Good Excuses - !

[simongt]

On my daily commute, I I tend to walk my bike up a hill as I can't be fagged to ride up it. Said hill is one way for motor traffic up to a turning point after which it's a dead end at the top. At the dead end is a pedestrian footbridge over a dual carriageway, but from the top is two ways for cyclists. I sometimes encounter cyclits who have pedalled over the footbridge and carry on down the footpath rather than go onto the adjacent road.
Sometimes I make the comment that they shound be on the road and not the footpath.
Two recent excuses - 'I'm on my dinner break and I'm late back.'
'You're doing the same as me.' This particularily puzzled me as I was walking my bike - !
Can anyone provide a better excuse - ?

 

[mjr]

My excuse would be "the council have just comprehensively farked up the roundabout below-and-beside the bridge, done almost the opposite of LTN1/20 and turned it into a cyclist-mangler and why should I have to walk because they can't build roads properly", if you're talking about the footbridge over Grapes Hill.

That said, the parapet fences on that one feel a bit low to me if cycling, so I'll probably use Pottergate or Chapelfield in future, rather than ride over that bridge.

 

[fossyant]

Possibly don't comment as no-one gives a hoot ? Looks a bad design TBH if part is cycle access and part not.

 

[mjr]

Possibly don't comment as no-one gives a hoot ? Looks a bad design TBH if part is cycle access and part not.

It's not part cycle access but it's a long-standing very odd situation, if it's where I think it is. Here: https://showmystreet.com/#vc1br_rjt4_53.d_-5h43

The bridge is a footbridge and always has been, but the only way to get between Wellington Lane and Upper St Giles past the blockage caused by the footbridge legs and ramp is to use the ramp. The ramp has no-cycling signs but because of the risk of sign clutter damaging the setting of the historic city wall conservation area (as if the dual carriageway blasted through it did not!), the signs are side-on to the direction of travel, easy to miss and legally ineffective as I understand it (because regulatory signs must not be hidden by facing sideways to the flow of traffic). The far end of the bridge on Earlham Road is easier to spot the signs because you approach perpendicular, but I think they are still not legally effective.

On the Wellington Lane side, the ramp connects to the footway with no drop kerb to access the carriageway until Dereham Road at the bottom of the hill. That's been a mess for at least 25 years. In the last 10 years (I think), contraflow cycling signs have been added below Pottergate which I suspect also misleads some people into thinking that the footway is actually a cycleway.

It's a dog's dinner but so few people walk or drive up it, I don't think anyone cares enough to fix all those little problems. Maybe that will change if anyone ever uses the misleading and non-conforming signs to defend against prosecution but they'll probably need to be seriously reckless to be prosecuted on such a quiet lane.

 

[simongt]

the ramp connects to the footway with no drop kerb to access the carriageway

And thereby lies part of the cause of the cycling on this footpath issue.
However, the council have now, after a wee interval of nearly fifty years, decided to put a drop kerb on t'other said of said footbridge at the Earlham Road end for the convenience of cyclists who wish to continue on the actual road.