Shared pavement cycle paths

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 09:36:30 +0100, Allan

amv.2f'@uc(delete)df.ugh.ki.uk said:

Hi

On the commute this morning I was on the one stretch of shared pavement
cycle path that I use one side of the pavement has had green tarmac
applied and is seperated from the rest of the pavement by a solid white
line.As I was coming up behind a ped on the green part of the pavement I
rang my bell just to let her know I was there, not to get out of the
way, as there was plenty of room to pass while still staying on the
green.
As I passed her she shouted at me that I was on the wrong side of the
pavement and that the green was for peds. To back herself up she pointed
at the sign at the end of the path which showed cyclists on the peds on
the left(green zone) and cyclists on the right. It was only later that I
realised that the sign was facing the wrong direction and it was the
sign at the start of that end of the path and that it had at some point
it had been turned around the lamp post 180 degrees.

Give it up. Stick to the road.

--
Dave...

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live. - Mark Twain

Allan said:

On the commute this morning I was on the one stretch of shared pavement
cycle path that I use one side of the pavement has had green tarmac
applied and is seperated from the rest of the pavement by a solid white
line.

Quoted message said:

As I passed her she shouted at me that I was on the wrong side of the
pavement and that the green was for peds. To back herself up she pointed
at the sign at the end of the path which showed cyclists on the peds on
the left(green zone) and cyclists on the right. It was only later that I
realised that the sign was facing the wrong direction and it was the
sign at the start of that end of the path and that it had at some point
it had been turned around the lamp post 180 degrees.

Have you drunk too much coffee this morning? Try reading that aloud to
yourself. :*S

--
Mark.

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 09:36:30 +0100 someone who may be Allan
<"amv.2f"@uc(delete)df.ugh.ki.uk> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

On the commute this morning I was on the one stretch of shared pavement
cycle path that I use one side of the pavement has had green tarmac
applied and is seperated from the rest of the pavement by a solid white
line.

Does the green bit not have cycles painted on it?

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

David Hansen said:

Does the green bit not have cycles painted on it?

No, it is the shared use path in front of the transport museum in
Glasgow, only use it as the road is oneway in the wrong direction.

Allan

Allan' 'amv.2f said:

On the commute this morning I was on the one stretch of shared
pavement cycle path that I use

There's your problem right there :-)

Shared use paths are a work of Stan and should be Shunned.

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

Just zis Guy said:

Allan' 'amv.2f said:

On the commute this morning I was on the one stretch of shared
pavement cycle path that I use

There's your problem right there :-)

Shared use paths are a work of Stan and should be Shunned.

Come on this is quite clearly an over generalisation and you know it. Is
it better/faster/safer on the road? Not often.

Just use what is appropriate.

As an example, I use a shared use cycle path next to the A41 in north
london, between Apex Corner and Sterling Corner.

<URL:http://www.sustrans.org.uk/webcode/MapPage.asp?xMapCoord=85&yMapCoord=60&zLevel=2>

(It's the vertical green line next to the pink A41)

The alternative to the shared path is mixing it with 3 lanes of 70mph
traffic - this would be just as much fun as cycling on the motorway with
no hard shoulder.

To be completely honest I actually usually cycle up the footpath on the
east of the road (the shared one is on the west), as I normally turn
right at the roundabout at the top which is an absolute nightmare to
cross on a bike or in a car.

Adam

Guy:

Quoted message said:

Shared use paths are a work of Stan and should be Shunned.

As I negotiated my way round the white-knuckle experience that is Hyde
Park Corner yesterday morning, I thanked my lucky stars that at least it
wasn't a shared-use cycle path.

I got round Hyde Park Corner safely enough but almost as soon as I hit
the shared-use cycle path through the park itself, I was almost knocked
off by an errant jogger.

Mind you, it's a question of which is the lesser of two evils -
yesterday evening I decided to stick to the road and ended up following
a coach all the way down Park Lane, sucking up carbon monoxide all the
way. I overtook the coach to get out of the fumes and the parentless
fool at the wheel responded by deliberately trying to run me off the
road - I could see him quite clearly sneering at me in his wing mirror
as he went past.

d.

--

Adam H said:

The alternative to the shared path is mixing it with 3 lanes of 70mph
traffic - this would be just as much fun as cycling on the motorway with
no hard shoulder.

