"Simon Mason" <[email hidden]> in E. Yorkshire wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Some pavements are wholly unsuitable for bikes, being far too narrow.
All of
Quoted message said:our paths are wide enough to be split into two separate halves and I
do use
Quoted message said:these myself on a daily basis. As most have been converted from old
railway
Quoted message said:lines, they actually go where you want to go.
So you have rails-to-trails conversions there too? All those I'm familiar with in North America,
whether dirt, cinder, or hard-paved, are ped-&-bike. Similarly the Old Croton Aqueduct trail.
Sidewalks are in almost all cases ped-only (with exceptions for children), and park paths are
sometimes signed for one or the other (or for horse riding), sometimes segregated (painted line or
railing), but usually just ambiguous, i.e. whatever the last policeman decides.
The trickiest, narrowest shared use experiences are bridges. Pelham Bridge -- cars, horses (police &
recreational), bikes, pedestrians (often carrying fishing poles), the only truck & bus route away
from City Is., plus a very active draw span -- that's "fun". The sidewalk (shared ped-bike) is
narrow & exists on only one side, but woe be unto those who try instead to navigate the metal
portion of the draw span. The bridge is too high for most to try to fish from (illegally), but I
increase the hazard by picking mulberries from the approach. The horses take the roadway on the
bridge itself, but share the ped-bike approach on the SW end. No railing between the sidewalk &
roadway, just the curb. But if you walk your bike along, you take up even more width. And the NE
approach has a blind curve and nothing to stop turning cars crossing the path of cyclists finding
the best beveled part of the curb to cross at -- hard to describe without a map.
Robert
