No Cycling

[summerdays]

I cycle through a number of parks locally - there are a number of cycle paths that go through parks and the ones I use normally cut off a corner and provide a pleasant environment to ride through. If I meet a pedestrian I normally leave the path to give them plenty of room.

 

[ComedyPilot]

I cycle through a number of parks locally - there are a number of cycle paths that go through parks and the ones I use normally cut off a corner and provide a pleasant environment to ride through. If I meet a pedestrian I normally leave the path to give them plenty of room.

Common sense attitude really.

Someone using a fast mode of transport (relative to pedestrians) being careful around other slower/vulnerable path/road users.

Pity we can't seem to get that message through to the 31 million vehicle users on the roads?

 

[HLaB]

A bit OT, I went around a local nature reserve/ park which has a narrow path so I walked the bike. I think I'd walked around 95% of the park there weren't many folk, mainly elderly but the 'excuse me, please' was treated with smiles by everyone except the last old fella, he just turned round and angrily said cycling not allowed in the park. I wasn't cycling but I didn't really feel like arguing so I just walked by

 

[Dan B]

Someone using a fast mode of transport (relative to pedestrians) being careful around other slower/vulnerable path/road users.

^ This

 

[As Easy As Riding A Bike]

^ This

Indeed. You would think it would apply even more, when the speed differential, and the momentum involved, are far greater.

But sadly it doesn't seem to work like that.

 

[Black Sheep]

I'm sure Greg Collins knows more about this than me, possibly being involved in the decision, but my local park in Horsham now has cycling permitted in it, with signs that state "pedestrian priority". This is an eminently sensible move, that will encourage people to use their bikes. Not everyone likes cycling on busy roads, and allowing the more "nervous" cyclists to traverse the park instead of having to deal with traffic is fine by me.

Let's help people onto bikes.

Putting up signs that say 'pedestrian priority' seems like a good idea as it gives some kind of order to things instead of being a free-for-all.

I do sometimes cycle through the memorial park in Coventry as my friend lives the other side of it to me, I stick to the wider paths and wait for a good size gap to pass people.

 

[ufkacbln]

Even when they are "legal" there can be issues.

In Fareham we have a path through a park (Bath Lane recreation ground) where there is no real alternative.

Unfortunately the Fareham and Crofton Cricket Club insists on obstructing the path for both cyclists and pedestrians with desks, sofas and chairs to watch the cricket!

 

[Rochenko]

I live in Cardiff, and tend to take a strong line on this: parks need to be opened up to cyclists as much as possible to increase permeability. There are several parks in the city where cycling is banned by bye-laws, but this often means that law-abiding cyclists are forced onto potentially dangerous routes as a result.

Example: Roath Park. This is a very large park, split into three. Cycling is only allowed in the southernmost part, which is sports fields surrounded by a wide path. The roads which surround the park (especially get a lot of commuter traffic (and attract plenty of speeding) at rush hour. When I lived to the East of the part of the lake with the boating lake in, I used to take my kids to nursery every morning in the trailer on my way to work at the University (then pick them up from nursery at lunchtime, returning on the same route.

This meant I had to either (i) be a good boy and cycle on very busy roads to avoid the no-cycling portions of the park, (ii) cycle on narrow footpaths with a wide-bodied trailer, or (iii) cycle through the park with them (thus giving them a slightly more scenic ride too).

Naturally, I used to break the bye-laws and go through the park (slowly, and considerately - but then I would hardly be set to break speed records with two children on tow). The paths in the no-cycling parts are mostly no narrower than the path around the southernmost part of the park. Neither are they narrower than the paths in Cardiff's largest park, Bute Park, where cycling is allowed.

Despite my lack of speed and efforts at being courteous (and despite having two children in the back), the numbers of angry comments I received from other park users beggared belief. Of course, I continued to ignore them, just like the scores of other people who commute through the park by bike (including all the secondary school kids who cycle from Roath to the high school at the northern end, and would otherwise have to break UK law by riding on the footpath or risk the car-choked roads).