To be completely honest I actually usually cycle up the footpath on the
east of the road (the shared one is on the west), as I normally turn
right at the roundabout at the top which is an absolute nightmare to
cross on a bike or in a car.

I have a similar predicament in Milton "Home of the Roundabout" Keynes.
I could certainly go a lot faster on the roads than on the glass-, dog-,
excrement-, brick-, thorn-, sarky kid-, pothole-infested redways but I
simply don't have the balls to take on that many roundabouts. I can take
the h/v roads and deal with lots of medium sized ones, or do the
(shorter) A5 route and tackle a few beasts. Neither fills me with
confidence.

I must investigate sometime if I can make a hybrid A5-redway route to
avoid the nastiest bits. Despite it being heavy duty dual-carriageway
I'm much less intimidated by the A5 than the criss-cross, can't go more
than 5m without hitting a roundabout, city roads. It's pretty much all
straight, with a cycle lane that goes round the junctions (which I
assume means fewer people turning left into you at them).

They've tried to make it bike-friendly with the redways (and for a lot
of journeys it actually is, particularly the "it's a nice day, let's go
see some birds" cruises) but as for utility riding the MK mainroads are
purely car-oriented. You can cut a lot of corners on the shared paths
but I can't average more than 12mph; not so much because I'm unfit but
because it's too bloody dangerous to go much faster (blind corners, deaf
pedestrians).

Frink

--
Doctor J. Frink : 'Rampant Ribald Ringtail'
See his mind here : http://www.cmp.liv.ac.uk/frink/
Annoy his mind here : pjf at cmp dot liv dot ack dot ook
"No sir, I didn't like it!" - Mr Horse

Adam H said:

Quoted message said:

Shared use paths are a work of Stan and should be Shunned.

Quoted message said:

Come on this is quite clearly an over generalisation and you know it.
Is it better/faster/safer on the road? Not often.

Er, up to a point, Lord Copper. One of the most the most dangerous places
you can be is riding along the footway against the direction of traffic
flow, and it is a very rare shared-use path which is immune from the problem
of what to do at junctions and access crossovers.

I was being "bike buddy" for a mate today; he didn't fancy the road so we
took to the shared use path. Result? Instead of overtaking me in my normal
riding position with some decent space to spare, HGVs and buses were
skimming past inches from my handlebars. And there was nothing I could do
about it because the shared use pavem,ent in question is narrow and
overgrown on one side. And that's one of the bettwer ones - at least the
surface is well cared for and free of glass.

We were back on the road in short order.

In general your best bet for speed and safety is to ride properly on the
road inna Cyclecraft stylee, unless the road in question is particularly
vile. Your average speed will be lower than on the road, and you will be
delayed by junctions and sideroads (as well as potentially oss the busy road
in order to turn right). As always there will be exceptions, but that is
the general rule.

The problem is, of course, that these facilities are fundamentally designed
for the convenience of motorists, not cyclists. But it was ever thus.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

in message <[email hidden]>, Adam H

(') said:

Just zis Guy said:

Allan' 'amv.2f said:

On the commute this morning I was on the one stretch of shared
pavement cycle path that I use

There's your problem right there :-)

Shared use paths are a work of Stan and should be Shunned.

Come on this is quite clearly an over generalisation and you know it.
Is it better/faster/safer on the road? Not often.

The road is almost always safer (read the research), usually faster,
usually fewer pedestrians to dodge, usually less sharp debris leading
to fewer punctures. In my experience 'shared use' paths are just not
suitable for cycling.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
"The result is a language that... not even its mother could
love. Like the camel, Common Lisp is a horse designed by
committee. Camels do have their uses."
;; Scott Fahlman, 7 March 1995

in message <[email hidden]>, Doctor J. Frink

(') said:

Adam H said:

The alternative to the shared path is mixing it with 3 lanes of 70mph
traffic - this would be just as much fun as cycling on the motorway
with no hard shoulder.

To be completely honest I actually usually cycle up the footpath on
the east of the road (the shared one is on the west), as I normally
turn right at the roundabout at the top which is an absolute nightmare
to cross on a bike or in a car.

