Cycle paths

[[XAP]Bob]

I'm yet to see a council put a road around a telegraph pole such that it obstructs one lane, or install some 'path' lighting by putting a lamppost in the middle of a carriageway.

I can think of several examples of both, but they are far rarer than in cycleways, they're gradually getting kerb islands and other protection built up around them as motorists demolish them and they tend to be middle of a carriageway but between lanes, rather than middle of a lane - whereas I feel that we're seeing more of the blasted things getting moved from separation verges into the outside edge of cycleways just so they're further from potential motorist-demolishers. I agree with you completely that this seems unfair and wrongheaded.

Bollards and armco by design won't be on a right of way (they might serve to remark the extend of said ROW.

I'm not sure that's right. Armco is often set on posts set into the road surface (which OK you then can't drive on, but you used to be able to before the Armco went in - you can still walk on it if you're determined, stepping round/over the posts) and bollards are often used to filter ROWs, to allow small vehicles through but not prohibited large ones, and they have to be on the ROW to do that.

From the perspective of the larger vehicle (which is what all highways engineers seem to have) the bollard defines the end of a ROW... screw anyone who isn’t in a car, they don’t matter.

[The utility cyclist]

Ah, the classic two-way cycle path crossing a priority side road crossing that increases the risk of collisions by a factor of ten.

Ah, the classic old chestnut of an ancient dodgy risk calculation from a different design being applied to everything!

This one has the added bonus of a post to crash into - carefully sited slap bang in the middle of the path just at the point where you need to be looking over your shoulder the check that vehicles on the road behind you are not about to turn across your path.

It would be better with the post a few metres further back, but it's far better than many in the UK. As far as I can see, the crossing is a car length into the side road and the corners are fairly square, so you're looking sideways more than over the shoulder, unlike the poor typical UK/TfL design which bends the crossing to right on the mouth of the junction, requiring a 270° field of vision.

Can you explain why the Dutch have over 60 cyclist deaths at these particular junctions (cycle infra crossing motor road) every single year despite having priority in the majority of these instances if this is not a problem?

[mjr]

Can you explain why the Dutch have over 60 cyclist deaths at these particular junctions (cycle infra crossing motor road) every single year despite having priority in the majority of these instances if this is not a problem?

It's a problem but the root cause is likely to be lots of cyclists. IIRC, about three quarters of UK cyclist casualties are at junctions, so 60 out of about 230 seems lower than it would be here proportionately, although you'd need to add on junction fatalities in 30kph zones and other places with no cycle infra for a more even comparison.

[The utility cyclist]

Can you explain why the Dutch have over 60 cyclist deaths at these particular junctions (cycle infra crossing motor road) every single year despite having priority in the majority of these instances if this is not a problem?

It's a problem but the root cause is likely to be lots of cyclists. IIRC, about three quarters of UK cyclist casualties are at junctions, so 60 out of about 230 seems lower than it would be here proportionately, although you'd need to add on junction fatalities in 30kph zones and other places with no cycle infra for a more even comparison.

You have absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever and even if it were true it still highlights the massive flaws in segregated lanes when in conjunction with motor roads and ultimately motorists.

[[XAP]Bob]

Well yes you might have concentrated all the incidents into one place - because there is *so* little conflict elsewhere.
You also have the situation (which I thoroughly approve of, despite it making me nervous in HKI) that motor traffic does reliably yield to cyclists where they have priority.
The downside of that is that the yield is sometimes assumed, and it takes a mistake from the person not physically at risk for an incident to become fatal.

60 deaths at those junctions, as opposed to the hundred or so we have - but with a deaths/km rating far superior to ours IIRC.

[mjr]

Can you explain why the Dutch have over 60 cyclist deaths at these particular junctions (cycle infra crossing motor road) every single year despite having priority in the majority of these instances if this is not a problem?

It's a problem but the root cause is likely to be lots of cyclists. IIRC, about three quarters of UK cyclist casualties are at junctions, so 60 out of about 230 seems lower than it would be here proportionately, although you'd need to add on junction fatalities in 30kph zones and other places with no cycle infra for a more even comparison.

You have absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever and even if it were true it still highlights the massive flaws in segregated lanes when in conjunction with motor roads and ultimately motorists.

