Cycling UK Forum

Ah, I see. That’s because I often snip out just a sentence from a very long posting to quote, rather than quoting the lot, then pruning.

Interesting. I've started a thread on the etiquette:
viewtopic.php?t=156574

Jonathan

mattheus wrote: ↑7 Jun 2023, 9:09am

cycle tramp wrote: ↑6 Jun 2023, 10:53pm <snip ... > You have to interact with them, and by doing so then they become hazardous. But by recognising that they are hazardous, you work in ways to minimise that hazard. The first step of avoiding hazards is to recognise them.

Good stuff.

So if an injury occurs where someone interacted with a hazard, you might then work to minimise that hazard?

Do you think the hazard that you are posting about has been minimised?

Ah, the trouble with minimising hazards, is its counter argument which is risk compensation... which is the safer you appear to make something the larger the risks one is prepared to take..

...however in this case I would be interested in the reasoning for one single bollard...

..however I would advise caution of anyone asking for the bollard to be a dayglo colour to make it stand out - after all, with this argument we only need to change cycle way to road, bollard to cyclist and cyclist to driver.... and we've written our own argument to wear the stuff...

Putting dangerous obstacles on cycle paths is a bad idea.

Still utilising mystified why any cyclist would feel otherwise.

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑7 Jun 2023, 10:26pm Putting dangerous obstacles on cycle paths is a bad idea.

Still utilising mystified why any cyclist would feel otherwise.

I share your opinion where it involves an obstacle, usually a lamp post, in the middle of a cycle path, away from any junction. But bollards at the end of cycle paths, where they meet roads, are something we expect and therefore anticipate. But even there, it helps if the bollards are made to be easily seen.

pwa wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 5:22am

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑7 Jun 2023, 10:26pm Putting dangerous obstacles on cycle paths is a bad idea.

Still utilising mystified why any cyclist would feel otherwise.

I share your opinion where it involves an obstacle, usually a lamp post, in the middle of a cycle path, away from any junction. But bollards at the end of cycle paths, where they meet roads, are something we expect and therefore anticipate. But even there, it helps if the bollards are made to be easily seen.

There is no good reason for those bollards to exist. They impose risks without benefits.

It’s impossible to meaningfully anticipate something that one doesn’t know is coming except in the most general terms (“this cycleway must end at some point”), so it’s more than helpful if the bollards highlighting such a thing are prominent: it’s absolutely essential, otherwise, if one doesn’t crash into the bollard, one might be unprepared for the hazard it is supposed to highlight.

cycle tramp wrote: ↑7 Jun 2023, 10:21pm

mattheus wrote: ↑7 Jun 2023, 9:09am

cycle tramp wrote: ↑6 Jun 2023, 10:53pm <snip ... > You have to interact with them, and by doing so then they become hazardous. But by recognising that they are hazardous, you work in ways to minimise that hazard. The first step of avoiding hazards is to recognise them.

Good stuff.

So if an injury occurs where someone interacted with a hazard, you might then work to minimise that hazard?

Do you think the hazard that you are posting about has been minimised?

Ah, the trouble with minimising hazards, is its counter argument which is risk compensation... which is the safer you appear to make something the larger the risks one is prepared to take..

...however in this case I would be interested in the reasoning for one single bollard...

..however I would advise caution of anyone asking for the bollard to be a dayglo colour to make it stand out - after all, with this argument we only need to change cycle way to road, bollard to cyclist and cyclist to driver.... and we've written our own argument to wear the stuff...

The Highways Engineers - you know, the ones whose views you were citing so emphatically - make almost every similar engineered hazard on the roads hi-viz (or similar). It's hardly a new idea to them

mattheus wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 9:17am

cycle tramp wrote: ↑7 Jun 2023, 10:21pm ..however I would advise caution of anyone asking for the bollard to be a dayglo colour to make it stand out - after all, with this argument we only need to change cycle way to road, bollard to cyclist and cyclist to driver.... and we've written our own argument to wear the stuff...

The Highways Engineers - you know, the ones whose views you were citing so emphatically - make almost every similar engineered hazard on the roads hi-viz (or similar). It's hardly a new idea to them

And yet, black cars are still allowed.

mjr wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 10:50am

mattheus wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 9:17am

cycle tramp wrote: ↑7 Jun 2023, 10:21pm ..however I would advise caution of anyone asking for the bollard to be a dayglo colour to make it stand out - after all, with this argument we only need to change cycle way to road, bollard to cyclist and cyclist to driver.... and we've written our own argument to wear the stuff...

The Highways Engineers - you know, the ones whose views you were citing so emphatically - make almost every similar engineered hazard on the roads hi-viz (or similar). It's hardly a new idea to them

And yet, black cars are still allowed.