I have a similar predicament in Milton "Home of the Roundabout"
Keynes. I could certainly go a lot faster on the roads than on the
glass-, dog-, excrement-, brick-, thorn-, sarky kid-, pothole-infested
redways but I simply don't have the balls to take on that many
roundabouts.

The trick with roundabouts is speed. On the flat or downhill try to
maintain traffic speed or at least sort of twenty-something mph in the
last hundred yards into the roundabout, and leave any braking to the
last safe moment. If you can slip into a gap at traffic speed you're
fine. If you can't and do have to brake, of course, you tend to get
left in an uncomfortably high gear for a quick getaway, but at least
75% of the time in flowing traffic a bike is manouverable enough to
find the gaps, provided you're moving at something approaching traffic
speed. Of course this strategy depends on you sprinting into
roundabouts, and isn't viable on roads with a lot of roundabouts unless
your name is Lance.

Uphill roundabouts are a bugger.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

<p>Schroedinger's cat is <blink><strong>NOT</strong></blink> dead.</p>

Simon Brooke said:

in message <[email hidden]>, Adam H

(') said:

Just zis Guy said:

Allan" <"amv.2f wrote:

>On the commute this morning I was on the one stretch of shared
>pavement cycle path that I use

There's your problem right there :-)

Shared use paths are a work of Stan and should be Shunned.

Come on this is quite clearly an over generalisation and you know it.
Is it better/faster/safer on the road? Not often.

The road is almost always safer (read the research), usually faster,
usually fewer pedestrians to dodge, usually less sharp debris leading
to fewer punctures. In my experience 'shared use' paths are just not
suitable for cycling.

If you have the links to the research that would be a start.

It's true that on the road there are fewer pedestrians, but there are
more cars. In my experience cars are harder than pedestrians, who tend
to be quite squishy. 🙂

My experience of the shared use paths that you can find here in NW
london (Mill Hill/Edgware to Golders Green) is that they are much
preferable to the road. 90% of my 6 mile route to work would consist of
2-3 lane 50mph roads if I chose not to use the cycle paths or back roads.

I find the incidence of glass induced punctures no better or worse than
on the road.

Simon's suggestion for dealing with roundabouts is clearly a technique
that only the top few percent of cyclists are ever going to be capable of.

We have to rememeber that the extra facilities provide us with choice -
we can use the road or we can use the facilities.

I know that Guy's original comment was most likely tongue in cheek, but
I suspect that it sums of his general attitude and the attitude of many
others on this group.

Adam

Adam H said:

It's true that on the road there are fewer pedestrians, but there are
more cars. In my experience cars are harder than pedestrians, who tend
to be quite squishy. 🙂

This is true, you tend not to injure yourself a great deal hitting
pedestrians. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for road or path
surfaces, which are even less squishy than sheet metal; you usually hit
them a second or so after hitting pedestrians.

Cars - even the ones driven by motorists, surprisingly enough - also
tend to be rather more predictable than pedestrians. Hence the
statistically demonstrated (sources not to hand) higher risk of injury
on paths, generally.

Cheers

Roger

Allan <"amv.2f"@uc(delete)df.ugh.ki.uk> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

No, it is the shared use path in front of the transport museum in
Glasgow, only use it as the road is oneway in the wrong direction.

I know that path. Not one of Glasgow City Councils better bits of
cycle path design.Its too narrow for a mixed use path. If you are
going to use it to save the extra 200 yds going round the Kelvin Hall
you'll have to just give way to peds. Cycle use on shared paths like
that one is so low that peds are not expecting bikes and will walk
wherever suits them.
Iain

Just zis Guy said:

Shared use paths are a work of Stan and should be Shunned.

There is a good one in Swindon which I use, because it's wide, has no
side roads and has about the same amount of bike traffic as ped traffic
so people expect cyclists. It avoids a fast bit of dual carriageway
where I had my last "near miss" when a psychopathic bus driver decided
to cut me up (with his hand on the horn, just to let me know he meant it).

There's another path which, rather unusually, goes places the roads
don't go and slices a few hundred yards off a cross-town trip. However,
the local pond life have smashed sufficient Bacardi Breezer bottles on
it to make it "challenging".

All the rest are [censored] ;-)

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 19:56:45 +0100, Adam H
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

If you have the links to the research that would be a start.

Start here: <url:http://www.lesberries.co.uk/cycling/infra/infra.html>

Quoted message said:

It's true that on the road there are fewer pedestrians, but there are
more cars. In my experience cars are harder than pedestrians, who tend
to be quite squishy. 🙂

And on the pavement there is street furniture, lower maintenance
standards, driveways, side turnings, entrances to premises, no
sweeping (so glass and loose surfaces are not uncommon), no gritting
in winter and so on. On the road, riding with the traffic, you are in
the sight lines of the major source of danger, which is particularly
important when drivers are turning at junctions.

Of course, for road riding to be as safe as possible it has to be done
according to Cyclecraft - very often the false perception of road
ccyling as dangerous is founded on poor technique, like riding too
close to the kerb and failing to take the lane at width restrictions.
Not that this should promt drivers to be any less careful, but the
reality is that some drivers definitely need us to use good road
position to remind tham that we are traffic.

Quoted message said:

I find the incidence of glass induced punctures no better or worse than
on the road.

Which suggests that you are riding too close to the kerb when on the
road, which might easily explain your misapprehension about the
relative risks.

Quoted message said:

Simon's suggestion for dealing with roundabouts is clearly a technique
that only the top few percent of cyclists are ever going to be capable of.

I was doing it aged 15 on this roundabout:
<url:http://tinyurl.com/yqcc8>

Quoted message said:

We have to rememeber that the extra facilities provide us with choice -
we can use the road or we can use the facilities.

True, but all too often the facilities exist in response to a
perceived need rather than an actual demand, and almost invariably
they are there only because it gets us out of the way of the cagers at
minimal cost. Shared use paths are now deprecated in Cycle Friendly
Infrastructure and are considered a last resort.

Quoted message said:

I know that Guy's original comment was most likely tongue in cheek, but
I suspect that it sums of his general attitude and the attitude of many

It was not particularly tongue in cheek. I have the option of shared
use paths for a fair bit of my journey, and even when trundling as
today I still prefer the road, if only because I would otherwise have
to cross busyroads and enter and exit the path at roundabouts, when
just taking the roundabout with the traffic is easier, quicker and
(judging by the way drivers pass the cyclepath ramps while looking
studiously in completely the opposite direction) safer.

There is one very short stretch which I sometimes use when it's not
raining, to save me having to ride hard up a narrow uphill with cold
muscles when I get off the train, and that only because there is a
parallel, shorter, separate pavement, so the shared use section has
almost no peds on it. If it's raining I'll still use the road as tree
litter makes the surface of the shared use path far too dangerous.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Adam H said:

Just zis Guy said:

Shared use paths are a work of Stan and should be Shunned.

Quoted message said:

Come on this is quite clearly an over generalisation and you know
it. Is it better/faster/safer on the road? Not often.

It's certainly a generalisation: there's a short stretch of
on-pavement cycle path on my commute home from work which save me from
having to do battle with the A12 (motorway in all but name) as it runs
through Hackney Wick. It helps that there are practically never any
pedestrians on it anyway, and as it runs over a fairly steep humpback
bridge it's not as if I'm going much over, say, twice walking pace
anyway.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=537250&y=185750&z=1&sv=537250,185750&st=4&ar=N&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf

- the road parallel and just south of the Eastway is one-way the wrong
way for most of its length, but has a contraflow on-pavement cycle path

But that's a bit of an unusual case. Most of the rest of the cycle
paths that I see as I serenely pedal past on the road are confusing,
eject the cyclist back onto the road in silly places and at silly
angles where they don't have priority, can't see the other traffic and
the other traffic can't see them. Remember, most of the danger is at
junctions: it may /feel/ dangerous to have lorries whip past at a rate
of knots as you cycle along, but when all they have to concentrate on
is steering to remain on the road, and the distance to the next
obstacle/hill/junction/vehicle, they have more spare mental capacity
for attending to us squashier lifeforms. It's at junctions that
things get more complicated and people need to concentrate harder,
even if the speeds are lower. And because of that, your best bet at
junctions is to act predictably as a car would, rather than appearing
magically from somewhere unexpected; it reduces the cognitive load on
everyone else.

