Martin Way, running from the A298 in Raynes Park (London) to Morden
has recently had some roadworks including resurfacing and building
some dreadful things that I can only describe as "bike lane chicanes".
Some bits of Martin Way have cycle gutters -- you know, a 60cm wide
strip separated from the rest of the road with a white line -- some
bits have pictures of bikes painted on the left-hand side of the road
and other bits have no cycle facilities or markings at all. But along
the length of the road there's perhaps 7 or 8 of these chicane things
which I'll attempt to describe.
Right. On the left side of the road is a bollard on a red road
surface, and to the left of that is a 60cm wide gap into a "lane" for
cyclists, complete with a picture of a bike. Some of the lanes rise to
pavement level. At the end of the "lane", where the red road ends, is
a give way line. About 3 metres from this point, in the centre of the
road (which isn't wide, but perfectly wide enough for a cyclist and
car to occupy one half of it side-by-side), is another bollard or
perhaps a pair of them and a streetlight or something. If anyone's
interested I'll try to find a place to stick a photo of one. If you're
seeing this post with a fixed-width font here's some bad ASCII art:
|
#O#
# # <-- bollards/island
#O#
|
=| <-- give way
# |
O <-- bollard
# |
#
^ | <-- central white line
|
bike "lane"
# = red paint, white lines, etc
If a cyclist and a car go into this thing at the same time the effect
is that the car overtakes the cyclist and is then forced directly into
the path of the cyclist by the central bollard. Yes, there's a give
way line for the cycle "lane" but that's hardly convenient. Should I
be stopping every 100m at one of these contraptions? More worryingly
the whole thing provides a perfect opportunity, by physically
splitting the cyclist from the rest of the traffic, however briefly,
for a car (or lorry, etc) to overtake a cyclist when there's not
enough room or time. On the few occasions when I've used the "lane"
about 50% of them have resulted in a car passing me without enough
room. I generally ride in the middle of the traffic lane in the
primary position when passing through, risking irritating drivers
behind me (but that doesn't stop me -- my safety's more important).
My only guess is that they're for traffic calming. In which case, why
can't the whole lane be chicaned so there's not enough room for a
vehicle to pass without room? Trying to provide space for both vehicle
and cyclist, side-by-side, in a chicane just doesn't work. Thinking
more about it I suppose the only redeeming feature is that it gives an
escape path for a cyclist if a car and cyclist do try to enter side-by-
side.
I'm not trying to be inflammatory or overly sensational about these
things; I genuinely think they're dangerous and badly thought-out.
Traffic might need calming but that's no excuse for features that
(IMHO) push the danger onto other road users.
Mark