Yup.
And they're only outsold by grey ones!!!

[made up statistic - I'm just going by what I think I see in the car-park outside the window]

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 7:25am

pwa wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 5:22am

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑7 Jun 2023, 10:26pm Putting dangerous obstacles on cycle paths is a bad idea.

Still utilising mystified why any cyclist would feel otherwise.

I share your opinion where it involves an obstacle, usually a lamp post, in the middle of a cycle path, away from any junction. But bollards at the end of cycle paths, where they meet roads, are something we expect and therefore anticipate. But even there, it helps if the bollards are made to be easily seen.

There is no good reason for those bollards to exist. They impose risks without benefits.

Are you talking about this particular case, or every instance where bollards mark the end of a cycle path, where it joins a road? If it is the latter, I have seen the installation of bollards stop people driving cars on a cycle path to gain vehicular access to the rear of their homes, and parking on the path when they get there. I'd say that in that case the bollards did something useful. If I remember rightly, in that case the bollards were the common cast-iron-look black cylindrical sort, in black, with white reflective rings. Easier to distinguish than wood, perhaps.

mattheus wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 9:17am
The Highways Engineers - you know, the ones whose views you were citing so emphatically - make almost every similar engineered hazard on the roads hi-viz (or similar). It's hardly a new idea to them

Good point and well made, sir.

I suspect that whilst highways would have preferred a much lighter coloured pollard... but that they were over ruled by planning.
Planning are strange people, who at one end of the scale are more than happy to see large areas of countryside turn into sprawling industrial units, houses and cinemas, but will at the other end of the spectrum insist on wooden bollards over sensible lighter coloured bollards to prevent 'the sense of urbanisation of open space'.
And if you don't argee with them, your cycle path doesn't get permission and isn't built (or continues to be a muddy path).

My own local cyclepath which provides a safe crossing of a very very busy A road, was only won on appeal - it was originally rejected as 'the cutting of the embankment and installation of a sealed path would adversely affect the rural idyllic' or something like that.

I believe that the cyclepath, south of Sherborne may have only got built because the charity at considerable cost to themselves agreed to use a brown crushed stone surface on the cyclepath rather than the cheaper normal black tarmac... again this was purely down to the planners.

I bet Highways England doesn't have this problem.

cycle tramp wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 5:33pm I suspect that whilst highways would have preferred a much lighter coloured pollard... but that they were over ruled by planning.

Planning cannot overrule highways. The highways processes can happen after the planning permission has been granted and the Standard Highway Conditions on planning permission gives the highways department the final say by requiring agreement under sections 38 and 278 (IIRC) of the Highways Act. Even when a cycle-friendly planning department tries to bind a highways authority to actually deliver their fine words on cycling, it's very difficult to make it stick. If highways refused dull bollards or skiddy surfaces or whatever, that would be the end of them, but they rarely do for bikes.

I bet Highways England doesn't have this problem.

Generally, no. National Highways (rebranded again!) do what they do under broad legal powers with very little democratic accountability. Just see how difficult it is being to reverse the unlawful trashing of many old railway routes to prevent possible future non motorised use, all to save a few quid monitoring and maintaining road bridges.

mjr wrote: ↑9 Jun 2023, 12:09am

cycle tramp wrote: ↑8 Jun 2023, 5:33pm I suspect that whilst highways would have preferred a much lighter coloured pollard... but that they were over ruled by planning.

Planning cannot overrule highways. The highways processes can happen after the planning permission has been granted and the Standard Highway Conditions on planning permission gives the highways department the final say by requiring agreement under sections 38 and 278 (IIRC) of the Highways Act. Even when a cycle-friendly planning department tries to bind a highways authority to actually deliver their fine words on cycling, it's very difficult to make it stick.

If my memory serves section 38 is for a development of a road which is to be built as part of a new development (and is included in the larger application for the development) and section 278 is to alter part of an existing road to serve a new development (and again, the highway serves the development of a proposed housing or commercial site).

..in the case of the examples I've mentioned above, they were for a formation of a new cycle path and footway (rather than a highway, which would have included motor vehicles) and there were no other housing or industrial developments included as part of the application- as a result planning retains full power to refuse the formation of such footpaths and cycle ways, in the same manner it can refuse farmers the right to build new access tracks across their own land.

Unlike highways, cycle paths/footways have very little in the way of regulated features which allows planning a greater say in what materials should be used and its worse if the proposed cycleway/footpath is designed with no expectation of it being formally adopted by the council.

Here is a bollard recently installed in Düsseldorf. It was reported in the local paper and has prompted some very witty comments.