Absolutely no evidence of what? I've evidence that NL is a country with a quarter as many people (17m vs 67m) but a cycling modal share of 13⅓ times the UK's (40% vs 3%). Then it's a simple calculation that if they had UK road layouts which here produce about 100 deaths a year and ¾ at junctions in the UK (RRCGB), we'd expect about 300 deaths at junctions in NL, assuming linearity and homogeneity. If there's only 60, that's a strong suggestion that NL design performs better than UK.

If either of us have misremembered the numbers we brought in, it'll be easy to adjust the calculation, but 60 seems a long way from 300.

I think it's your assertion that this highlights some massive flaw that needs evidence. It seems like it's the same old flaw: motorists don't share the roads safely and cyclists usually come off worst.

[Pete Owens]

And to see some more French stupidity on the same road take a look at:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1307222,0.9411713,3a,75y,264.55h,84.43t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sloEpb4nK0h5b-Ss5rxrLyQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
In which an absurdly thin cycle lane (basically cycle symbols painted on the edge of road margin) suddenly makes a right angle turn to swerve across the road.

Then there is the sign that we see the back of in the photo in the OP (and every other junction along the path):
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1300564,0.93641,3a,15y,221.35h,80.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIGzY5QUGTzxWTaE-i8lbMg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Then back across the road onto another absurdly narrow cycle lane at the other end of the forest (presumably agricultural land is more expensive than forest):
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1296968,0.8330615,3a,75y,271.89h,69.74t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1supnWDC0OedaZBYSAfEvk5w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Also quite a few posts scattered along the inadequately wide cycle path with curiously not a single example in the main carriageway.

Every detail tells you that the only concern of the designers is to squeeze cyclists out of the way to avoid causing the slightest delay to the the all-important motor traffic. Either onto the extreme margins of the road or off the carriageway altogether - and at every single place where cyclists and motorists might cross each others path the cyclists are expected to stop.

[Pete Owens]

And a bit nearer to Loches:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1231772,0.9770161,3a,72y,299.5h,82.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sI7tzDj1r6HTrxyviPy5dPQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
The narrow pavement leading to the brown wheely bin.

The kerbed crossing and undergrowth:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1229645,0.9746604,3a,40.6y,284.24h,86.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYcsS0COrN6U40P5zg0SYNg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[mjr]

And to see some more French stupidity on the same road take a look at:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1307222,0.9411713,3a,75y,264.55h,84.43t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sloEpb4nK0h5b-Ss5rxrLyQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
In which an absurdly thin cycle lane (basically cycle symbols painted on the edge of road margin) suddenly makes a right angle turn to swerve across the road.

OMG! Where the 2010-era stuff joins even older rubbish, the older rubbish is still rubbish! Whoda thunk it(?) It's amazing anyone can still see after that flash of the bleedin' obvious.

As I'm sure Pete Owens knows, we can find plenty of similar old stupidities in England, with the main difference being that our government doesn't even bother to give crossing cyclists theoretical priority:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2164662 ... 312!8i6656

Then there is the sign that we see the back of in the photo in the OP (and every other junction along the path):
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1300564,0.93641,3a,15y,221.35h,80.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIGzY5QUGTzxWTaE-i8lbMg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

That's not good but I think it's a problem everywhere in France except maybe parts of Paris. France needs a stop-sign-as-yield law to go with their stop-light-as-yield one. I'm pretty sure the only reason England doesn't suffer this is that new stop signs require central government approval. Well done! We've found a way that England is better than France - it overuses give-way signs instead of stop signs. Excuse me if I don't regard that as compensation for all the other ways we're behind them.

[...] Every detail tells you that the only concern of the designers is to squeeze cyclists out of the way to avoid causing the slightest delay to the the all-important motor traffic. Either onto the extreme margins of the road or off the carriageway altogether - and at every single place where cyclists and motorists might cross each others path the cyclists are expected to stop.

I think "only concern" is more exaggeration. I doubt the parallel section had the same designer as the narrow lane one anyway and I strongly suspect that the tourism benefits of making cycling attractive to more people was a concern too. I suggest far more tourists probably cycle between Loches and Manthelan than most similar bare-road distances between two English holiday-ish-area towns, say Petersfield to Midhurst.

France isn't perfect, but it's currently ahead of England.