CTC capitulation?
- Thread starter ComedyPilot
- Start date
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Pro Tour Punditry
Guru
Oh I seem to have rattled some cages. 
etc etc...
OP
OP
ComedyPilot
Secret Lemonade Drinker
- Location
- The Kingdom of Yorkshire
I whole-heartedly do not agree with the CTC on this action, however I believe the saying goes, "If you can't beat them, join them...."
Hmm. This money was taken from a cycling safety budget, and has in fact made the roundabout more dangerous for cyclists, as motor traffic will be passing through it at higher speeds.
I'd rather no money was spent than money was spent on something crap and dangerous.
Flying Dodo
It'll soon be summer
You clearly haven't bothered reading what's been proposed for this roundabout either in this topic, nor elsewhere, to come out with completely incorrect comments.
I'll repeat what I put in post #47 in bigger letters.
I simply don't believe that, as the whole purpose of the "turbo" roundabout is to increase the throughput of motorised traffic.
It is more dangerous for cycling, not less.
Anyone who thinks this travesty is an improvement for cycling provision is an idiot.
Read this.
http://departmentfortransport.wordp...raffic-department-you-are-a-bunch-of-cretins/
Read this.
http://departmentfortransport.wordp...raffic-department-you-are-a-bunch-of-cretins/
Sara_H
Guru
I've been very disapointed by some of the stuff coming out of the CTC recently.
Like others, in these circumstances I think it would have been better to make a public statement that they couldn't approve the design of the roundabout and that the money wasn't being spent properly on what it had been ring fenced for.
Like others, in these circumstances I think it would have been better to make a public statement that they couldn't approve the design of the roundabout and that the money wasn't being spent properly on what it had been ring fenced for.
your post was pretty clear, and pretty insulting. Not to mention charmless. And ignorant.
quite. When all is said and done, twenty million quid is a huge amount of money. If Chris Peck thought it wasn't being spent wisely, then he should have said so. My fear is that there's a bit of horse-trading going on - we support the latest wheeze from Sustrans in the hope that Sustrans will someday come to our aid - but, since Sustrans is staffed by people who regard the CTC as neither here nor there (and, unlike Marmion I do know the people concerned) then I can't see the merit.
And, at the back of this is the way that cycling campaigners keep score. Expenditure is seen as some kind of success. Gilligan wants to throw nine hundred million down after the two hundred million that went south on LCN+. It would be better spent on housing or health or just about anything rather than crazy bridges and roundabouts.
Flying Dodo
It'll soon be summer
What you might, or might not think is irrelevant as you've not bothered to read any of the technical analysis and have shown you don't know anything about this, other than speculation and comments from other armchair critics.
swansonj
Guru
Flying Dodo - I appreciate your thoughtful posts about this specific scheme. But would you like to comment on the "bigger picture" argument - that, as long as on individual schemes we cyclists continue to accept the least -bad option, there's no incentive for anyone to break out of the mindset of only ever offering bad options for us to choose between - the only way to start getting good solutions is to stop acquiescing in the bad solutions just because they're the least bad in an individual case?
Flying Dodo
It'll soon be summer
Good question!
It's not a question of automatically accepting the least bad option though. The more we as cyclists, and cyclists' organisations push back and highlight what's wrong and continue fighting to get things altered and improved, the better. The problem is that if organisations such as the CTC refuse to engage and say "No, we don't want to have anything to do with this half baked scheme", then due to the completely ingrained car-centric attitudes in central and local Government, commerce etc, nothing will change. And schemes will be built without any genuine cyclist input, but what some planner thinks is best. By trying to highlight the flaws in such plans and getting changes made is the only way that even small improvements to cycling safety can be made.
The reason why the Netherlands have spent so much more on their cycling infrastructure compared with the UK is down to the "Stop the Children Murder" campaign against the cult of the car from 1973. We haven't got that impetus here - the needs of the motorist is generally still seen as paramount, although slowly some notice is being taken. Walking away from negotiation won't help improve that.
stowie
Legendary Member
Not wishing to appear cynical, but what evidence is there that traffic will slow down for a turbo roundabout? Since this is the fist one in the UK I guess there is no precedent but they are used in the Netherlands - do they slow down cars there?
From the reports I have seen a turbo roundabout increases vehicular capacity. This doesn't necessarily mean an increase in speed but it definitely means an increase in traffic flow which I would have thought might make it more difficult to move to the right lane on the approach.
As far as I was aware a turbo roundabout was a sort of semi slip road concept where, because the lanes were more segregated motorists taking a first (or second?) turnoff would be able to progress more quickly onto the roundabout even if there was traffic already on it but going round to another exit. None of this seems to me to indicate that a turbo roundabout would be kind to cyclists.