in those lanes is only illegal if the TRO says so.

Blackfriars Street past the swimming pool is with-flow, then changes to contraflow along Paradise Place. I'm pretty sure the TROs are correct enough, as at least Clough Lane has been enforced in the past.

Cycle tracks (including 'shared-use footways') are a totally different kettle of fish: it's illegal to drive or park (either wholly or partly) in them under s.21 of the Road Traffic Act. (This means that one simple way to prohibit pavement parking is for the local authority to convert all its footways to cycle tracks).

I love that idea but the damage to the blood pressure of certain councillors and prominent residents could be serious!

When does a cycle lane become a cycle track? When there are kerbs? When there are posts? When there's a cycle track order made?