Suggestions for a Better Cycle Network

[ScotchEgg]

Lets have some original, paint fresh ideas please!!!

[Mark1978]

Lets have some original, paint fresh ideas please!!!

My point is, that *this* is the very reason we end up with so much crap, the need to think up new and original ideas, when in reality the new and original ideas are part of the problem, not part of the solution, when the solution has already been done.

[ScotchEgg]

The solution in Holland has been achieved in a completely different environment with a fifth of the population of a busy and overcrowded UK. It has also been achieved against the backdrop of 50 years of sympathetic car/bike culture, a highly visible cycle sport culture and a well developed cycling culture as part of the national curriculum.

We are only at the very tip of that experience, with 50 years of unabashed antipathy car/bike to overcome.

To say that these are remotely similar situations is to put it politely - missing the point.

[Mark1978]

Anyway my input is that there can and should be better provision for cycling alongside busy A-roads, be they dual carriageway or otherwise. Indeed the DfT guidelines (I think it was those) specify a vehicle speed and vehicle volume whereby cycle traffic should be segregated from motor traffic.

Notably most of the dual carriageways I drive on have sufficient physical space for a parallel cycle lane - now of course these aren't going to be fun places to ride your bike, but the roads in the UK are often layed out such that the main routes along a valley or across a river etc are large high capacity routes, as this is the way it's been developed over centuries.

Everyone has a route which is good for cycling for 95% of it, but there's that few miles on crazy busy road.

This is an example from the Netherlands http://goo.gl/maps/GWno0
This is a very similar example from County Durham http://goo.gl/maps/He7Or (it's actually better than it looks that picture!)

[MikeF]

6. Adequate lighting and equivalent safety measures as normal road users expect. I'm fed up riding in total darkness.

Well get some proper bicycle lights then. Have two independent systems of lighting so one can fail and you are still lit. I am content that the street I live on has no street lighting, and that the lanes from my house to the railway station are unlit is simply normal for that class of road. My local council has been decommissioning some street lights particularly on rural A-roads, which I approve of.

+1

[ScotchEgg]

This a thread about suggestions on how to #Improve the Cycling Network in the UK...!

[Rittmeister]

Here are my efforts...

1. Better signage with proper 'direction' and 'distances to go' markers.
2. Pave the former railway lines with quality tarmac suitable for all types of bikes and other activities.
3. Brand the routes better to give them names that people easily recognise especially for developing cycle tourism.
4. Allow Google to go down each of the main cycle routes with their cameras so non-road cycle routes are added onto Streetview.
5. Turn the left hand gap / hard shoulder on A roads into a segregated cycle path connecting cities as per Germany.
6. Make use of the extensive canal network towpaths especially in city centres with decent tarmac surfaces.
7. Possibly develop a 'bikes on rails' concept as per the Milton Keynes driverless car project powered by cycle power.
8. A pin entry cycle storage facility in every town centre around country for up to 50 bikes. The system could also be linked to travelcards.

[MikeF]

Lets have some original, paint fresh ideas please!!!

My point is, that *this* is the very reason we end up with so much crap, the need to think up new and original ideas, when in reality the new and original ideas are part of the problem, not part of the solution, when the solution has already been done.

Too true and I'm sure we all have examples. Yet the new ideas are held in triumph by councillors/politicians because they are new

[Big T]

Things I'd like to see:

The existing network should be regularly swept. One of my biggest bugbears is glass, stones and debris on the paths. And that it gets gritted when it's icy/snowy.

Advance traffic lights for cyclists - extending the idea of the ASL, so that you can be away and clear of the junction before the motor traffic starts off.

Cyclepaths always have priority over side roads.

Entry and exit kerbs are flush. It really bugs me to have to bump up and down one inch kerbs on cycle paths.

Cycle routes should take the most direct route.

Minimum width 1.5m for a one way route and 3m for 2 way.

And that it's all properly funded and not done on the cheap, like so much existing infrastructure.

[Postboxer]

Get rid of barriers, literally.
Pave canal tow-paths and old railway lines as already said.
Build cycle paths next to new roads and railway lines.
Fund it directly from fuel tax, so motorists have the choice of paying for them, or using them.
Start with hearts and minds, increase cycling at school age, deal harshly with bad drivers and bad cyclists. Put much more into the driving test about dealing with cyclists, with repeater tests or compulsory learning for all drivers on a 5/10 year basis.
Make the driving test harder, so some people never pass the test, give out points for more offences, ban more people.
Close a web shape of roads to motorised traffic in cities.
Increase cycle space on trains, if top gear can make a train out of a few caravans, surely cheap, light carriages could be used to transport cycles.
Where cycle lanes are painted on the road they should be the width of 'the room you would give a car', the car lane could then be on the right of it, if it is narrower than a car, cars can put two wheels in the cycle lane but are not allowed to pass cyclists in it.

[Postboxer]

I forgot, educate pedestrians to treat a cycle lane as they would a road and not wander blindly into them.

[mjr]

The solution in Holland has been achieved in a completely different environment with a fifth of the population of a busy and overcrowded UK. It has also been achieved against the backdrop of 50 years of sympathetic car/bike culture, a highly visible cycle sport culture and a well developed cycling culture as part of the national curriculum.

We are only at the very tip of that experience, with 50 years of unabashed antipathy car/bike to overcome.

Awwww, you got "we're too narrow/overcrowded" (not that much), "hillier than Holland" (in an earlier post - we're not that much hillier), "decades" (no, it was about 15 years), "culture" (so why do even foreigners in the Netherlands still cycle more then? They're not in on that culture) and came up with an unlisted one about sport, but missed so many, including "too expensive", "too slow", "we're too spread out", "too wide" and "the weather" - see http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/20 ... -post.html - better luck next go!

To say that two Western European countries are so different situations that Dutch solutions wouldn't work here is to put it politely - missing the point.

[eileithyia]

Things I'd like to see:

The existing network should be regularly swept. One of my biggest bugbears is glass, stones and debris on the paths. And that it gets gritted when it's icy/snowy.

Advance traffic lights for cyclists - extending the idea of the ASL, so that you can be away and clear of the junction before the motor traffic starts off.

Cyclepaths always have priority over side roads.

Entry and exit kerbs are flush. It really bugs me to have to bump up and down one inch kerbs on cycle paths.

Cycle routes should take the most direct route.

Minimum width 1.5m for a one way route and 3m for 2 way.

And that it's all properly funded and not done on the cheap, like so much existing infrastructure.

+1

1. Cycle routes around here are useless, today followed a main road in the de-marked cycle lane.. traffic kindly does not drive in it.. so it is full of dirt and detritous. Early mornings the routes to my work are lethal if icy.

5. Yep parts of the cycle route I could use for work is useless, out of the way and far too slow..... and the one that does follow the main road into Preston suddenly ends at a left turn.. so you have to cross a left turning deceleration lane or go the way they want you to, which again is totally out of my way...

[Vorpal]

Make the designers ride their bikes on them.

[661-Pete]

I think if you actually read the thread title - Suggestions for a Better Cycle Network, I'm calling for suggestions on how to improve a clearly flagging and in some parts very dangerous Cycle network. Please kee p your carping to a minimum.

But you opened this thread with some rather - if I may say so - provocative and controversial suggestions - especially the one about proficiency tests. This is a forum. What did you expect?

Incidentally:

6. Adequate lighting and equivalent safety measures as normal road users expect. I'm fed up riding in total darkness.

Like several others on here, I have no problem with cycling on dark roads - provided my lights are adequate. If you're "riding in total darkness" then your lights are not adequate. And I like dark places, away from street lighting. As you may have gathered, I'm an amateur astronomer...