Quoted message said:

To be completely honest I actually usually cycle up the footpath on
the east of the road (the shared one is on the west), as I normally
turn right at the roundabout at the top which is an absolute nightmare
to cross on a bike or in a car.

If we're doing the Short Shameful Confession thing, then: the junction
at the west end of that road (where the Lee Conservancy Road comes
off) is the one at which I habitually jump the red light: the lights
are on some several-minute cycle time (it feels like it, anyway;
haven't timed it). Given that the path I take is straight across the
road and onto the pavement, which feels weird to start with, my choice
to cross when a pedestrian would deem it safe rather than when a
clockwork timer thinks it's OK really doesn't register much additional
guilt on the on the Grand Evil Wrongness scale. Sorry and all that.

-dan

--
"please make sure that the person is your friend before you confirm"

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 19:56:45 +0100, Adam H
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

If you have the links to the research that would be a start.

Start here: <url:http://www.lesberries.co.uk/cycling/infra/infra.html>

Quoted message said:

It's true that on the road there are fewer pedestrians, but there are
more cars. In my experience cars are harder than pedestrians, who tend
to be quite squishy. 🙂

And on the pavement there is street furniture, lower maintenance
standards, driveways, side turnings, entrances to premises, no
sweeping (so glass and loose surfaces are not uncommon), no gritting
in winter and so on. On the road, riding with the traffic, you are in
the sight lines of the major source of danger, which is particularly
important when drivers are turning at junctions.

big snip.

Guy does miss one serious problem with shared use paths: the fact that many
drivers consider them mandatory for cyclists, and are extremely hostile to
those cyclists who remain on the road.

We have several examples of horrendous shared use paths, which only the the
novices and incurably cautious use, where there have been many instances of
drivers deliberately intimidating cyclists on the road, and hurling abuse.

Since the evidence seems to show that cyclists' safety is largely dependent
on the number of cyclists, the more cyclists on the road the safer it gets.
The more cyclists who ride on the shared use "farcilities" the more
dangerous it gets. Whilst I understand why many people think that riding on
shared use paths is safer, not only is it not so, but it makes life more
dangerous for those sensible enough to ride on the road - a lose/lose
situation.

burt said:

Guy does miss one serious problem with shared use paths: the fact
that many drivers consider them mandatory for cyclists, and are
extremely hostile to those cyclists who remain on the road.

True. And here's another problem with the perception of farcilities as
desirable / necessary, from a friend who is a local authority cycle planner.

"From the consultation that we just did [...] I was surprised by how many
cyclists experience cycling as a game of roulette, including several who
thought of themselves as experienced, confident and competent cyclists."

"They do not believe there is anything they can do to protect themselves. A
substantial proportion are unaware of the hazards of the left side of long
vehicles, and many stick to the kerb as closely as possible. Repeatedly, I
was told how frightening it is to find oneself between two buses going in
opposite directions - a consequence of them overtaking a bus when another
bus is coming towards them. There is a big resistance to waiting behind
buses, perhaps because they also seem to find cycling slowly and stopping a
problem. Several people told me that they could never tell when it was safe
to pull out into the stream of traffic, say around a parked vehicle. (Maybe
that's why they don't look - what's the point if you don't think you can do
anything with the information?) Some feel totally out of control when
cycling through a lot of pedestrians, say in the centre of town. They seem
to fall off frequently, and to expect this as an inevitable consequence of
riding a bike."

"Funnily enough, all these people wanted a totally segregated facility and
they tend to volunteer the view that all cyclists ought to wear helmets. So
I'm inclined to want to tell them about what they can do to help
themselves, not encourage them in their view that they are at the mercy of
motorists."

Some years ago I worked on an industrial automation project. The MD was
very keen on technology and wanted us to implement a very expensive
fully-automated system for checking balance on abrasive wheels in the green
state (before curing) to reduce rejects. We pointed out that the
variability could probably be eliminated at source by controlling the mixing
and normalising environment, making the mix going into the presses more
consistent (and eliminating along the way the not entirely desirable
practice of testing the mix by picking a lump up and squeezing it in the
hands, which had given the production director skin cancer).

His answer was that this would be a great project to tackle /after/ the
automated balance testing system (which of course would then be
redundant)...

--
Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk