Sustrans Blues

Tony Raven said:

wafflycat said:

I have little time for Sustrans.

I'm with Helen; my experience of Sustrans routes has led me to
purposefully avoid them. Bollards in the middle of narrow blind bends,
barriers blocking the route to all but the smallest, lightest, unloaded
bike, poor surfaces..... I've seen them all. They are a poor apology
for a cycle infrastructure.

Most of the urban routes I've used I'd avoid - they are designed for 3mph,
with maintenance ignored once the councillors have had their picture
taken.
However I attended the launch of NCN23 recently and it is already
attracting new cyclists. Most of the route uses quiet country lanes
through some of the best parts of Hampshire and it seems to be encouraging
more people to ride.
At the moment these new riders will they will pick their way through the
alleyways and back roads of Basingstoke, but they will soon find, once
they have built up confidence, that they can also use the roads - and to
better effect.
http://www.velotree.co.uk/ncn23launch.html

Perhaps it helps because the Sustrans people I know are all keen cyclists
with real interests in promorting cycling rather than promoting
facilities. They hold regular rides, not always o NCN routes; they promote
cycling and help at events - much more than the CTC who tend towards
cliquiness. CTC don't even allow under 18's out with them so that will
really encourage new riders - I don't think.

When I asked for marshalls for a cycle promotion event coming up, the only
volunteers came from Sustrans. Not one offer from elsewhere.
I certainly don't agree with a lot they do, but I have enormous respect
for their commitment to cycling in this area.

John B

John B said:

CTC don't even allow under 18's out with them so that will
really encourage new riders - I don't think.

That must be a local DA issue. The Cambridge CTC I've ridden with have
all ages on both on road and off road rides - although it can restrict
the pub stop options.

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

"wafflycat" <w*a*ff£y£cat*@£btco*nn£ect.com> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"MJ Ray" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

If you can point to examples of CTC deterring the horrible "Cyclists
Dismount" (almost every road crossing), "Cycling Prohibited" (most
of the town centre) and "End of Route" (used any time any cycle route
rejoins a road) signs and their associated restrictions, I'll praise
that work whole-heartedly, but this town is *littered* with them.

Any chance of knowing why Sustrans effectively endorse such signs in the
first place by having them on cycle farcilities carrying the NCN signs?

See

http://www.17beechroad.freeserve.co.uk/WarringtonCycleCampaign/facility-of-the-month/November2005.htm

and as for this..

http://www.17beechroad.freeserve.co.uk/WarringtonCycleCampaign/facility-of-the-month/February2003.htm

and how about this :-O

http://www.nuttycyclist.co.uk/cycling/farcilities-signs-sustrans.htm

Cheers, helen s

And if me not being a fan of Sustrans sounds as if I'm having a dig at you
personally - please don't take it that way - it's certainly not meant that
way :-)

Cheers, helen s

"Tony Raven" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

John B said:

CTC don't even allow under 18's out with them so that will
really encourage new riders - I don't think.

That must be a local DA issue. The Cambridge CTC I've ridden with have
all ages on both on road and off road rides - although it can restrict the
pub stop options.

There are under 18s on Norfolk CTC rides. It may be that there is parental
'supervision' as Nathan's been with me on CTC runs and another under 18 I
know of in the CTC is there with her parents.

Cheers, helen s

Tony Raven said:

John B said:

CTC don't even allow under 18's out with them so that will
really encourage new riders - I don't think.

That must be a local DA issue.

Perhaps. think its more to do with worries over child protection issues

John B

John B said:

Perhaps. think its more to do with worries over child protection issues

What a state we're in. Last year in a museum (IWM Duxford) I came
across a 6/7-year old girl in obvious distress. On asking her what was
the matter it turned out she had lost contact with her dad & brother.
It took a few minutes to find someone with a radio who could get an
announcement on the PA and get dad back to where we were. For /my/ safety
I should have left her alone! How can anyone do that?

I smile & wave at kids I see on bikes. Should I stop before I'm arrested?

Mike

Mike Causer said:

What a state we're in. Last year in a museum (IWM Duxford) I came
across a 6/7-year old girl in obvious distress. On asking her what was
the matter it turned out she had lost contact with her dad & brother.
It took a few minutes to find someone with a radio who could get an
announcement on the PA and get dad back to where we were. For /my/ safety
I should have left her alone! How can anyone do that?

Console yourself with the fact that statistically she was almost ten
time safer with you as a stranger than with them as her family.

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

Ian Smith <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

MJ Ray said:

Why did he tell you about the double milage? It sounds like your local rep is
confused. Have you spoken to Nigel Brigham at the regional office about this?
Please do.

Eh?

Are you saying the sustrans rep should have concealed the fact that
it's twice as far by sustrans 'facility' as it is by road?

No, I just didn't understand why it was mentioned at all. It seems from
a later message that it wasn't. So there are indirect route signs about.
There are also road signs around which direct you a longer route using
primary routes, you know?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

problem with converting footpaths into shared-use is the low design speed
and consequent poor surface of off-road tracks. Even when there is a
road-side facility, high-speed cyclists will still need to be on-road.

So you're now saying sustrans, beacon of provision for utility
cyclists, is actually providing 'facilities' unsuited for people that
actually want to get where they are going in a timely manner?

No, I'm saying that the design speed of off-road facilities (a
government policy IIRC) means that there's good reason for on-road
too.

Quoted message said:

So
that's provisaion to utility cyclists who want their journey time
increased? Your notion of utility cycling seems a little divorced
from any I have previously encountered.

I'm sometimes carrying large loads (utility, remember) and am not
travelling faster than the design speed. In that situation, it's
more helpful to bypass the traffic lights, as it takes some oomph
to get moving again and I'm too wide to overtake queues comfortably.
Those facilities are good for cyclists who don't want to waste energy.

If all your utility cycling is about 1-person Get There Fast, maybe
you'd be on-road apart from the few short-cuts which are only possible
by cycle track.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I have no time for Sustrans through experience of their supposed
'facilities'

Come 'cyclynn' in sunny King's Lynn, where Sustrans NCN Route 1 now runs
along some picturesque riverside

QED.

The discussion is about utility cycling, and the first thing the
defender of sustrans can come up with is how pretty the route is.

I see you silently cut out all the other utilitarian benefits. Yes,
for a son of the countryside now living almost in a town centre, I find
it beneficial to have some routes which aren't brick traffic sewers or
HGV-infested 3+-lane tarmac, even when riding for work.

Hope that explains,
--
MJR/slef

"wafflycat" <w*a*ff€y€cat*@€btco*nn€ect.com>

Quoted message said:

No thanks. If there's another NCN route I *loathe* it's NCN 1 through King's
Lynn. Three punctures in under half and hour due to the glass shards on it

I've never hit that many and I now use armoured tyres, but I agree it is
a big problem. West Norfolk Council has a freephone number 0500 CLEANUP
for reporting it, but it's a constant battle and I suspect their cleaning
contractor just ignores the requests if they can't get their little minivan
there easily. That's a Council bug, not a Sustrans one, though. There's
not really anything about the design which makes it attract glass.

Do cyclists here support the idea of taxing non-deposit glass bottles and
would it do any good?

Quoted message said:

:-( Avoiding dogs being allowed to run across the shared use farcilities on
long leashes... Avoiding footballs from the local yoof.

Never had much trouble with either of those myself, but I hear about them in
lots of towns, not just here.

Quoted message said:

Indeed, the amount
of white bicycles painted on King's Lynn footpaths is one reason I really
don't enjoy cycling in King's Lynn.

Are there that many? I can think of two that are a bloody joke, as
they really are unaltered pavements. Personally, I'd like a few more:
there are four shared-use paths with no markings or signs at all, that
can only be discovered by map or local knowledge (and yes, I've checked
with TPTB that they really are shared-use). There is also no concept
of local route-marking. That's part of why NCN 1 seems so good: it's
about the only route in town that is signed and marked throughout.

On the other hand, I think they go a bit silly with signs and markings
on new S.106 routes around here.

Quoted message said:

Then there's the barriers that are
designed to keep motorcycles out, but don't yet cause hassle to get round on
a normal bike and if you happen to be on a recumbent - you have to lift the
recumbent over the barriers.

I know where two of those are, where NCN Route 1 passes the freebridge.
As I understand it, the Environment Agency insisted on them. They are
worse than useless, allowing mini-motos free run while keeping out
some bicycles and most wheelchairs. Sustrans are not happy about them,
but prefer the direct barriered route to the older, barrier-free but
less direct and busier route.

Most of the other barriers are slowly being removed, but those new ones
seem very difficult to overcome.

Quoted message said:

No wonder kids think it's okay to cycle on
footpaths, KL is infested with the white bike painted on footpaths. Got to
get bikes off the roads!

Erm, didn't someone say that cycle training is a great success of CTC?
Understand what I mean about not seeing the effect? Just today, I saw
a kid cycling up the right-hand side of a four-lane, into oncoming
traffic, having just jumped a red light.

Quoted message said:

[...] It's easier to cycle in Norwich than in King's Lynn and Norwich has
more traffic the KL and it's easier to cycle in the Parisian rush hour than
either Norwich or KL.

I'd agree with that. Marriott's Way is great as far as it's tarmacked.
Paris is just, well, amazing, especially when you think how little fun
it is in a car. By the same token, KL is much better by bike than car.

--
MJR/slef

Ian Smith <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

MJ Ray said:

Ian Smith <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

The problem is that one of them (ie Sustrans), is endorsing (and
possibly even adopting) policies that are sometimes damaging to the
aim of getting decent treatment of cyclists on the roads.

I challenge you to find any such policy.

Farcility of the month this month.

Lots of the restrictive gates on lots of the sustrans paths.

I think you'll find they're mostly policy violations. I have no idea
why the sustrans rep met by helen s defended such a stupid bollard.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yes, there are some bad endorsed facilities. What are you doing to
get their endorsement reversed or the facility fixed or removed?

Bing a member of my local cycle forum and asking the local highway
authority what they are doing about them, mainly.

So you just talk and write to the highways guys about it?

Quoted message said:

However, what I am
doing about it is irrelevant to the issue of why sustrans is endorsing
them in the first place.

Replace "endorsing" with "grudgingly accepting and working to improve"
and you get my impression of the situation of the ones I've experienced.
--
MJR/slef

"wafflycat" <w*a*ff€y€cat*@€btco*nn€ect.com>

Quoted message said:

Any chance of knowing why Sustrans effectively endorse such signs in the
first place by having them on cycle farcilities carrying the NCN signs?

See

http://www.17beechroad.freeserve.co.uk/WarringtonCycleCampaign/facility-of-the-month/November2005.htm

and as for this..

http://www.17beechroad.freeserve.co.uk/WarringtonCycleCampaign/facility-of-the-month/February2003.htm

Both of those look suspiciously like stupid additions by local councils
after approval of the route. Should be easy to get those obvious ones
fixed, once the media are engaged and the council responsible starts to
look very silly to their taxpayers. The 'End of Route' ones are far
more insiduous and mostly less picturesque, though.

Quoted message said:

and how about this :-O

http://www.nuttycyclist.co.uk/cycling/farcilities-signs-sustrans.htm

Yes, that's just stupid.

Simon Brooke <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

[...] CTC does far more for you as a utility cyclist
(and for me as a leisure/sporting cyclist) than Sustrans and British
Cycling put together ever will.

Maybe, but it's very difficult to see from here.

Quoted message said:

The CTC is your national political lobbying organisation,

It answers consultations, campaigns for an urban speed limit
so low that cyclists will break it and takes credit for other
people lobbying about the Highway Code. What else recently?

Quoted message said:

your legal defence fund,

No, that's through my insurance.

Quoted message said:

your local social rides organiser,

No, that's the Bicycle User Group AFAICT.

Quoted message said:

and much more besides.

Good.
--
MJR/slef

Tony Raven <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Kings Lynn is home to one of the crappiest bit of Sustran route I've
come across. Its here:
http://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=52.774836,0.431728&spn=0.011838,0.041971&om=1
and involves crossing a side road near its junction with a main road,
doing a sharp left on onto the pavement and then an immediate sharp
blind narrow right into a concrete bollard. The person who designed it
must have been two wheels short of a bicycle.

Google Maps tells me my web browser is not supported. Putting the ll
into streetmap points at a street not on the NCN Route. Where is it?

I know there's a daft junction on the route in that village (South Wootton),
but I can't remember quite how it doesn't work (it's easy enough to work
around, so I do it semi-automatic) and I'm sure there's no bollard.

--
MJR/slef

Tony Raven <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

wafflycat said:

Yes, those things called roads are an excellent network available to
cyclists. Use a map and you can have many an enjoyable hour of cycling
on excellent surfaces :-)

Except in Kings Lynn it would seem where the network of hopeless
Sustrans routes and bicycles painted on pavements would appear to have
convinced the council it was OK to close some roads to bicycles.

Don't let reality interfere with your reasoning, but the street closures
predate almost all of the off-road routes. There are no off-road routes
replacing them. 'Cyclists Dismount' is the official routing. The only
fully-open north-south road through the town centre has stupid traffic
calming cobbles and kerbs. If CTC supporters claim it helps keep roads
open to cyclists, can you understand why I don't see their effect?

--
MJR/slef

Tony Raven said the following on 08/06/2006 18:33:

Quoted message said:

I'm with Helen; my experience of Sustrans routes has led me to
purposefully avoid them. Bollards in the middle of narrow blind bends,
barriers blocking the route to all but the smallest, lightest, unloaded
bike, poor surfaces..... I've seen them all. They are a poor apology
for a cycle infrastructure.

I don't think Sustrans have heard of Weston-super-Mare, or if they have
they haven't provided anything useful whatsoever, so I don't have a lot
of Sustrans experience. Occasionally I go up to Lincolnshire though,
and there is a new path on a disused railway line from Washingborough
to, I think, Bardney. The surface is sharp flinty stuff (I got two
punctures in one trip, albeit my tyres weren't in best condition, but
they survived local glass!), and just to keep you awake there are random
chicanes. These chicanes consist of the path doing a quick weave from
side to side, with the off-path bits being just left as the original
railway ballast, with no edge. Grey path, grey ballast - not the most
visible chicane in daylight, never mind night. They've also apparently
rolled sections of it with a corrugated roller. The reason for the
chicanes? Nothing to do with safety, in fact quite the opposite. It's
to provide interest on what is otherwise a plain track. It certainly
provides interest when you plough into railway ballast on a tourer!

The path in the other direction towards Lincoln is actually quite good.
The reason for the difference? The newer path blends in better with
the countryside (both look the same from any distance.)

So no, I'm not that impressed with Sustrans either, on the little bits I
have experienced. Having said that, it is much better to have a badly
implemented path than none at all in that instance.

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

wafflycat said the following on 08/06/2006 21:01:

Quoted message said:

http://www.17beechroad.freeserve.co.uk/WarringtonCycleCampaign/facility-of-the-month/February2003.htm

That one in particular shows just how to waste money. The tracks going
around either side of this show just how effective it is!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

"Paul Boyd" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

wafflycat said the following on 08/06/2006 21:01:

Quoted message said:

http://www.17beechroad.freeserve.co.uk/WarringtonCycleCampaign/facility-of-the-month/February2003.htm

That one in particular shows just how to waste money. The tracks going
around either side of this show just how effective it is!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Well you do tend to get more cyclists staying in the proper place - the
road, which is a lovely smooth surface and has absolutely nothing wrong with
it for cycling purposes.

Cheers, helen s

MJ Ray said:

Ian Smith <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

QED.

The discussion is about utility cycling, and the first thing the
defender of sustrans can come up with is how pretty the route is.

I see you silently cut out all the other utilitarian benefits.

No, I EXPLICITLY highlighted the FIRST thing you chose to highlight.
I said that was exactly what I was commenting on. You quoted me
saying that - no 'silently' involved.

It was you that put them in that order. It simply demonstrated the
point - sustrans routes are not primarily about utility, they are
primarily about recreation, and only accidently or incidently benefit
utility cycling.

regards, Ian SMith
--
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MJ Ray said:

Ian Smith <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Lots of the restrictive gates on lots of the sustrans paths.

I think you'll find they're mostly policy violations.

Lots of them are Sustrans installed.
A number of them are apparently positive selling-point 'art'.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Bing a member of my local cycle forum and asking the local highway
authority what they are doing about them, mainly.

So you just talk and write to the highways guys about it?

Are you suggesting I should borrow a bulldozer and remove them
myself? What do you suggest doing other than talking to the people
that are legally empowered to do something about them?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

However, what I am
doing about it is irrelevant to the issue of why sustrans is endorsing
them in the first place.

Replace "endorsing" with "grudgingly accepting and working to improve"
and you get my impression of the situation of the ones I've experienced.

When I say endorsing I mean endorsing. In some case actually
advertising and crowing about, but principally endorsing.

regards, Ian SMith
--
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|o o|
|/ \|

John B said:

Tony Raven said:

John B said:

CTC don't even allow under 18's out with them so that will
really encourage new riders - I don't think.

That must be a local DA issue.

Perhaps. think its more to do with worries over child protection issues

Which is hardly the fault of the CTC is it? I can't see Sunday rides
continuing very long into the future if it's suddenly decided that all
participarts must go through a background check before being allowed
on a ride.

Phil

--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt