Contra-flow cycle lane

[JamesAC]

Part of my commute takes me along a contra-flow cycle lane (Manbey Grove, between Water Lane and The Grove, in Stratford, east London). However, the final part of the contra-flow lane is usually obstructed by vehicles parked in the lane, rendering the lane useless.

Does anyone know if there are any circumstances (eg disabled badge holder, delivery vehicle ...) in which a vehicle can legally park in a contra-flow cycle lane?

 

[semislickstick]

Part of my commute takes me along a contra-flow cycle lane (Manbey Grove, between Water Lane and The Grove, in Stratford, east London). However, the final part of the contra-flow lane is usually obstructed by vehicles parked in the lane, rendering the lane useless.

Does anyone know if there are any circumstances (eg disabled badge holder, delivery vehicle ...) in which a vehicle can legally park in a contra-flow cycle lane?

Is it marked with a Solid white line and no blue out of hours signs? Are all contra-flow lanes solid mandatory lanes?

A local taxi firm does the same in Huntingdon, it's not healthy being forced further out in to the one way street, drivers seem quite surprised to see someone coming up 'the wrong way' up a one way street in the contra-flow lane anyway as they turn the corner .

 

[marinyork]

Is it marked with a Solid white line and no blue out of hours signs? Are all contra-flow lanes solid mandatory lanes?

A local taxi firm does the same in Huntingdon, it's not healthy being forced further out in to the one way street, drivers seem quite surprised to see someone coming up 'the wrong way' up a one way street in the contra-flow lane anyway as they turn the corner .

Theoretically you can have an exemption on a solid white line for either a taxi rank, loading bay or a disabled parking space if you write it into the TRO. It's seen as a shoddy way of doing things by planners though so there aren't a huge number of examples of these. From the streetview footage of the road (it seems to have been built recently?) I'm guessing this is not the case though.

The enforcement issue is summed up very well with taxis as here even though taxi drivers know they aren't supposed to do it and it's very easy to report to licensing at the council, the council are very keen not to do anything about it without overwhelming amounts of evidence.

The problem in urban streets IIRC is that if there is a no entry sign, as the law stands at the momet you aren't allowed to put a 'except cyclists' sign on it and must therefore build an island dividing the road, put up a blue sign up for bikes and so on. This creates a nuisance as it is enormously costly to construct such facilities and one way roads tend to encourage parking at these points. If things were changed to make contraflows easier to construct this would solve a lot of the problem.

 

[HLaB]

Are all contra-flow lanes solid mandatory lanes?

I know of one but which isn't but its in the middle of nowhere (just north of Kincardine), in fact you couldn't even call it a cycle lane; its just signs at the bottom of a one way country lane.

 

[marinyork]

I know of one but which isn't but its in the middle of nowhere (just north of Kincardine), in fact you couldn't even call it a cycle lane; its just signs at the bottom of a one way country lane.

It's perfectly possible to have a contraflow road without any a lane at some or even nearly all of the road. There's a very famous one here in a very built up area. It's just that planners have a phobia against using them on the whole even though if what I said above was taken into account life would be a lot easier. Really a default policy of contraflow roads for bikes would be much better with no contraflow added in specific circumstances and they can't do this unless the law is changed.