Lance Dopestrong wrote:I should wear my glasses more often - I thought the title of this thread was Time Travelling to be Banned
That's the problem with the A63 - all those DeLoreans on it, trying to reach 88mph.
Lance Dopestrong wrote:I should wear my glasses more often - I thought the title of this thread was Time Travelling to be Banned
David9694 wrote:Duncan Dollimore sounds triumphant in his email to CTC/ CUK members about this, but I’m not so sure about the worth of this apparant victory with Highways England. Economists call it the opportunity cost - what else could (or should) we have committedour energy and our limited lobbying “capital” to doing, I wonder?
I totally get the point of principle here “bikes are a problem/a danger here - solution: ban them” - indeed I find it quite worrying how often I hear people saying x should be banned from doing y and c should be made to do d.
I don’t know the particular area, but looking as the OS map, we’re talking about from the end of the M62 into the centre of Hull - is this a route anyone actually wants or needs to ride? Should we reserve our energies for something that would be of more practical value to cyclists? I’m concerned that we could be portrayed by our critics as “zealots wanting to send cyclists down a 70 mph road just to make a point”.
I’ve been for a cross-country drive today from outside Salisbury to outside Bristol and I’m pretty gloomy about it, distressed even. Days like today bring home to you that traffic is a problem all day long (you used to be OK if you avoided rush hour) and the that measures put in to relieve and divert traffic are themselves choked-up - you find yourself by-passing the bypass. Town centres (and today A and B roads) are an unpredictably moving continuous metal snake or chain along the road, to the exclusion of anyone/anything else. I saw the only occasional cyclists braving that lot of which I was part.
Cyril Haearn wrote:You are part of the problem (so am I )
There are trains between Salisbury and Bath
Yesterday I was part of the solution, made a trip by cycle + train although it was more expensive and slower than driving, took maybe twice as long, trains at 2h intervals, had to stand on the way back
The battle has been won but not the war. Do any cyclists other than TTers use the A63?
David9694 wrote:Cyril Haearn wrote:You are part of the problem (so am I )
There are trains between Salisbury and Bath
Yesterday I was part of the solution, made a trip by cycle + train although it was more expensive and slower than driving, took maybe twice as long, trains at 2h intervals, had to stand on the way back
The battle has been won but not the war. Do any cyclists other than TTers use the A63?
true but
1, if your destination as National Trust property as our was, these are nearly always accessible only to cars or long distance cyclists - it’s a headache all round as they are often struggling with parking space these days
2. That particular route is operated by FGW using three car units, which for most of the journey tend to be cattle trucks - normally the TOC makes no difference, but this is positively off-putting, if say you want a nice relaxing journey on your day out to Bath or Portsmouth - it’s a real shame.
While it’s double the time and you say double the expense, clearly most people aren’t going to bother - must things get so bad before people change their approach?
Even if the A63 bike ban came to pass, would TTers be able to get permission to run specific organised events?
NT really need to be doing that in some of their other properties
Jon Lucas wrote:David9694 wrote:Cyril Haearn wrote:You are part of the problem (so am I )
As it happens, we cycled from Bath to Salisbury on Friday. It is a fantastic ride, utterly quiet country lanes and some stunningly beautiful countryside. The route into Salisbury is also, for the most part, excellent. Caught the train back on Saturday.
Back on topic, yes CTC were quite right to be involved in this campaign.
David9694 wrote:Jon Lucas wrote:David9694 wrote:
As it happens, we cycled from Bath to Salisbury on Friday. It is a fantastic ride, utterly quiet country lanes and some stunningly beautiful countryside. The route into Salisbury is also, for the most part, excellent. Caught the train back on Saturday.
Back on topic, yes CTC were quite right to be involved in this campaign.
I attempted Bath to Salisbury a couple of years ago - but broke my chain at Frome and had to abandon. I’ve been out from Salisbury as far as Warminster - did you take the NCR through Longleat.
This current government’s love affair with the pre 1947 Rail companies. LNER, GWR - the latter had a publicity department that systematically built the GWR myth that still endures.